Word: paganini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week in Genoa some 2,000 visitors passed through the austere Villa Doria, examining and occasionally touching 189 graceful and lustrous stringed instruments, including one cello, 16 violas, 171 violins. The oldest was a small, ornamented Gasparo da Salo, dated 1609; the most famous was Paganini's own powerful Guarneri del Gesu, given to him (by a wealthy Leghorn merchant) on the condition that nobody else would ever perform on it; the most prevalent were modern models patterned closely after Stradivari designs. Because of their popularity among wealthy foreign fiddlers, there were no Strads at all available...
...played with considerable technical skill. Hurwitz, in Mendelsohn's Violin Concerto, displayed accurate intonation and a fine singing tone. The richness of even his lower strings stood out clearly against the greater mass of the orchestra. Pianist Robert Freeman chose another chestnut, Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This piece, with its viscous melody in the middle, is a musical hodge-podge. It serves mostly as a showpiece for pianists, and Freeman gave it a truly virtuoso performance. He showed a wily mastery of the keyboard that partially hid the banality of the music...
...annual concerto contest last night in Paine Hall resulted in a tie decision. Of the dozen contestants, David Hurwitz '58 of Adams House and Robert Freeman '57 of Dunster House won with their playing, respectively, of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini...
...name, now all Bill needed was a part. Fate got busy again. Over at Columbia, Director Rouben Mamoulian saw Bill's screen test, grabbed him for the title role of Golden Boy, the Clifford Odets play about a young pug who could hit like Marciano and fiddle like Paganini...
...Paganini Quartet appears in Sanders Theatre Sunday afternoon...