Word: sonata
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Archduke' Trio (1811), for violin, 'cello and piano, was the last great achievement of his middle period. It is almost symphonic in concept, and at times bursts the limits of the medium, as Beethoven was to do still more in his last period with such works as the Hammerklavier Sonata, the Grosse Fuge and the Missa Solemnis. The Trio posed for the composer a problem of balance between piano and strings. Beethoven's keyboard part is full of massive chords and rich arpeggios; to help compensate for this the string parts contain many double notes. The result is a work...
Separately, the two Glee Clubs were much better. The Smith chorus sang an expert performance of Monteverdi's Scherzi Musicale for three-voice chorus, two instruments and continue. The unusual stylistic combination of a trio sonata and a madrigal was handled by Monteverdi with great care, and the two pieces Smith sang were delightful...
Speck of Humanity. The overflow crowd in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall burst into applause when Violinist Oistrakh stepped from the wings. Then he and his longtime accompanist, Vladimir Yampolsky, began Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1. The whole first movement went by, muddled by Carnegie's overrated acoustics -or because of a debutant's jitters-before Oistrakh began to project the full voltage of his enormous musicianship...
...vibrato. In a concert full of lovely little touches-his method of approaching such an essentially meaningless figure as a trill was a joy to the sense of propriety-Oistrakh even managed to breathe warmth and dignity into the withered carcasses of Tartini's "Devil's Trill" Sonata and Ysaye's distraught Sonata-Ballade...
...finest music on the program was Prokofiev's Sonata No. 1, which is dedicated to Oistrakh. It opened with dark, slightly nasal low tones, sang its way up to the bright blossom of a double-stop and continued to sing to the last gay note. Highlights: a section of muted runs up and down the fingerboard that felt like being brushed with feathers, and a section that had the mysterious beauty of a girl singing to herself by a forest pool. When it was over, the crowd was too moved to cheer until the violinist came back...