Word: virtuoso
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...performed (1907), did he attract any real attention; by then he was already six years a Mus.D. from Cambridge. He wrote his first ballet (Old King Cole] at 51, his first film score (49th Parallel) at 68. Ever eager to try his hand at something new, he surprised Harmonica Virtuoso Larry Adler with a Romance for Harmonica with orchestral accompaniment. By then Composer Williams was 79. At 80, two years a widower, he married for the second time-his secretary. A year later he listened to the first performance of his pawky Concerto for Bass Tuba through a cantankerous hearing...
...four demonstrated considerable instrumental versatility. Mr. Brown, a virtuoso of long standing on the modern flute, also played several kinds of recorder. Mr. Fuller, a concert organist, here showed his skill on a rich-toned harpsichord built in 1955 by the local firm of Hubbard and Dowd. Miss Davidoff played both the 'cello and its quite different predecessor, the viola da gamba. Mr. Senturia, a first-rate oboist, also played on several sizes of recorder; and, in three pieces, he provided the chief novelty of the evening by performing on a krummhorn--a long obsolete, J-shaped woodwind with...
...most prolific composers in the recent history of opera was British-born (of French descent) Piano Virtuoso Eugène d'Albert. In a career otherwise occupied with six marriages, teaching and lucrative concert tours, he managed to compose 20 musical melodramas, ending with a preposterous oriental olio called Mr. Wu that he left unfinished when he died in 1932. Most of his concoctions were unqualified flops, partly because Composer d'Albert had difficulty deciding whose horn he was tooting-Puccini's or Richard Strauss's. The only currently heard remnant of his life...
...European civilians in Algeria back under the authority of the central government. (The general's only nonofficial appointment during this period: a brief chat with naval Lieut. Commander Philippe de Gaulle, *a gangling carbon copy of the Charles de Gaulle of 30 years ago.) By a virtuoso's blend of compromise and judicious pressure (see below), De Gaulle succeeded in restoring some degree of discipline in the army, thereby nullifying the civil war threat of the right-wing civilian ultras of Algiers...
Despite their success, most penny-whistlers still find the going rough. Whistle Virtuoso Fred Maphisa thinks up his tunes while driving a cab; Spokes ("King of the Pennywhistlers") Mashiyani used to make his living as a domestic servant. But young "Special" Mabaso, who has just turned out a new hit called Serope Sa Ngwanyana (Girls' Thighs), is optimistic. Says he: "We are professionals now. From now on we are not going to play so much in the streets...