Word: sonata
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Strictly speaking, the Wednesday night program of the Sadler's Wells Ballet did not contain much true ballet. "The Rake's Progress" is more a mimeo-drama than a ballet; and "Dante Sonata" contains a great many elements of modern interpretive dancing. The remaining two selections were the lightweight "Les Patineurs," and the brief pas de deux from Act III of "Sleeping Beauty," which was hardly more than a glimpse...
...such noted soloists as Violinists Joseph Szigeti, Alexander Schneider, Flutist John Wum-mer, Oboist Marcel Tabuteau. The chief interest in Volume III is The Musical Offering (which Bach began as an improvisation on a theme supplied by Frederick the Great). Volume VI contains two memorable performances: Casals playing the Sonata No. 3 for cello and piano, and Pianist Rudolf Serkin's performance of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor and the Italian Concerto in F Major. The six suites for unaccompanied cello, which Casals previously recorded for Victor (H.M.V.), are not included...
...Concerto No. 18, K.456 (Lili Kraus, pianist; with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Walter Goehr conducting; Decca-Parlophone, 2 sides LP). This is one of Mozart's finest concertos, and Pianist Kraus plays it strongly and forthrightly. Completing the second side, with Violinist Szymon Goldberg, she plays the unfinished Sonata K.404. Performance and recording: good...
When he is not touring, Szigeti lives quietly with his wife Wanda in Palos Verdes, Calif. He is just as eager to discover new music as he was in the '20s, when he introduced such works as Prokofiev's Concerto No. 1 and Roussel's Second Sonata and was soundly rebuked by many critics at the time. He is just as eager to discover new old music, for that matter. "Nothing would please me more than to find a lost Mendelssohn sonata," says Violinist Szigeti. "Digging into the remote corners of music keeps one bright and shiny...
...high point of the recital was Aitken's performance of the c minor Sonata Beethoven's last. This is an incomparable composition, full of wonders like the dramatic introduction and the surprisingly modern sounding syncopation near the end. It seems impossible that a human brain could have created a place like this; it is as though Beethoven smashed through all conceivable limits of human creativity, leaving us to admire, if not to understand...