Word: sonata
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bach: Six Sonatas for Clavier and Violin (Violinist Henryk Szeryng, Harpsichordist Helmut Walcha, Philips; 2 LPs). Several virtuosos have recorded these crystallizations of the baroque sonata style (Oistrakh, Menuhin, Laredo), but none can beat the suave brilliance of this set. Szeryng plays with an impassioned aristocrat's clarity, grace and brio. Walcha, a virtuoso in his own right, is appropriately brought to the fore by Philips' bright tonal presence...
...himself. Age and approaching blindness apart, Rubinstein was well up to the celebration. "Composing a concert is like composing a menu," he announced, explaining his choices of Debussy, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Mozart and Schubert. "I believe in musical digestion. If you start with light pieces and play a 45-minute sonata after the interlude, it's like starting dinner with hors d'oeuvres and dessert and finishing with a Chateaubriand and vegetables...
...which is Lulu's theme. All of the opera's other themes, accompaniments and leitmotifs are derived from endlessly ingenious extrapolations, inversions, retrogrades and other variations of the original row. These in turn are rigorously organized in a series of traditional forms. There is an extensive sonata structure in Lulu's scenes with Schön; a rondo for Lulu's more ambiguous encounter with Schön's son; a canon in which one voice following another imitates the painter's pursuit of Lulu...
...Sylvia? and Signe Hammer's Daughters and Mothers, Mothers and Daughters also dwell on the maternostra theme, and still more of the genre are in the offing. Even Hollywood and television are exploiting mother-daughter tensions. Woody Allen's Interiors and Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata are based on such themes; CBS plans two dramatic specials, one of them starring Bette Davis, tentatively scheduled to be aired on Mother...
...Liszt Sonata--Stephen Drury, piano, Dunster Library...