Word: ozawa
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...Ozawa showed considerable craft in selecting his programs. The Chinese love the violin, so there were two concertos, the Mozart Fifth in A Major and the Mendelssohn. Concertmaster Joseph Silverstein was the delicate, meticulous soloist in both. The Boston also used two Chinese virtuosos. Liu Dehai played a concerto for a lutelike instrument called the pipa. In the solos he all but turned into Orpheus...
When Conductor Seiji Ozawa arrived at the Peking Conservatory last week, he might as well have been John Travolta. His car was rocked back and forth by a clamoring crowd, and he was propelled into the building by the momentum of his admirers. If the Boston Symphony Orchestra's eight-day tour of China began triumphantly in Shanghai, it ended with the conquest of Peking...
...paper and then said, "My God, that's a passport." The Boston players were full of admiration for the students' ability, but shocked by their equipment. Most instruments are either bad or terrible. Strings on violins and cellos are steel-cheap, durable, but incapable, as Ozawa says, of making "a mild tone." The conservatory library is sparse and quirky. If the Chinese were brilliant and intense in their execution, they were also rigid. Said one Boston player, "They have been so isolated for so long. They have no concept of style or refinement of sound...
...Ozawa the biggest task was trying to rehearse the Shanghai Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique." As usual, time was limited. He seized the moment quickly, placing members of his own orchestra among local players so that Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians could demonstrate a point of technique rapidly. Then he plunged ahead, a riveting little figure dressed to silk-screen perfection in a mod-Mao white suit by Designer Hanae Mori. He virtually pummeled the unruly sound into order and expressiveness, right leg stamping the beat, arms punching deep into the recalcitrant horn section...
...thought the Boston Symphony Orchestra had brought Western classical music intact off their jet. The musicians left behind sets of gut strings, pounds of musical scores and manuscript paper. They also promised to find a way to get some Chinese students to next summer's festival at Tanglewood. Ozawa was careful to point out that this would be a good bargain for both: "Americans need to see the intensity of Chinese playing...