Word: tonality
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...that it is the last word in musical anarchy, but only that it represents in the language of notes what Finnegan's Wake does in the language of words, or Guernica in painting a dissolution of the old formal bases of art, the concept of tonality in music, of grammar in writing, and of pictorialism in the visual arts. And so to appreciate Pierrot, the listener's hearing apparatus must go through a similar process of dissolution, and come out on the other side of tonality, free from tonal inhibitions...
...that as it may, the new recording of the Brahms Fourth (Victor Album M730) is one of the outstanding releases of the year. Koussevitzky's magnificent performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra is recorded with the spaciousness, the fidelity, and perfect tonal balance that characterizes the best in modern recording, and it supercedes all the older recordings from every standpoint...
...ears that like it, the music of the 18th-Century harpsichord rustles sweetly, subtly, with a wealth of tonal color. To ears that don't, its clucks and scratches sound like a hen yard. The strings of the harpsichord, controlled by a full keyboard and pedals, are plucked by quills, instead of being struck by hammers like the piano's. For an oldtimer, the harpsichord is still stepping lively. Last week Vienna-born Yella Pessl, who has given 70-odd harpsichord programs on the radio (CBS) since last June, returned to the air after a brief vacation. While...
...weeks ago many readers were offended by a sentence in this column which, without explanation, dismissed the Brahms symphonies as "academic exercises". What I meant by the statement is this: when one listens to a Tchaikowski symphony, such as the Fourth or Fifth, one follows easily and clearly the tonal pattern. Contrasting themes grow naturally out of each other, and there is a sense of inevitability about the working-out of material, a smooth flow and a feeling for clarity and balance. One gets none of this feeling from a symphony like the Brahms First. Here there is no free...
...agony with a high note from the violins, Bell Telephone Laboratories now offers him an opportunity by new "stereophonic" recordings, on motion-picture film, of "enhanced"' music. In stereophonic recording, sound is picked up by three microphones widely separated on the sound stage, to produce an illusion of tonal depth and space comparable to that of an actual performance. It may then be "enhanced" by a conductor, taking the stereophonic recording and fiddling with various mixers to bring out clearer tonal qualities and greater masses of sound on the ultimate sound track. He can thus achieve more striking interpretations...