Word: toccatas
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...virile attack and a vital conviction that the literature of an obsolete instrument can still be exciting music. Here he plays oddments by Frescobaldi, Galuppi, Pasquini, Rossi and Cimarosa-who wrote when the harpsichord was the highest ornament of Renaissance sensibility. Most elegant of all is Scarlatti's Toccata in D Minor, the last movement of which consists of 29 florid variations on an old Italian theme, tossed aloft by Kipnis like fireworks into the night...
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ (2 LPs; Columbia) gave his first recital in a dozen years last May 9 at Carnegie Hall; this is a recording of that long-awaited performance. The program, which ranges from a Bach- Busoni toccata (Horowitz's good luck piece because it was the first selection on his debut program) through Chopin to Scriabin, shows a variety of technique and mood from lyric tranquillity to bravura virtuosity. The pianist is master of them all. Perhaps most beautiful is the inspired Schumann Fantasy in C Major; the final notes of the second movement float out as if played...
...year-old organ, a magnificent work of art whose 2,270 fluted pipes pyramid majestically into the vaulted heights of Chartres Cathedral. It was to be his first recital in that majestic shrine, an hour to remember. But as Dupré launched into Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G Minor, the organ balked and choked off a high note. The organist winced, but forged on, muttering "lamentable, lamentable...
STRAVINSKY: VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR (Philips). A rare and rewarding encounter between the neoclassicist Stravinsky and the romantic David Oistrakh. Oistrakh gaily sets off short rhythmic explosions in the Toccata and Capriccio and then lets the melodies pour out in the two calm stretches called arias. Conductor Bernard Haitink and the Lamoureux Orchestra are also attuned to every instantaneous change in the musical weather...
...holiday in Germany and Holland, playing with artistry the twelve surviving baroque organs of Master Builder Arp Schnitger (1648-1719). The tones of Schnitger's organs are exceptionally bright and buoyant, wrong for the romantics but wonderful for the music Biggs plays: Bach (including the Dorian Toccata and Fugue in D Minor) and chorale preludes by the modern Berlin composer Ernst Pepping...