Word: pianos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Robert Schumann's irrefutable greatness rests on the expressive richness of his piano music and the beauty of his lyric songs. However, his stature as a symphonist has remained unsettled since his death in 1856. For some he is the link between Schubert's lyricism and Brahms' grandeur. But The New Grove Dictionary dismisses his symphonies as "inflated piano music with mainly routine orchestration." Because of their melodic fecundity and power, they remain widely performed and recorded. Still, conductors from Gustav Mahler to George Szell have edited their working scores, attempting to compensate for Schumann's putative deficiencies: amateurish orchestration...
...Fleet Center, the massive new home to most of Boston's major league sports teams, hardly seems like the appropriate forum in which to showcase Tori Amos and her piano-playing skills. Her intense performances and haunting, almost ethereal songs would surely get lost in the monstrosity of a sports arena that resembles the interior cargo area of a spaceship more closely than it does a concert hall. Besides, if the area itself didn't drown Amos and her talents, surely the throngs of screaming goth-clad alternateens would...
...only a matter of seconds the lights dimmed, the black curtain at the front of the stage was ripped down, the band started up and Tori Amos--clad in a dazzling blue sequined dress and black leggings--waved hello to the crowd and took her place behind the piano. And the synthesizer...
...bass lines sounded familiar, but not until Amos began the piercing piano riff was it clear that the first song was "Precious Things," a gut-wrenching number from Little Earthquakes, her first album. While the opening notes brought tears to the eyes of many Tori devotees, the volume of the guitars and drums seriously muffled Amos' passion-filled voice. The speakers sounded filled to capacity, and unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, they remained maxed out for the remainder of the evening...
...sound easy: "The idea is to marry the two cultures together and say, 'This is a brilliant story that takes place in England; we'll give that to Anthony Minghella [director of The English Patient]. This is something that's feminist and sexy; that sounds like Jane Campion [The Piano]." Ahh. Why didn't Jeffrey Katzenberg think of that...