Word: instruments
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Your concise history of Philharmonic Hall's problems [Oct. 15] perhaps says that acoustic qualities are more the result of art than of science-as makers of quality musical instruments have known for centuries. Acoustics of a concert hall are judged solely by subjective comparison with prior tradition, not by scientifical analysis. When the purpose of a structure is to aid in making music with conventional sound, architects had better forgo their artistic expressions in favor of those that will better ensure musical results. After all, one would hardly expect a piano that was constructed like a contemporary piece...
...hermetically sealed bedroom at 44 rue Hamelin in Paris, the brilliant, untidy life of Valentin Marcel Proust, now 51, was drawing to a close For 17 years he had prophesied this event to his friends, who were amused. He had diagnosed the instrument pneumonia-before the doctors, even before it struck. Now he would have nothing to do with his foolish, fluttering rescuers. Weakly, vainly, he ordered his own brother, Dr. Robert Proust, from the room. After he died, those malevolent enemies of his life, sunlight and flowers, were admitted at last to his presence, along with a steady tide...
...Instrument. Ormandy began playing at three on a one-eighth-size violin, at age four caused a stir in local music circles when he leaped out of his seat at a concert and cried: "Papa! That violinist played an F sharp! It should be an F natural!" At five, he became the youngest student ever accepted at Hungary's Royal Academy of Music. At 21, Ormandy came to the U.S. for a concert tour, but was stranded when the promoters went bankrupt. Literally down to his last nickel, he joined the fiddle section of Manhattan's Capitol Theater...
...Lincoln Center management says New York Philharmonic Hall will be "the finest musical instrument in America." 1962: Hall opens. Critics say it is acoustical dud-mushy, strident, dry, opaque, flat, cold. Hall's 136 sound-reflecting "clouds," suspended from ceiling, are tilted, lowered, raised. No help. Diffusion of sound so unbalanced that best vantage point is, ironically, cheapest seat in top balcony. New York Philharmonic musicians complain they cannot hear each other onstage, say hall is glorified $17.7 million pinball machine. Mood of pessimism pervades. Rumors circulate that visiting orchestras are going to boycott splendorous blue-and-gold hall...
...Instrument of the Godless. There was, of course, a measure of redundancy in the Pope's statement; even before Paul's address, no one had seriously doubted that he and his church were committed to world peace. But it was an open question whether the speech-no matter how sincere its message and dramatic the circumstance-would do much to further his lofty goals. Certainly it would bolster the morale of the professional diplomats who hope to see the U.N. roused from its present state of impotence. Certainly the Pope's unqualified endorsement of the organization would...