Word: markevitch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Radio Tap. When he was not yet 20, Markevitch studied conducting for several months with Scherchen ("Sometimes he would wake me up at two in the morning to say he felt in the mood to give me a lesson"). World War II helped nudge him into a fulltime conducting career...
...Markevitch now juggles two orchestras, the Lamoureux and the Montreal Symphony, spends the rest of his time guest conducting about the world and teaching. His special interest is working out a more exact conducting vocabulary; strictly defined movements by the conductor, he feels, ought to evoke a strictly standardized response from the orchestra. But he is also concerned about the response of his music-glutted audiences. "To have Beethoven coming out of the radio tap from morning to night," says Markevitch, "is worse than not knowing Beethoven...
Forest wanted to avoid the operas that the Metropolitan or New York City operas present, and to concentrate instead on "brand-new works or very, very old ones." He hired young singing talent, backed it up with topflight coaches and conductors, among them, Eduard van Reinum, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Markevitch. Although the festival, summer after summer, earned more than its share of critical huzzahs, it attracted only moderate crowds, had to be abandoned altogether last summer, when the festival tent was wrecked in a tearing summer squall during the American premiere of Murder in the Cathedral...
...intelligence but a sinewy will that forced them to hew rigidly to the demands of their talents. The distinguished Boulanger alumni-they call themselves the "Boulangerie"-were gathered in all parts of the world last week to celebrate her 70 birthday. At the split-level chalet of Conductor Igor Markevitch, in the Swiss Alps near Montreux, "chère Nadia" herself,-white-haired, prim as ever in a black evening gown, held court before such famous ex-pupils as Pianist Clara Haskil, Cellist Pierre Fournier, Composer Darius Milhaud...
While the Markevitch children presented Nadia with a $3,000 diamond bought by members of the Boulangerie the world over, the guests launched into an exuberant chorus composed for the occasion by Francis Poulenc. "Vive Nadia, the dear Nadia Boulanger, the very dear Nadia, Al-le-lu-jah!" Later, musicians performed another birthday tribute: a cantata by Composer Jean Françaix for five strings, five winds and six-handed piano. Over the bubbly, breakneck music ex-pupils chanted their praise of Nadia. One, made up to look like President René Coty of France, paid the Fourth Republic...