Word: sonata
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Andante Con Moto" (1992) began the evening. It is a series of 14 variations on the slow movement of Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata, with an optional opportunity for an improvised cadenza before the final variation. The theme itself is not stated anywhere in the piece, and one catches only a few glimpses of it throughout--an occasional dominant seventh chord, or the five-note descending scale that concludes each half of the Beethoven movement. Rather than indulging in much direct quotation, Rzewski's variations preserve certain abstract qualities of the original. Beethoven's registral disjuncture, for example, is taken...
After intermission came the "Sonata" (1991). The first movement of this work incorporates six popular songs from various eras: "Ring Around the Rosy," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "L Homme Arme," "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye," "Give Peace A Chance" and "Three Blind Mice." This pluralism offered much potential for humor and for keeping listeners in constant anticipation, but it finally resulted in a disturbing lack of coherence. Rzewski has a tendency to encapsulate when he composes, not maintaining any particular texture, motive, or even mood long enough to establish it firmly. When he is not working within...
...shake the preacher's jeremiad cadences from his voice, even when he wants to whisper. When Leroy says, "Maybe I am a failure, but in my opinion no more than the rest of this country," his private anguish is being overrun by Miller's political agenda, like a radio sonata interrupted by a campaign commercial...
Mamet's men talk for a living, and they talk to keep from telling the truth. In their four-letter world, lying comes with the territory. As the Old Man says in Strindberg's Ghost Sonata: "Silence hides nothing. Words conceal." Two of the salesmen, Moss (Ed Harris) and Aaronow (Alan Arkin), sit in a bar, grousing about the real estate company. It is as much a part of their job as sounding stardusted with sweet reason while on a pitch. Moss sketches an idea for a theft of the office, and later tells Aaronow he is implicated...
Both Yoo and Levinson commented on the attractive diversity of the music they will play. The first half, said Yoo, will be "more serious," and boasts a Beethoven sonata in G major and a Franck sonata in A Major. After giving a vigorous interpretation of the familiar classics, the pair will switch gears, and "keep it on the less pedantic side." Levinson said that the show's second half will include "more virtuousic stuff" like Scott Joplin's "Ragtime" and four other short pieces...