Word: virtuoso
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People respond to the flute too, and of late with special reason: the world is now entering the golden age of the flute. Never in history has "the metal nightingale" been so highly esteemed as a solo instrument; never in one period has it been played by so many virtuoso performers. In the U.S. and Europe, there are at least 30 first-rate flutists-London's Geoffrey Gilbert and William Bennett, Manhattan's John Wummer and Samuel Baron, Rochester's Joseph Mariano, Boston's Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Detroit's Albert Tipton, Marlboro's Louis...
PAUL BUTTERFIELD, at 24, is a virtuoso on the harmonica, the new "in" instrument that folk aficionados, picking up an old colloquialism, call a "harp." Butterfield's harp is electrically amplified, and he gets extraordinary saxophone-like effects with it. On his first album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (Elektra), he not only blows a wild-sweet harp but also shows that he is one of the best young bluesmen around by singing the likes of Shake Your Money-Maker and Thank You Mr. Poobah, vigorously backed by guitars, drums, organ and bass...
...another adventure, the 60th year since Rubinstein's American debut. Anniversary? Rubinstein likes to pretend that he cannot stand the thought of such a dreary thing. "I hate anniversaries!" he roars. "They are feasting on something that is stale." Not so. They are feasting a most remarkable virtuoso. Rubinstein has played more concerts before more people, sold more record albums (more than 5,000,000), grossed more money and attracted a more widely popular following than any other classical instrumentalist in history. At a time when artists 25 years his junior are gearing down for retirement, he is shifting into...
When he strides onto a concert stage today, there is not a virtuoso living who can match his communion with the audience. "I love it like a woman," he says. His bearing becomes regal, his face is masked in concentration. His back erect, he kneads his fingers, bows his head for a moment's thought, and then eases into the keyboard. In driving home a run of climactic chords, he rises higher and higher off the piano bench as though he were intent on physically overwhelming the music. In more lyrical moods, his arms and hands move with a kind...
...time he was three he was "a terrible little fiend" about music, screaming when his sisters struck a sour note, banging the piano lid down on their fingers. At four, he was performing at charity concerts, pressing his engraved calling cards on everyone he met: ARTUR THE GREAT PIANO VIRTUOSO. It annoyed him even then that people always asked if he was any kin to the great Anton Rubinstein, and so he took to prancing around town with the words NO RELATION inscribed on the front of his sailor...