Word: solos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Edmund Haines: Concertino for Seven Solo Instruments and Orchestra (Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, Guy Fraser Harrison conducting; Composers Recordings, Inc.). A high-spirited, multi-gaited piece that has its moments of surrealist shiftiness and of sheer pyrotechnics. One movement-the third-stands out with a lovely, brooding string solo. Expertly rendered by the first-desk men of the orchestra...
...seems to be the current musical fashion and took all the repeats. Unfortunately, by repeating Haydn's musical joke in the last movement four times, he killed it rather dead. But the rest of the symphony lived. The second movement, taken at a good deliberate tempo, enjoyed the outstanding solo performance of Tison Street, concertmaster, as violin concertanto. Here, and in the fourth movement, Street gave truly professional performances: accurate, sure, and evocative of all the subtleties in the music. Marshall Brown, first cellist of the orchestra, played the violoncello concertanto. As they had all evening, the strings-notorious nomads...
Much more successful were Charles Ives' three miniatures for chamber orchestra, The Rainbow (1914), The Pond (1906), and The Unanswered Question (1906). The first two are really instrumental solos, which Ives also composed as songs. In their accompaniments, lines slither around to transform the traditional harmonic basis into something quite live and active. In The Unanswered Question Ives exploits a favorite device of his, two independent ensembles. One, the muted strings, provides a constant background, labelled "the eternal silence of the Druids." The other, a few woodwinds, attempts to answer the question proposed by a solo trumpet. The woodwinds...
...mowed down three times in a row by the members of the Little Three. In those games the Crimson scored only one goal (against Williams) and had precious few close shots. The team's star player, center forward Chris Ohiri, isn't getting any leg room. He tallied that solo goal against Williams, but otherwise his permanent escort of two or three defensemen is holding him to ineffectual attempts...
...practice, it can sound like straight samba music with an occasional solo twitter or two thrown in for jazz flavor, or like the meditative, moody farther reaches of chamber jazz. But when it is tastefully done, it has great appeal, with the long, sinewy lines of improvising jazzmen pinned dramatically against richly filigreed percussion backgrounds...