Word: tempo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Haitink's finale constituted nothing less than a triumph. The "alpenhorn" theme flowed majestically through the Shed and Lawn, as did the brass chorale that follows it. Haitink's initial reading of the main theme (the one derived from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) seemed last at first. The tempo, however, reaped its reward in the development, instead of the usual disconnected and episodic character of that section. Haitink's interpretation was brisk and lively. He could only be faulted for his treatment of the piece's climax--the return of the chorale--which he sprinted through with inappropriate disinterest...
...album was shaped by top-flight producers, including Babyface (who's worked with Toni Braxton and Madonna) and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (the masterminds of Janet Jackson's rise to megastardom). Every song on II is about love and is performed at mid-tempo; the whole enterprise could easily have become just another bland-as-the-Weather-Channel collection of precision- crafted pop songs. It didn't. Each of the Boyz has a robust, nimble voice -- "There's not a weak link in the bunch," says Jam -- and the group turns almost every song on II into a vocal...
...Schumann brings intensely emotional playing, but also bad memories such as the beginning of the fourth movement, where Laredo and Stern both lose the string of their solo 16th-notes by the end of their runs. I wouldn't want the quartet to take a slower tempo, but I got the impression that they were flying blind--they didn't know for sure whether they could really pull...
...performance, however, suffered from an obvious lack of rehearsal, with the pianist and the conductor, Vassily Sinaisky, unable to agree on basic matters of tempo: Cliburn finished the first movement a good half-beat ahead of the band. The andantino movement went well enough, but disaster struck in the blazing finale, which fell apart in a tug-of-war -- Cliburn pulling ahead, Sinaisky dragging back. The battle increased in intensity until, all at once, Cliburn suddenly appeared to lose interest, and the piece almost collapsed near the end in a welter of notes...
Like the first set, Phish opened their second set at full tempo with the title track from their 1993 release Rift. (which, like the pieces from the Game-henge saga, fit into a greater conceptual whole). "Sample in a Jar," from their most recent release Hoist, provided one the most compelling jams of the night, refuting the often-heard claims that the band has sold out to the record industry...