Word: timpani
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Dublin-dominated cast performs Philadelphia on Broadway, and it is uniformly excellent. Other people speak English; the Irish play it. Philadelphia is not scored for brass, timpani, or full dramatic orchestra, but it exquisitely renders the chamber music of existence...
...much chilled sweat could be squeezed from the audience's brow. He uses every weapon in the theatrical arsenal to mount a sustained barrage on the senses. A sound track assaults the ear with insinuation ranging from the wail of a solitary violin to the menacing timpani of wooden spoons. Eerie moans and whimpers fill the air like the cries of lost souls, recorded in limbo. A clownishly decked-out Greek chorus of whores and fools breaks into gritty tunes and cynical ditties on the age's corruption that evoke Brecht and Weill...
...performing rarely-heard early works. Friday's program began with the Sixth Suite of the Banchetto Musicale (1617) by Hermann Schein, a significant but neglected forerunner of Heinrich Schutz. The Suite, consisting of five stately dances, emerged slightly Stokowskified; an excessive number of strings, plus modern oboes and timpani, produced a far richer sound than their Baroque counterparts. And one could make a nice chorale out of the notes missed by the brass (an off night for them generally). But no matter; this was charming music, realized with spirit, and it is promising to find Jackson venturing into unrecorded repertory...
...orchestra followed the Schein with Bach's D major Suite--cleverly illustrating the evolution of derived dance forms. Bach ambitiously divides his instruments into three groups; trumpets (3) and timpani, oboes (3) and bassoon, and strings and continuo, giving to each both entire sections and incidental passages, bounded by two movements in unison. Jackson's approach emphasized accents and pulse rather than singing line; he propelled all but the ponderous Overture quite effectively. Solo playing varied from highly impressive (the oboes in the second Bouree) to characterless (the strings in the Trio...
...second movement sound particularly bad. His tempo was excruciatingly deliberate, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately he sped up, slowed down, and sped up again; if the orchestra had followed his tempi exactly, the effect would have been even worse. The timpani solo, which a timpanist friend assures me couldn't have been too loud, was-and the movement as a whole was a gigantic bore...