Word: leningraders
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When the musicians of the Leningrad Philharmonic take the stage they look a little like a guards regiment on parade. They march on from opposite wings in cadenced step, and at times all 106 of them sit down in a single movement. Seated, they sometimes look to the casual observer about as animated as the tenants of a wax museum. But the appearance is deceiving. The Leningrad, now on its first tour of the U.S., is one of the world's great orchestras...
Unlike most Western orchestras, the Leningrad under permanent Conductor Eugene Mravinsky seems to strive less for a blend of orchestral sound than for a contrast of one orchestral section with another-slightly thick woodwinds, say, against blazingly powerful brasses. The orchestra's special glory is its string section, which includes 18 first violins and plays with surpassing balance, precision and dynamic range...
...Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5, Mravinsky whips through the tragic last movement at such a pace that to one critic he seemed to seize it "by the scruff of its neck with the brisk air of an English nanny determined to have no scenes in the nursery." Even so, the Leningrad's carefully detailed exposition of the Symphony moved a crowd in Washington's Constitution Hall to a standing ovation last week; its performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 12 was also a success. In that work the orchestra was precise, scrupulously attentive to detail but charged with...
...incongruous interlude, U.N. delegates gathered in their auditorium last week to celebrate the 17th United Nations Day. The program: Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, played by the touring Leningrad Philharmonic. Before the concert, a grim joke made the rounds, to the effect that the Leningrad orchestra had canceled and President Kennedy had sent in the U.S. Marine Band from Guantanamo. In the corridors, there was much self-conscious gallows humor. A diplomat would say, "See you tomorrow - if there is a tomorrow." Or "Uganda will be admitted to the U.N. Thursday-if there is a Thursday...
...demolition of Aeolian Hall), and it clearly provided a test, as Carnegie Hall Managing Director Julius Bloom noted, of "the amount of music the community can absorb." For the coming season at least, both Philharmonic Hall and Carnegie Hall are well booked, and certain orchestras-including the Philadelphia, the Leningrad Philharmonic and the Little Orchestra Society-are scheduled to play in both places...