Word: sonata
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Nonetheless, the Harvard Summer School concert last week provided an example of last century's understanding of Bach. Pina Carmirelli, in a long black, sequined dress, exemplified the Romantic spirit in her performance. During the Bach violin-piano sonata in E minor, she presented one of the last Romantic interpretations of Bach. Schweitzer thinks that the sonata is unplayable today. He says that is can be played on a harpsichord and a violin with loosened bow to bring out the full flavor of the double-stopping. Wagner felt that the timber of the violin and the piano are naturally incompatible...
Madame Carmirelli attacked the first movement of the sonata at break-neck speed, despite the fact tat in Bach's time, both tempo and dynamics were much less varied than they have been since. Then, the slow movements and thew allegros more closely resembed each other in speed. In dynamics, Bach conceived of his works as built of solid, steady blocks of sound. Madame Carmirelli constantly shifted from pianist to forte and from slow to fast. It is true Bach wrote the sonatas as little "soul-states" as Schweitzer says, but he writes with polyphone rather than her extremes...
...couple to pay attention to natural forms (pebbles, grass) to find their meanings, is set afire after she declares "End the daily murder! Cover flowers with flames!" In this sequence--as in sequences where they ignore a figure reading Rousseau, and interrupt a beautiful rendition of a Mozart sonata--the characters are merely destroying the cultural background of their bourgeois society. The beauty of Godard's compositions and camera motions in these sequences in undermined by their violent, petty responses, which begin to pull the film apart. In Godard's other films such scenes give the characters an opportunity...
...evening began with an attractive if unremarkable sonata for violin and piano by Michael Friedman. The violin writing was awkward rather than intelligently varied, suffering from repetitious phrase-length and dynamic graduations. The two instruments were carelessly counterpoised in a discontinuously rhapsodic style...
Ravel's Jeux d'eau and Debussy's Feux d'artifice rippled with pinks and light blues. Prokofiev's fiery Sonata No. 7 was dramatic and brutal when it had to be, gentle when that was called for. To Manhattan critics in the audience, it seemed that Hollander had never before bared his inner feelings quite so convincingly...