Word: soloistic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Edgar Varese's Octandre (1924), one of the two modern works, did not compare favorably with Stravinsky's pivotal Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1959), with Harvard's Luise Vosgerchian as soloist. Octandre, for seven winds and contrabass, seemed individual but not highly original, consisting of some explorations of the percussive possibilities of wind articulation, propulsive rhythms, and generally uninteresting timbres. The piece seems much less provocative than the contemporary experiments of Hindemith, Bartok, Schoenberg, and Cowell. The Movements, however, a strictly twelve-tone piece, is characterized by pellucid, crystalline registration, pointillistic rhythmical control, and Stravinsky's unique unsentimental lvricism...
Dressed in a white tuxedo with black bellbottoms, Soloist Yamash'ta shuffled onto the stage, crouched behind his instruments while Ozawa unleashed a brass-heavy fanfare. After a menacing roll on the bass drum, Yamash'ta picked up speed and energy, began to ricochet from one instrument to another. Hair flopping, arms flying, he nudged, banged, tickled and teased the instruments. At one point he flailed away with both hands, simultaneously blowing onto bamboo sticks, kicking the prayer bells and rubbing his body frenziedly against the gongs. After it was all over, the audience gave him a standing...
...Later on, Stravinsky and Bartok proved that percussionists could do more interesting things than simply thump out a basic rhythm. Nowadays such avant-gardists as Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Luciano Berio and Karl-heinz Stockhausen treat the percussionist as a performer with rights (and responsibilities) equal to any other soloist...
...Maria Callas has been to opera. She is an artist incapable of a dull or empty gesture, able to communicate a state of mind through an impressive range of movement or even by standing still. Her frequent partner is California-born Richard Cragun, 24, a bravura but seemingly effortless soloist who within a very few years may be the world's finest male dancer...
...choice: Bernstein has done more than any man alive to popularize Mahler. The concerts were the last that he will give as the orchestra's musical director. At the end of the 105-minute performances, Bernstein received standing ovations, and he was near tears as he embraced the soloist and first-desk musicians. The orchestra, at an emotion-laden private party, gave him a silver-and-gold mezuzah, sculpted by Artist Resia Schor; the directors of the Philharmonic presented him with a 19-ft.-long speedboat, so that Lenny can practice his skills as a water-skier on Long...