Word: harpsichords
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...raconteur, ad-libber and dialectician, he speaks French, German. Italian and Spanish (plus devastatingly accurate American of several regions), gives funny, plausible imitations of languages he does not speak, e.g., Russian with a Japanese accent, can make noises like a talking dog. a bugle, a violin, flute, bassoon or harpsichord. He is halfway through the script of a novel. And he has been doing this sort of thing for half of his life. Says Ustinov: "This talk of Wunderkind gets more intense as I grow older and the white hairs crop out in my beard...
...human activity. Fanfares sound: Are they bugle calls for some grand but ragged army? A truncated funeral march is heard: Is a man or an age being mourned? A troubadour's mandolin sounds a little sour: Is love being mocked? A saraband starts up, accompanied by a simulated harpsichord: Are the ghosts of vanished dancers being recalled...
...Copenhagen; Vanguard). A delicious antipasto of Italian baroque, featuring Albinoni's melodies in the Trio Sonata in A, Opus I No. 3 for two violins, cello and virginal; Alessandro Scarlatti's serene Sonata in F; and a highly stylized love song for tenor accompanied by cello and harpsichord, by a 17th century Casanova named Alessandro Stradella. The power of his music was legendary. Once, so a story goes, assassins hired by a prominent Venetian (whose mistress Stradella had carried off) caught up with him in a church where one of his oratorios was being performed; the music...
...Major and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. The Brandenburg was the most unorthodox. In keeping with Bach's principle that any number can play, Richter had the work performed by only eight players-two violas, a cello, two violas da gamba, two string basses and a harpsichord. It emerged as a chamber work with crystal transparency, uncovering contrapuntal voices heard as they were seldom heard before...
Richter, who knows Bach's entire keyboard works by memory, was at the harpsichord himself, his back to the audience, rising to conduct arias and choruses, then dropping like a falcon to improvise accompaniments for the recitatives. The critics were disarmed. Richter gave them a joyfully dynamic performance that was nonetheless satisfyingly authentic. Admitting that there were no signs of Richter's previous peccadillos in this concert and genially explaining the old flaws as "growing pains," the dean of Munich's critics, Karl Heinz Ruppel, summed up the concert in one word: "Wunderbar...