Word: sonata
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...over-subscribed audience, it was clear that Saturday night's concert at Sanders Theatre was more an "event" than a chamber music concert. This atmosphere was only reinforced by the nature of the programming. The violinist Stephanie Chase was slated to play in each work, first Bartok's First Sonata for Violin and Piano, then the Brahms Horn Trio, and finally the Beethoven Septet. While programming for a single performer might be acceptable even in a chamber music concert, the flagrant insertion of Bartok's Sonata into a menu of otherwise standard (and somewhat related) fare, seemed justified only...
Bartok's First Violin Sonata, while heavily influenced by the atonality of Schoenberg, abounds with injunctions of "espressivo" and "appasionato". A listener not aware of this might have thought from Chase's performance that Bartok, desiring some special effect, had ordered the violinist to play dispassionately, and vibrato only selectively if at all. While the first movement is supposed to be tense in character, the rigidity manifest in Chase did not seem quite appropriate. Her sound was frequently forced, and what at first seemed like a special effect--the fact that her vibrato began only after half of each note...
...difficulties; while hertechnique was not impeccable, it certainly farsurpassed her vibrato. In this section, though theperformers were always "with" each other, one didnot receive the impression of collaboration whichhad appeared briefly in the second movement andwhich graces the best chamber music performances.On the whole, Chase's rendition of the Sonata wascompetent but uninspired; she did not seem toderive any personal significance from the work orendow it with any of her own life story. Lee, onthe other hand, gave some indication that shecould have performed more dynamically, but was toopreoccupied with following the violin part to doso...
Both actors make it clear that their characters are upper-crust crooks. Though ruthless and determined, they have a foppish quality and a refinement surprising for someone in their line of work. In one nice mise-en-scene bit Henriksen plays a Beethoven sonata in the drawing room of his estate while another homeless man is recruited for the next hunt. Henriksen's crony questions the victim about his finances and relatives. Each answer is intercut with shots of Henricksen and his opulent estate...
...talent and still have plenty left over. Schoenberg? Stravinsky? No, the recipient of these accolades was a wunderkind from Vienna named Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The son of the city's leading music critic, young Korngold had written a large body of music before he turned 15, including a piano sonata for Artur Schnabel, and achieved international success in 1920 at the age of 23 with his romantic opera Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City). It seemed possible that he would go on to become one of the century's greatest musical figures...