Word: pianists
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Performers at the Tabernacle may not have to be totally devout, but behavior must be impeccable. Soprano Roberta Peters inadvertently caused a scandal once when she was served a cup of tea onstage during rehearsal; tea and coffee are forbidden the Mormons. So are alcoholic beverages. Pianist Jose Iturbi narrowly avoided greater disaster when a bottle of Scotch broke on the floor of his Tabernacle dressing room. A kindly janitor cleaned it up, and kept his mouth shut...
Mehta's appointment ended a yearlong search at the Philharmonic. Sir Georg Solti, director of the Chicago Symphony, turned down the post last year. Cleveland's Lorin Maazel and London's pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim were also mentioned. Mehta himself said no when first asked if he wanted to be among those considered. When the Philharmonic came back with a firm offer a month ago (for an amount undoubtedly in excess of $100,000), he gave in. "My decision was a hard one," he said last week. "But New York is the center of the world...
Spellman wrote best when he wrote about black music and the people who make it. His close association with the greatest black musicians, including pianist Cecil Taylor, and master saxophonists Jackie McLean, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, gave him an insight into what it means to be a black artist in America...
...York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Columbia; $6.98). Critics frequently poke fun at this stepchild of the late 19th century piano repertory. The orchestral Sturm und Drang, it is said, overpower the naive keyboard design. There is nothing naive about Frantz's virile interpretation, however. The young Polish pianist effortlessly bounces off rippling melodies and roaring cadenzas...
Died. Lily Pons, 701sh, tiny coloratura soprano whose trilling delighted audiences worldwide for more than 30 years; of cancer; in Dallas. A prizewinning pianist at the Paris Conservatory, Pons switched to singing when she discovered she had perfect pitch and extraordinary vocal cords. In 1929 at the Opera House in Mulhouse, Alsace, she debuted in Lakmé, a role in which she later daringly appeared, navel exposed, in costume sans midriff. One of her most famous performances was at the Metropolitan Opera in 1931: she sang the difficult "Mad Scene" in Lucia di Lammermoor...