Word: violins
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...being secretary to his wife's lover on the local county agriculture committee--a post so petty that he has to bolster his pride by berating a subordinate for not addressing him a "Your Honor," and--like Abe Fortas--seek solace in going off by himself to play the violin. Cariou makes him genuine, well-meaning, and pathetic; and I'd swear he really puts on weight during the three and a half years covered by the play...
...GENERAL PUBLIC suffered through another concert in Sanders Theatre last Monday night. Why Harvard is the only school of any consequence anywhere in the country without a decent concert hall no one can explain. Most of us are tired of quarters for violin, cello, piano and street noises and tired of wiping out neighbors' sweat off our knees. It is a disgrace to force any musicians of merit to attempt to perform in the decrepit fire trap...
...Mozart String Quintet in G Minor K. 516 followed Schumann and was a big improvement. The addition of Isidore Cohen, who played well all evening, bolstered the violin sound immensely and the two violinists were very competent. Again, however, the piece got off to a slow start. An opening Allegro, thick in texture but still meant to move along easily and swiftly, was too slow. Furthermore the group slowed down perceptibly toward the end of the movement, as much as six to twelve beats a second. Then, as if the Schumann had not sufficiently apprized the audience of a certain...
Nonetheless, the Harvard Summer School concert last week provided an example of last century's understanding of Bach. Pina Carmirelli, in a long black, sequined dress, exemplified the Romantic spirit in her performance. During the Bach violin-piano sonata in E minor, she presented one of the last Romantic interpretations of Bach. Schweitzer thinks that the sonata is unplayable today. He says that is can be played on a harpsichord and a violin with loosened bow to bring out the full flavor of the double-stopping. Wagner felt that the timber of the violin and the piano are naturally incompatible...
...rest of the program matched Madame Carmirelli's Romantic tastes. It included a modern Italian violin sonata and a piano-violin sonata by Ferruccio Busoni. The Busoni piece went smoothly, with thematic-seeming material floating by with all of the grace of the turn of the century. Someone once said of Busoni that "he was hopelessly ahead of his time when he was writing and is now hopelessly Romantic." That adequately describes his sonata. It probably says a lot about the program and the performance at the concert as well...