Word: solo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Mischa Elman tradition. For my money, the finest undergraduate violinist here in at least ten years; has the stuff of which great fiddlers are made. Jonathan Thackeray his partner at the piano. Formidable technique, but tended to play too loud. Main trouble: his playing lacked poetry--fatal for his solo number, the Chopin F-Minor Ballade...
Living up to its name, the orchestra also played two Bach cantatas. The first was a solo cantata for baritone, strings, oboe, and continue, Ich hab genug (No. 82.). The orchestra was beautifully conducted by Greenebaum, but soloist Gary Gaines was clearly unequal to the taxing vocal line. His voice lacked support, volume, and depth; and his breath control was insufficient to sustain the phrases. The other cantata, Wachet auf (No. 140), fared better. The chorus, numbering only twelve, was well trained by Edward Lloyd, and bass soloist Thomas Beveridge sang with feeling. The soprano soloist was Sara-Jane Smith...
This time concert gets to halfway point without trouble. Then Hampton calls for Flying Home. Band responds. Music gets hotter. Saxophonist gets up for solo, squirms, twists, flops, lies on back, feet up. Critic for Algemeen Handelsblad makes note for next day's review: "Tenor saxophonist lies on ground and copulates with his shimmering instrument." Hampton rattles drumsticks on his soles. Calls out "Hey bob-a-reebob!" Crowd calls (Dutch accent) "Hey bob-a-reebob!" Fellow cries "Louder, louder...
...listeners by the ears or by viscera either. Instead, it sounds neat, trim and attractive, with an overall flavor bland enough to permit the savoring of delicate, sonic side dishes. The first movement is sunny and almost muscular, the slow movement an exurbanite pastoral, whose plaintive tune (in solo strings and winds) is accompanied by brassy grunts and then by vague and charming counter-tunes. This movement also contains an enigmatic episode: a sudden passage of smashing violence, gone as suddenly as it came. The finale is in jocose, carnival spirit, but a carnival whose details are as vaporous...
...Leon Kirchner's Piano Concerto, the week's toughest nut, which the composer played with the Philharmonic Symphony, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. It was romantic in its delicate, lyrical episodes, its sudden, violent climaxes, and the virtuosic intent of its solo part. It contained, as does all of Brooklyn-born Kirchner's music, many ideas of ear-bending originality that made flashes of beauty in a dark atmosphere. There were so many, in fact, that the listener became worn down before it was over...