Word: tonalities
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...wouldn't say that, actually. For the past three years I've been giving less [virtuosic] stuff; in many ways, this program is an anomaly. My second disc was four Beethoven sonatas. I don't play any meaninglessly difficult things. No, no Godowsky. Alkan has an interesting tonal language...I try to do sets that illustrate relationships that interest me. I was doing a set [in concert] that would alternate Beethoven sonatas with Rachmaninoff preludes and Bach preludes and fugues, and there was a Chopin nocturne in there...
...motets employs a style radical for those times: the "monody" or duet writing, which has a bolder and more expressive sound. Particularly beautiful is the transition from his hymn Ave maris stella (XII) to the concluding Magnificat (XIII). These two movements exhibit all the richness of sound and tonal imagination that make the Vespers such an outstanding work...
...whacks." Thought it calls for fewer than 20 performers, it requires them to sound like many more. This illusion succeeded best in the fanciful second movement, "Waltzes" and the "Elegy" that follows, a piece that itself could secure for its creator a reputation as one of America's greatest tonal composers. Previn and his temporarily reduced company made it not only a focused meditation on Lizzie's troubled character, but a monument to Gould himself, who died just last year...
...Nomura the opportunity to impressus with his artistry and musicality, as the lyrics describe the unrequired lover's dramatically changing emotional states. Nomura has a tremendous stage presence, quite an expressive face, and a sensitive ear for embellishments, yet his sound was on the wan side. With the strong tonal shift to A minor and major in songs 5 through 10, Nomura missed the opportunity for dramatic foreshadowing of the impending tragedy of the fair maid's rejection. His gentle and under-supported treatment left the audience waiting for a bolt of the energy and passion which the songs describe...
...major song crescendoes to the joyful exclamation that the "maid of the mill is mine!" Unfortunately such bravado and courage soon dissipated as Nomura resorted to stroking our ears with a very throaty voix mixte--not fully singing and lapsing into half tone--in the later B and E tonal musings on death and despair of "Die liebe farbe" and "Des Baches Wiegenlied...