Word: hornists
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Defining Limits. The evening contained only two recognizable musical moments. At one point, the hornist inexplicably quoted a swatch of Tchaikov sky's Symphony No. 5, and the possibly unhinged trombonist retired to an adjoining terrace to toot 76 Trombones...
Osbourne McConathy, a Boston Symphony hornist, is as fine a conductor as the Boston Opera has had: his study of Baroque conventions was entirely evident in ornaments, phrasing, and tempi. His direction in the second performance gained in animation and sensitivity --improvements not totally shared by the singers. The cuts were extensive (the prologue and a half dozen scenes) but no doubt carefully chosen. It is a shame that a production as rare and as entertaining as this one, whatever its shortcomings, must perish after two evenings. Hopefully there is some basis to the rumor that Miss Caldwell may take...
...croak from the horn. The first piece on the program was Webern's arrangement of the Ricercare of Bach's Musical Offering, and the theme of Frederick of Prussia's is first stated by the horn alone; admittedly it is a dirty trick to play on the unfortunate hornist, but it is a common enough practice, and this particular player was not up to it. He also succeeded in spoiling a large part of the orchestral accompaniment to the soprano in the Beethoven aria Primo amore, piacer del ciel. In the second half of the minuet in Haydn's Symphony...
Little technical errors abounded that night. Aside from the wretched hornist, there was the first clarinetist who appeared to be having trouble getting his instrument to speak in the slow movement of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1, somewhat disrupting the serene beauty of the movement. There were strings who had intonation difficulties occasionally throughout, and rhythm troubles in both Beethoven works. At one point in the aria, the dramatic effect of what was supposed to be a Grand Pause was lost in the scraping of some disoriented violist or 'cellist...
Gunther Schuller: Music for Brass Quintet and Fantasy Quartet for Four Celli (Composers Recordings Inc.). Composer Schuller, a onetime first-chair hornist for the Metropolitan Opera, explores the potential of brasses in a fragmented Quintet that is by turns haunted, anguished or raucously jeering. The fine Fantasy Quartet, with its dynamic rhythms and attenuated lines, finds the composer in a less ruffled but consistently moving frame of mind...