Word: hoffnung
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DIED. Ernst Bloch, 92, unorthodox Marxist philosopher with a sizable following among student radicals; of a heart attack; in Tubingen, West Germany. His master work, Das Prinzip Hoffnung (The Principle of Hope), completed during his prewar years in the U.S., laid the groundwork for Theologian Jũrgen Moltmann's "philosophy of hope." Bloch later taught at the University of Leipzig, East Germany, before defecting to the West in 1961 because he was "no longer willing to expose my work or myself to undignified conditions...
This remarkable performance must be charged, more or less, to British Cartoonist Gerard Hoffnung, who for years has been satirizing the music business. In his cartoons, tubby Artist Hoffnung has created a wonderfully zany world-the bass fiddler peers from behind his instrument through a periscope; an old huge-wheeled bicycle becomes a harp; the phrenetic maestro sharpens his baton with a pencil sharpener. Purpose of the Hoffnung concert (recorded at London's Royal Festival Hall with a full symphony orchestra and some of Britain's leading musicians) was to translate the cartoons into sound. The result...
...concentrating on Tchaikovsky and the orchestra is working on Roll Out the Barrel; a second concerto, written by Mozart's father Leopold for alpenhorn and played on two lengths of garden hose by Britain's distinguished Hornist Dennis Brain; a set of variations for wheezy winds, featuring Hoffnung himself playing a tuba so big that it runs on wheels and requires built-in bellows to supply enough wind...
Impresario Hoffnung hopes soon to introduce his music to the U.S. live, by staging a similar production in Manhattan. Meanwhile, his record remains the funniest musical joke in years. "A breath of fresh air," said one London critic. "I admired particularly the coloratura attack and secure intonation," said another, speaking of a vacuum-cleaner player...
...later years Beethoven referred to Fidelia as "the one of all my children that cost me the worst birth-pangs, the one that brought me the greatest sorrow, and for that very reason the one most dear to me." Records show that for Leonore's big aria, Komm Hoffnung, he tried 18 different attacks, ten for his concluding chorus. He wrote four overtures be fore he was satisfied, each seething with symphonic ideas. Handicaps were his lack of theatre technique, his stormy impatience with what seemed to be intrigue. In a revised version the opera had a more promising...
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