Word: movement
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...first movement is a paragon of spaciousness and dignity, recalling the mood of the opening of his F-major "Razoumovsky" Quartet. From the solo piano sentence with which the work begins, it was apparent that Mr. Simonds had lost none of his old mastery. This opening culminates is a series of six staccato chords, which in most performances come crashing forth like so many sledgehammer blows. Under Simonds' hands these chords came out firm but restrained, and sent me scurrying home later to see how the composer had marked them. Sure enough, the chords are designated forte, not fortissimo...
Simonds was always in full command of his piano, and never over-pedaled. He produced as feathery and pearl-like scales, and as delicate trills as one could desire. (That marvelous soft, ghostly passage in the middle of the first movement, for pizzicato strings and trilling piano, came off especially well...
...high point was perhaps the solo piano presentation of the slow movement theme. The melody is the simplest series of conjunct scale fragments, but so tellingly contoured that in the hands of a great artist it emerges as one of the most ineffably seraphic passages in all music. It points up the fact that the profoundest statements may be uttered by the simplest means. Complexity is not the sure road to great...
...what they called some dissident elements from the National Democratic Party (which had taken Kassem's hint and ceased politicking). On behalf of this Front, the Communists were once again demanding seats in the Cabinet. "This represents a historic turning point in the evolution of our patriotic movement," cried Baghdad's Communist mouthpiece, Ittihad al Shaab -and then waited to see how Kassem would react to their patriotism...
...home. In order even to make the show bearable an extremely high level of acting is called for, especially in the parts of Mr. and Mrs. Crochet and their daughter Erie. This level the Tufts group does not provide. They fail, both in their line readings and in their movements, to convey any real feeling. Marilyn Rawlins as Mrs. Crochet fails less than the others. But the largest share of the blame should be laid at the feet of director Marston Balch, who has utterly failed to produce any unity, either of accent or of movement or of relationships...