Word: szell
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...Among the few who were aware of him, he was regarded as a workmanlike German kapellmeister with a suspicious fondness for 20th century music, and certainly an odd choice to command an orchestra whose past conductors had included such doughty maestros as Artur Rodzinski, Erich Leinsdorf and George Szell...
Dohnanyi modestly ascribes the orchestra's excellence to the diligent work habits and pride instilled under Szell, the Hungarian-born terror who became music director in 1946 and transformed Cleveland from a cultural backwater into one of the orchestral world's powerhouses. Szell's ironfisted discipline brooked no contradiction, and the musicians played for him as if their livelihoods -- if not their lives -- depended on it. "Under Szell they had to be the best," notes Dohnanyi. "With me, they want to be the best...
With 42 players remaining from the Szell era, the orchestra has lost none of its famous precision. Yet as buffed by Pierre Boulez, who became musical adviser after Szell's death in 1970; by Lorin Maazel, music director from 1972 to 1982; and now by Dohnanyi, it has added a voluptuousness that sets it above its stiffest American competition -- principally, Daniel Barenboim's Chicago Symphony, Leonard Slatkin's St. Louis Symphony and Kurt Masur's New York Philharmonic...
...Beginning with the Frankfurt Opera, where he was Georg Solti's assistant, Dohnanyi spent time in Lubeck, Cologne and finally his adopted hometown of Hamburg before heading to the shores of Lake Erie. He has ended any doubts about his abilities as a symphonic conductor with performances that combine Szell's rigor, Boulez's unerring ear and a controlled interpretative fire...
...Leon Fleisher. Graffman, a dazzling stylist whose troubles began when he first sprained the fourth finger on his right hand while playing an unresponsive instrument in Berlin, has been a left- handed pianist since 1979. Fleisher, a towering performer whose 1958-62 cycle of Beethoven concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra remains a pinnacle of modern recordings, first noticed a loss of feeling in his right hand at the peak of his career in 1964. A year later, at age 38, he ! was incapable of using it at the keyboard, and he ceased performing his full repertoire...