Word: musicians
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Ruth Slenczynska was different. Before she was even born, her Polish immigrant father knew she would be a musician, and when he first saw her in a Sacramento hospital two hours after birth, he sobbed ecstatically over her sturdy wrists and padded fingertips. Twelve days later he confidently announced that she would "be one of the world's greatest musicians." He meant...
...years when she heard her father say in an unguarded moment; "There is only one thing in this world that counts and that is money, and I teach Ruth to play Beethoven because it brings in the dollars." She was old enough to know that he was not the musician he claimed to be. When her father took over her training completely, she started to play music she did not understand with false phrasing, exaggerated rhythms, distorted emotions. A Town Hall concert climaxed the tension between father and daughter. The critics called her "a burned-out candle...
Tours. The virtuosos, the prima donnas, the chamber-music ensembles and practically any other type of musical group worth mentioning packed their bags for tours to big cities and small towns. There was scarcely a well-known musician or musical group, American or European, that was not set to take off across the land. They could be ticked off right down the alphabet from A to Z (with the exception of X, since Greek Pianist Anna Xydis is not touring the U.S. this season): Contralto Marian Anderson, the Budapest String Quartet, Pianist Robert Casadesus, Soprano Lisa Delia Casa, Violinist Mischa...
...Minneapolis had played programs that ranged from Mozart through Bartok to U.S. Composer Henry Cowell's gay, melodic Music for Orchestra 1957, specially composed for the tour. The traveling orchestra had its casualties, but only one musician missed a plane, and he was delivered (to Athens) on a cargo plane in time to make the concert. Spare reeds and strings were plentiful; even the tympani player got around his problem of extremes of humidity by putting the drumheads under a hair drier when they loosened in damp climates and covering them with wet diapers when they got too tight...
...about half planned and half caused by the fact that the performers were laughing so hard they could scarcely follow what they were doing. As far as the Westons know, no one in the record-buying public has guessed who Jonathan and Darlene really are. But a fellow musician called Weston and told him he had recognized the style at once. "Never," says Weston, "have I been so insulted...