Word: rachmaninoff
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Moscow psychiatrist leaned forward intently. "You will write your concerto," he intoned. "You will work with great facility ... The concerto will be of excellent quality." On the couch lay Sergei Rachmaninoff, 27, in a hypnotic trance. At the time (1900) Rachmaninoff was noted as a pianist and conductor. But as a composer he was notorious. His First Symphony had been premiered three years earlier to unanimous disapproval, so shattering his confidence that in the time since he had been unable to compose at all. Of his monumental block, Rachmaninoff recalled years later: "I felt like a man who had suffered...
...surprisingly, Jerusalem showed few signs that Israel had won at least a military victory. Night life remained subdued, and cinema attendance was down by 80%. When Jerusalem's citizens did venture out, as some did to hear Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky played by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, they took along blankets and coats; to conserve oil, the concert hall was unheated...
...describe [Sept. 3], with poor concert grands in many musical centers of the Western world, including Paris, London, Brussels and Zurich, I would like to find out when Steinway & Sons (by and large the best pianomakers in the world) will stop making concert grands geared exclusively for the Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Prokofiev type of works and start making again lovely, mellow-sounding instruments suited to playing Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann...
...captious critics, eccentric plane schedules, hotel-room mix-ups - pianists have lately been coping with a rash of recalcitrant and faulty instruments. "Twice in two weeks I've had the keys come right off the piano," says Byron Janis. "In Flagstaff, Arizona, I was in the middle of Rachmaninoff's G-Minor Piano Concerto when all of a sudden a tiny jagged piece of wood jabbed my finger where the B-flat had been a second before. A week later at the University of Maryland, a bass A-flat flew off as I was finishing a Chopin sonata...
...moved to another ball at the Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology, where Mr. Nixon's spirits seemed higher than usual. He gaily entertained the crowd with talk of his love of music. Waving his hands in imitation of a practiced conductor, he noted that he played Bach and Rachmaninoff late at night in the White House when trying to make "unimportant decisions." Relaxed and jovial, he asked the band to play something slow, and invited the assembled to "cut in on us." As he and Mrs. Nixon made their way toward a staircase, the President flashed a big smile...