Word: pianists
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...cigar clenched between my teeth, my derby tilted back, knees crossed, and my back arched at a sharp angle against the back of the chair. I'd cuss at the keyboard and then caress it with endearing words; a pianist who growls, hums, and talks to the piano is a guy who is trying hard to create something for himself...
...stride stylists influenced a line of jazz pianists from Duke Ellington and Count Basic to such modernists as John Lewis and Theolonious Monk. Yet the stride heritage is waning fast, and the Lion is as outspoken on the subject as he is on everything else. "A good many modern pianists," he snorts, "tinkle with their left hand while their right is going nowhere. Modern style, they call it; I call it cheating." But of course he is prejudiced. "There's nothing more beautiful," he believes, "than a two-fisted pianist...
...philosophy of the Harvard Summer Concert Series seems to consist of indulging its audiences with the familiar while at the same time requiring that it ingest increasing amounts of the new and not so easily palatable. Pianist Leonard Shure opened the series with a completely traditional program of Chopin, Schubert and Beethoven; a week later Jamie and Ruth Laredo deferred to general taste with Bach and Beethoven, but managed to sneak in the somewhat post-Romanticist Sonata Concertante of contemporary Leon Kirchner; last night violinist Felix Galimir and his chamber ensemble (one almost expected the program to read "Felix Galimir...
Quirky Evaluations. His evaluation of virtuoso performers is no less quirky. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz's "unvarying, mannered manipulation of melodic phrase [with] infinite gradations of tone is his one way of operating with every composer." On the other hand, Pianist Van Cliburn, who has taken some critical lumps in recent years, displays "disciplined mastery" and an "unfailing sense for note-to-note continuity of tone, tension and outline...
...Laredos' Bach was in the best Rosalyn Tureck tradition. Eschewing the harpsichord for the piano, Mrs. Laredo played lid up and with plenty of pedal. As a pianist myself I have nothing against treating the instrument as a full partner in chamber music rather than a subservient accompanist--in fact I welcome it. But the Laredos' Bach did have severe balance problems. Mr. Laredo very quickly demonstrated a full, rich tone and an easy command of dynamics on the violin. But he was more and more obliged to "force" in an attempt to hold his own against the superior string...