Word: soloist
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PART II OF The Oratorio contrasts vividly with the trumpets-and-drums splendor that precedes it. The scoring eliminates the festive instruments entirely and the accompaniments are lighter: a flute is used in two obbligato roles. The one aria had a trio-sonata texture with tenor soloist, flute, and continuo. This form was a special favorite of Bach's for which be wrote some of his best counterpoint. The simplicity and clarity of singer and flutist filled the entire church and maintained the spell throughout the aria...
Mozart, Violin Concertos Nos. 1 to 5, Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364 (and other works) (David Oistrakh, soloist and conductor, Berlin Philharmonic; Angel, 4 LPs, $23.92). The riddle of the Sphinx is nothing compared with the mystery of Mozart interpretation. How else explain the existence of so many otherwise great men of music (Horowitz, Stokowski, to name but two) among the ranks of failed Mozarteans? David Oistrakh is emphatically not one of them. His playing (that curvaceous tone especially) has a touch of the romantic, but not enough to tarnish the piquant bloom of youth that imbues...
Undaunted by the prospect of playing music so difficult to present successfully, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra gave a program principally of Britten, Berg, and Ravel. All three pieces employed a soprano soloist, a role Phyllis Curtin fulfilled with ability equal to any singer here in recent memory. All the mechanics of sound production were displayed with ease uncommon to the student efforts so familiar in Cambridge. Even Curtin's stage presence was a model of professionalism...
...practice of securing a big-name soloist to dominate a student orchestra's program is of questionable value. Curtin gave an excellent performance which was well-supported by the orchestra. The issue is not whether a student could have done as well (which is most unlikely). Boston's professional musical establishment can provide any number of excellent singers. Harvard's student orchestras should provide an arena for student efforts, not a showcase for professional talent...
...Stewart is one of the two or three finest and most popular of the current crop of English pop composer-singers, a wise, witty, upbeat force who neatly counterpoints Mick Jagger's pervading and well-publicized sympathy for the devil. As a soloist, Stewart displays one of those rare voices-a raspy, surcharged cross between Joe Cocker and Rod McKuen-that is instantly recognizable and that can draw all sorts of emotional magic from his own songs (Maggie May, Every Picture Tells a Story) as well as standards by Dylan (Only a Hobo) and Elton John (Country Comfort...