Word: virtuoso
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...interlocutors of Vox -- Abby and Jim (the pedestrian names somehow don't do them justice) -- are virtuoso talkers. They are not merely poets of sexuality (an eroticized George and Gracie) but acute lyricists of everyday life. Listen to Abby's riff on pop songs that end with fade-outs ("this attempt to imply that oh yeah, we're a bunch of endlessly creative folks who jam all night"); while Jim explains why he doesn't bother to buy such records ("you really need the feeling of radio luck in listening to pop music...
...directorship of the New York Philharmonic with a CBS recording contract and his own magnetism to translate a deep personal identification into an enduring Mahler revival. In 1985 Bernstein undertook to re-record the nine symphonies, plus the Adagio from the unfinished 10th, live for Deutsche Grammophon, using three virtuoso orchestras: the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. Result: this definitive 13-disc boxed set. Bernstein finds the universal in Mahler's exquisite, often tortured, self-consciousness; the metaphysical beneath the moody, vivid surfaces. In struggling to understand fate, Mahler found despair, strength, ineffable loss...
RACHMANINOFF, 24 PRELUDES (Arabesque Recordings). Though usually performed in small groupings or as encores, these two dozen pieces -- covering each of the major and minor keys -- become sovereign microworlds in the hands of piano virtuoso Ian Hobson...
...song that sounds a little like Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio and a lot like a spiritual scored for the first cathedral in outer space. Lush, sentimental sounds continue through the next two tunes before things settle back to the hard rhythm of Black or White. It's a virtuoso performance. Michael may wear his heart on his sleeve, but a fair portion of his soul, it seems, is still back in church. Sorry, Bart...
There was an important difference between Bush and Reagan in this regard. No one had ever questioned Reagan's conservative credentials, so Reagan was all but invulnerable to the vigilantes of the hard right. Also, as a virtuoso political showman in his own right, Reagan appreciated the skill with which Gorbachev manipulated appearances, creating the impression of mastery and leadership even as he raised one white flag after another over the parapet of Soviet power...