Word: instrumental
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...gasping gratitude for your frank discussion on an outrageous instrument of sartorial masochism, the necktie [July 24]. I'm sure the Supreme Court would, if asked, declare the necktie cruel and unusual punishment...
Richard Stoltzman is the first to admit it: the clarinet, his chosen instrument, is no musical prince. To begin with, there is the clarinet's tendency to be loudmouthed and crass. It is the sharp-tongued marcher in high school bands, the instrument everyone loves to play badly. In orchestra pits, the clarinet is a foot soldier, sturdily seconding the melodies of the grander piano, violin and cello. Few composers have favored it with solo works. Few Benny Goodmans exist; although there have been outstanding clarinetists, they traditionally have belonged to orchestras and thus missed the dazzle...
...Stoltzman, 36, is challenging all that. A short, engagingly boyish virtuoso who has chosen a solo career over an orchestra seat, Stoltzman has an almost magical rapport with his instrument. His recent sell-out appearance in the Mostly Mozart series at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, where he wore a velvet jacket and what he calls his "dress sneakers," turned into a celebration of the clarinet's possibilities. In Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, which he performed with the Tokyo String Quartet, Stoltzman glided effortlessly through long, sustained phrases. He caressed his instrument...
...career takes off, Stoltzman is increasingly on the road, appearing with regional symphonies or with the TASHI Quartet, which he helped to organize. His ambition now is to do for the clarinet what Casals did for the cello: transform his instrument into an eloquent solo performer. "Last spring, when I was playing in Vancouver with the Amadeus Quartet," says Stoltzman, "a 90-year-old man came backstage and said, 'That's the first time the clarinet ever sounded human to me.' That's what I want-to make music that will liberate people." - Annalyn Swan
...onboard computers will compile and analyze the details of the plane's performance and present the crew with up-to-the-minisecond accounts of engine efficiency, fuel consumption, progress of flight and miles to destination. Flight crew members will become monitors of the automated systems, and the new instrument panels are designed to help them keep constant watch on performance. They no longer will have to rely on a clutter of spinning indicators or round dials. Information will be displayed, simply and concisely, on digital readouts, vertical scales and bright, television-style screens. A much improved radar will display...