Word: paganinis
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Time was when violin playing delighted the eye as well as the ear. According to an awed contemporary, the great Italian Virtuoso Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) startled his audiences with eyes "as red as fire" and eyeballs that rolled in agony. The legendary Paganini (1782-1840) was accused of deliberately playing on frayed strings so that when one snapped he could display his virtuosity on three. But times have changed. Last week, in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, one of the world's great violinists walked to the center of the stage, took measure of the audience...
Isaac Stern belongs to a breed of violin virtuosos who blend the elegant techniques of past masters with a warm understanding that elevates virtuosity into art. But Stern's violin (a Guarnerius) still belongs to the breed that Paganini played-and remains a remarkably recalcitrant instrument.* Musicians avoid it so studiously that even major orchestras find it difficult to hire string-section replacements. But Stern and four other greatly gifted players have lifted the solo violin to an eminence any age could envy. Standing with Stern as the world's finest: Zino Francescatti, David Oistrakh, Nathan Milstein, Jascha...
...packed jury, which included Conductor Leopold Stokowski, Pianists Artur Rubinstein, Rosalyn Tureck, Grant Johannesen, Jacob Lateiner and Eugene List, had four finalists to choose from-three of them Americans, one Argentine. Winner Anievas, Manhattan-born but of Spanish and Mexican extraction, played the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, and he proved to be a pianist in the big, romantic tradition of a Rubinstein or Cliburn. Occasionally guilty of mere pounding, he nevertheless had prodigious technique and the kind of rhapsodic, deeply felt musical vision that suggests a major career...
...large audience, and there was never much doubt that he would succeed. With his political credentials in apple-pie order, he was rewarded by the usually cautious critics with an instantaneous rave. Said Izuestia: "Just as today we feel an involuntary envy for the contemporaries of Beethoven, Paganini and Tchaikovsky, so will future generations envy us who first heard the Twelfth Symphony of Dmitry Shostakovich, the greatest composer of the 20th century...
...only Ralph Rackstraw hums a little. Babies hum at the breast, and mothers hum while rocking them. Children hum at play; workmen hum at work. No company is without its office hummer who strides the halls humming his favorite pop or Paganini. Pablo Casals hums while playing the cello. Why do humans hum? In the current Journal of Auditory Research, a psychiatrist offers a couple of answers...