Word: instruments
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Arab allegiance to the Baghdad pact. London rushed its paratroopers to Cyprus partly out of the suspicion that the West Bank dissidents had penetrated the Arab Legion to a point where this strong force, once the key to Jordan's stability, might cease to be a reliable instrument of British policy...
Among musicians, cellists are known as incurable sentimentalists. This quality is half-humorously assumed, partly because of the tightlipped, tear-laden whine the instrument so easily develops in its upper register, partly because of the overenthusiastic use of that register by romantic composers. One cellist who does not deserve the description is the Chicago Symphony's Budapest-born Janos Starker, 31, who is unsentimentally aware that he is one of the world's finest cellists...
...also knows why he gets so few chances to prove it to the public. "Concert managers tell you the cello is a little-liked instrument," he says. Then he explains: "The cello is about a century behind the violin. Paganini [1782-1840] was the turning point in the violin, 100 years before Pablo Casals [born 1876] who was the turning point in the cello." Those 100 years. Starker points out, enclose most of the great composers. Since they wrote relatively little music for the cello virtuoso, he reasons, the cello is an unfamiliar solo instrument to the public...
Tense & Silken. Moreover. Starker thinks, the instrument is not entirely familiar to the men who play it. "In cello playing, the accepted standards are lower than with the violin. Basic under standing of the instrument is not developed. Players may know how to go from one place to another, but not why it is difficult to do so, or how to do it better." To improve this situation, Cellist Starker hopes to start a professional school for string players, teaches cello privately, and travels among U.S. community orchestras as string consultant. Meanwhile, he plays solo whenever he gets the chance...
...romantic work, but he never bowed to its maudlin potentialities. His tone was neither too plump nor too lean, but pure, tense and silken. He sculpted the long, melodic lines precisely, restraining himself where a lesser musician might have whipped up some phony passion, then letting his instrument sing passionately, when passion was called for. Next day Critic Roger Dettmer wrote in the American that Starker "has grown from an important cellist to an incomparable one," and the rest of the press gave echo...