Word: instruments
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hundred years ago the art of the harpsichord was dead, victim of the piano's lower cost and wider range of expression. The twentieth century, however, has seen the harpsichord revive to the extent of attracting compositions from such modern composers as Harvard's Walter Piston. The instrument has also found a place in popular music ("Come On 'a My House"), and it is even being taught at Yale. On Sunday afternoon a Yale professor honored Harvard with a concert that illustrated the reasons for the harpsichord's revival...
Since harpsichord strings are plucked rather than hit, the sound is at once precise and shimmering. In Francois Couperin's Le Carillon de Cithere Kirkpatrick achieved a remarkable bell-like effect. The instrument is also capable of melancholy expression, as in Couperin's Allemande la Tenebreuse. J. S. Bach was represented on the program twice: by his Italian Concerto, which adapts for solo harpsichord the complete concerto form; and by his Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, which harkens back to the craggy German organ style of Scheidt and Buxtehude. Perhaps the most electrifying music of the afternoon, however, was Jean Philippe...
Closing the concert with his specialty, the keyboard virtuoso played six little known harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and succeeded in bringing out every nuance and shade of expression. His performance demonstrated once again the fascinating possibilities of this instrument...
Growing Up. The reason probably lay with Conductor von Karajan, 47, who was suffering from an old back ailment, and who is perhaps not his best self in French music anyhow. For the Philharmonia is a chameleon-like instrument that almost too easily adapts to its conductor. It was formed of Britain's choice musicians primarily as a recording orchestra, which, unlike Toscanini's NBC Symphony, never had a permanent conductor. Its founder: Walter Legge, London impresario and record executive (Electrical & Musical Industries Ltd., which successfully launched Angel Records in the U.S.). In order to keep the orchestra...
...Ceilometers. The Empire State is not the only man-made menace to migrating birds. Far worse are the ceilometer beams that measure the height of clouds above many airports. They are powerful searchlights that cast a spot of light on the base of the overcast so that an automatic instrument can calculate its height by triangulation. On migrating birds they have a terrible effect. Thousands of the birds, apparently confused by the glaring light, lose their bearings and fly into the ground or against low buildings. Last year 50,000 birds were killed in two nights at two Southern airports...