Word: ravelling
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...musical specialists: the one-armed pianists. Pieces for one hand used to be merely pleasant musical oddities, but forsome pianists they became necessities. In World War I a Viennese pianist named Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm, but stubbornly refused to abandon his virtuoso career. He commissioned and performed Ravel's Concerto for Left Hand, two works by Richard Strauss, and Benjamin Britten's Diversions on a Theme. Wittgenstein (now 68 and a teacher in Manhattan) also commissioned-but never understood or played-the Prokofiev concerto that was premièred last week by Siegfried Rapp, a musician...
...Russian front in World War II, Rapp heard of Wittgenstein's example,* decided to go on playing too. "With me the yearning was so great I felt I never wanted to give up." He began to study the limited repertory, began to get ahead using the Ravel concerto as a staple...
...with piano sound by placing all kinds of objects among the strings, a method pioneered by Composer John Cage, who called it "prepared piano." In 1948 they succeeded in producing a thudding drum effect (by shoving pieces of rubber between the strings) and used it in their version of Ravel's Bolero. Their latest effort is even weirder. The tunes in Soundproof (Greensleeves, Baia, Lover) contain effects that resemble giant rubber bands being plucked, the click of a tack hammer, xylophones and harpsichords, and a sound like a Hawaiian guitar quivering on the breeze. To play these tricks, Pianists...
Students at Tanglewood this weekend--the next to last one of the season--will have the chance to hear works by Barraud, Falla, Ravel, and Stravinsky on Friday and by Moevs, Mozart, and Prokofieff Saturday evening. The Sunday concert will feature Copland's Symphonic Ode, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with Zino Francescatti as soloist, and Schumann's Symphony No. 2, in C major. Conductors will be Eleazor de Carvalho Friday, Leonard Bernstein Saturday, and Charles Munch Sunday...
Miss Providakes has a rich and well placed voice, full throughout its range, and what is more important, she knows how to use it to best effect. In the Ravel and de Falla songs the voice was full-throated and sensuous. Where the music seemed to indicate some degree of brittleness and harshness the tone was drawn out to wire tautness. Debussy's "Trois Chansons de Bilitis," the best job of collaboration of the evening, were done with great delicacy and warmth. The result here and in a group by Faure was a fine sense of communication to the audience...