Word: sonata
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Wednesday night in Sanders Theater, the Music Department presented the second in its spring term series of free concerts. In a program which was too long and too varied, no one would have missed the Beethoven March, nor did the somewhat uninspired rendition of Mozart's Sonata in D Major justify its inclusion. Pianists Robert Cornman and Leonid Hambro showed their grasp of the nineteenth century, however, in Schubert's Eight Variations, which predicted the styles of his successors with remarkable accuracy...
...performance of Harold Shapero's Four-Hand Piano Sonata indicated that the interest of the two pianists is in contemporary music. Both devoted themselves to giving the work every advantage. Shapero composed the piece during his first year out of Harvard, and Leonard Berstein performed it with him for the first time...
After intermission, Alfred Howard and Robert Matson joined the pianists in Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. It was clearly the big attraction of the evening; in fact, I thought Sanders Theater would fall in a heap from the applause when it was over. Just how much of the work's impact comes from powerful writing and how much from the force of the medium is hard to tell on first hearing. It seemed to me that much of the percussion part was only reinforcement, especially in the first movement. The two elements have a clearer relation...
...highlight of the evening for me was Allen Sapp's second Violin Sonata. The dry-tang texture of the first movement, caused by the conflict of harmonies between violin and piano, combines with the many melodies to give a very striking effect. Perhaps the finest moment in the piece comes in the carefully built-up climax of the second movement. Except for a few scattered parts, the writing throughout the Sonata is tight; the piece never seems too long for its contents. My only objection is to some of the bowing effects in the first movement, which don't really...
Beethoven: Sonata No. 3, Op. 69 (Pierre Fournier, cello; Artur Schnabel, piano; Victor, 6 sides). French Cellist Fournier made a hit two seasons ago at the Edinburgh Festival with Pianist Schnabel, Violinist Joseph Szigeti, and Violist William Primrose (TIME, Sept. 22, 1947). Here, in his U.S. record debut with Schnabel (and Beethoven), he succeeds again. Recording: excellent...