Word: paganisms
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Zabaleta, was paler, but it did have 'some gripping episodes, notably the haunting harp harmonics accompanying a string song in the slow movement. Both works were put in the shade by the concluding piece, Chôros No. 6 (written in 1926), a fine tropical thunderstorm accompanied by pagan drums...
Racing through the script are Jack Palance as Simon, a power-mad, eye-rolling (but strictly second-rate) magician who tries to discredit the growing body of Christians with rabble-rousing and tricks; Paul Newman as Basil, a pagan silversmith who designs a frame for the cup; Virginia Mayo, the sorcerer's apprentice, who divides her time between dressing up the boss's act and running up Basil's metabolism; and Pier Angeli, a wistful, loving Christian who finally wins Basil for herself...
...Scobie feels about God, and until the spectator has that experience, he cannot experience the tragedy in its religious depths. What can be grasped, what is intensely set forth, is the tragedy of a man who is cursed with pity-the "folly" so terrible, in Nietzsche's pagan view, that it had killed God Himself...
...tropical port: the tiny, eyeless box-buildings, the hot grey roads, the depraved palms, the dirty water that slides about the harbor. Beneath every scene is the sense of the black human jungle waiting to swallow all importance, and down upon everything blasts the terrible sun, like a pagan god who has come too near and made human life unbearable...
Stravinsky: Les Noces (Vienna Chamber Choir, four soloists, four pianos and percussion, conducted by Mario Rossi; Vanguard). The subject is a rustic wedding, and the pagan, mechanistic music (written for the Diaghilev ballet of 1923) is built around folk sources. Memorable qualities: the jabbing momentum in the accompaniment and the jerky rhythms of the chorus, which nevertheless convey the feeling of high good spirits. Fine performance...