Word: rudolfs
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With a hundred cellos gleaming on it, the stage of New York's Philharmonic Hall looked like the setting for a Busby Berkeley musical. The earlier part of the program included Soprano Beverly Sills, Pianist Rudolf Serkin and Conductor Leopold Stokowski. But "Salud Casals" night did not really get under way until the guest of honor arrived with his all-cello orchestra. The performers had gathered from all over the world. Each cellist financed his own trip and donated his services for the privilege of being led by Pablo Casals in one of his brief compositions, a Catalan Sardana...
...Concertos performed on Wednesday and Thursday evenings suffered the most. The First Concerto, on Wednesday, was static. The orchestra followed Rudolf in his highly correct and well paced interpretation, while Serkin played his own version, accenting different notes than the orchestra, making the humorous passages of the last movement so fast and racy that it sounded like Milhaud. The Fifth Concerto was almost unbearable. The Emperor has grown so familiar to the BSO that the orchestra dismisses it lightly. Only a few forte passages of the first movement and the opening of the second had any sort of inspiration...
...FRIDAY night, Rudolf and Serkin were used to each other, and the quality of the performance was greatly improved. The Choral Fantasy in CMinor, Op. 80, probably the least familiar work in the whole Festival, got a lively interpretation. This unusual piece, which integrates piano, chorus and orchestra, seemed better prepared than any piece to date. The piano part sparkled, without any of the inference of keyboard exercises which Serkin had previously given. The Chorus Pro Musica, prepared by Alfred Nash Patterson, was in excellent tone, as might be expected from any vocal group which Patterson has conducted. After this...
...because the version of the Fifth Symphony which followed was too overwhelming to take directly after another work. All of the usual deficiencies of the BSO were there-the winds (especially the clarinets) were abysmal, the horns frequently missed their cues, the unisons never came off in unison-but Rudolf managed to transcend all of the structural defects that have gotten into the orchestra in the past decade. Rudolf has a brilliant sense of pace and timing, and it displayed itself in this work. He skillfully constructed a great performance by avoiding most of the characteristic failings of his contemporaries...
...Once Rudolf had impressed himself so deeply on the Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein never had a chance of putting it into shape for the Ninth Symphony in one day. He could not be expected to get his soloists-Martina Arroyo, Lili Chookasian, Richard Lewis, and Thomas Paul-integrated with the orchestra, and he didn't. The first three movements were unsatisfactory, glossing over all the nuances of score which distinguish this work, and filled with muddy playing. The choral movement failed for lack of rehearal. The BSO recorded the Ninth with Leinsdorf only last year, and it was clearly influenced...