Word: lisztian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...periodic intervals there have been little out bursts in these columns about the marauding vagaries of Serge Koussevitzky. There have been complaints, often justified, about thin Mozart tones being swollen into Lisztian voluptuousness, about batteries of double basses grinding out Bach fugues, about programs of Morton Gould and Samuel Barber. But, instead of picking our noses to find something to grumble about, let us realize that Serge Koussevitzky is a very fine conductor, the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society is a very fine choral group, the Boston Symphony is a superb orchestra, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis...
...audience, and of the music he played, was magnificent. It was an orgiastic reincarnation of Franz Liszt holding all Europe spellbound with his fustian brilliance. And from there on the concert retained that atmosphere. The last ensore, Horowitz's own variations on Mendelssohn's Wedding March--a composition completely Lisztian in its blend of bombast and puckishness--was the perfect bravura curtain line for the whole exhibition. Horowitz the genius; Horowitz...
...sheer pompous top-heaviness. When Capra-Riskin open up the cinema organ in Meet John Doe, what comes out is not solid but uncertain musical structure (in the middle of the picture they even fall back on coy effects with a small dog), not so much Bachian power as Lisztian super-schmalz. Their organ often sounds not so much a classic organ as a Mighty Wurlitzer-its tremolos too tremulous, its diapasons too windy. And in treating the theme of Love Thy Neighbor they are competing with some of the noblest products of human...