Word: prokofievs
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...easily covered up by too heavy a piano accompaniment. And his piano texture tended to fall into two extremes--simple parallel octaves, or thick massive chords--with little in between. The slow movement was much too long, contained enough material for four movements, and lapsed into passages of pure Prokofiev. I would advise Rzewski to write a new central movement for this sonata...
Victor Ziskin '59 played his On the Border of Israel, which is in reality a piano sonata in three movements, entitled "Birth," "Recollection," and "Work." Ziskin showed a definite flair for idiomatic piano virtuosity, but drew too heavily on Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. The connection with Israel seemed rather tenuous, except for a few Jewish turns of melody, particularly in the exciting first movement. The second movement fell into a cocktail-lounge style, with slithering parallel chords in the left hand repeated ad nauseam. The finale was almost wholly a piece of Leonard Bernstein jazz, and relied too much...
When the New York City Opera Company stops trying to compete with the Metropolitan and sticks to lighthearted masterpieces or frank innovations-Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Rossini's Cinderella, Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, Berg's Wozzeck-it is hard to beat. But it has had trouble keeping its conductor-managers. The man who runs the City Opera, like any opera manager, must be diplomatic, versatile and tough; he must convince the public that his programs are worthwhile, his singers that they are getting parts worthy of their talents, his board of directors...
...finest music on the program was Prokofiev's Sonata No. 1, which is dedicated to Oistrakh. It opened with dark, slightly nasal low tones, sang its way up to the bright blossom of a double-stop and continued to sing to the last gay note. Highlights: a section of muted runs up and down the fingerboard that felt like being brushed with feathers, and a section that had the mysterious beauty of a girl singing to herself by a forest pool. When it was over, the crowd was too moved to cheer until the violinist came back...
Imaginary Orchestra. In Moscow the Oistrakhs live in a six-room flat in a large apartment house where his great friend Prokofiev used to live. He has a passion for gadgets ("toys for big children"), owns a collection of recording machines and a phonograph, although he has regretfully given them up as aids to music teaching ("The student plays, then you play back what he played, then he plays again and the hour goes to pot"). Between teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, making records, editing violin music for the government publishing company and brooding about chess games. Oistrakh sometimes finds...