Word: soloiste
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...Guest soloist Maureen Forrester gave a superbly dramatic performance of Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer," in an interpretation which emphasized the lyric, folk-song quality of Mahler's melodies. Her rich, sometimes deliberately harsh low register is a magnificent and constant surprise. The alternating sensuousness and despair which she brought to the fourth Song were suggestive of the lilting, tragic songs of Kurt Weil, which also have roots in German-Austrian folk melody. The orchestra--particularly its excellent wind section--gave her exceptionally sensitive support with clean, sharp attacks and supple phrasing. Forrester's spirited but somewhat less exciting...
PROGRAMMING BEETHOVEN'S Fifth Symphony was a move designed to fill the house, and to give everyone--both players and audience--a good time. In these respects it succeeded. But because of the difficulty of the Ives and the top-priority commitment to the soloist, this great warhorse must have received the least rehearsal time, and it showed. The necessity of placing it last on the program--when the players would be most tired--introduced further complications, yet the occasional ensemble problems, rushed tempi and brass bloopers only partially detracted from the pleasure of hearing this symphony performed live, with...
...illustrates this thesis by explaining how the soloist expresses how "things should be" in America with his improvisational expression of black joy and freedom, while the rhythm section, with its repetition of one melody over and over again, represents black life as it is--restrained, helpless, and stagnant--"how things really are." What injuries the credibility of The Cry of Jazz is Bland's not-so-logical deduction that because whites haven't suffered they plainly can't understand, and therefore can't create, play or even listen correctly to jazz compositions...
...Brooklyn-born Beverly Sills. The Sills phenomenon stems mainly from her unmatched musical and theatrical skills. But it helps that what she has, she flaunts-tirelessly. This season is typical. Sills will give recitals in such cities as Syracuse, Boulder, and Birmingham, Ala. She will also appear as soloist with orchestras in Miami Beach, Houston, and Evansville, Ind., sing Lucia di Lammermoor with opera companies in Milwaukee and Omaha, star at the San Francisco Opera and visit Los Angeles with her home company, the New York City Opera...
Bouncy Spirits. The pity of it is that Franz did have talent. Last week in New York at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival (Wolfgang Sr., that is), listeners got a rare chance to hear Franz's Piano Concerto No. 2 in E Flat, Op. 25. The soloist was the eminent Gary Graffman, that master of diverse styles for whom the score was reconstructed and edited from the original edition by the New York composer and musicologist Douglas Townsend...