Word: wagnerian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...conducting Wagner, though, his stately, expansive, analytic style produced performances that were ingeniously congruent with the composer's convoluted purpose. Drawn from a 1953 series of radio broadcasts from Rome in mono sound that ranges from only dim to adequate, this is a Ring that every Wagnerian will at least want to hear, and probably own as a low-priced but high-keyed contrast to excellent latter-day sets by Solti and Karajan...
...player of a melody instrument, Brueggen's foremost interest is in the declamation of the most immediate musical units. He maintains, justifiably, that the long-line concept (climaxing in Wagnerian "endless melody") simply did not exist for the Baroque performer. Overall, his playing is clearly articulated, with careful attention to dynamic inflection, colorful ornamentation, and intimate shaping of each individual phrase. For some listeners, his approach may seem to personal--too free in rubato, too extreme in the use of swell and vibrato. But, here it is necessary to keep in mind that there is substantial historical evidence in support...
West German politicians were off and railing against each other last week in a Wagnerian opening to their eight-week national election campaign. Chancellor Willy Brandt lost his temper at a press conference. Karl Schiller, who had resigned as Brandt's Economics and Finance Minister in June, quit the Social Democratic Party completely, accusing his Cabinet successor, Helmut Schmidt, of "demagogic downplaying" of inflation. Another former Finance Minister, Christian Social Union Leader Franz Josef Strauss, likened Brandt's views on price increases to those of a simple hausfrau...
Died. Helen Traubel, 69, the Metropolitan Opera's dominant Wagnerian soprano of the 1940s and '50s; following a heart attack; in Santa Monica, Calif. A buxom woman with a gigantic voice, the St. Louis-born singer was the first fully American-trained soprano to play Isolde and the three Brünnhildes at the Met. Many critics considered her superior to her rival, Kirsten Flagstad. Independent and unstuffy, she was dropped by Met Manager Rudolf Bing for singing in nightclubs. She withdrew to care for her ailing husband and former business manager, William Bass...
...East grew populous, George Harvey felt that man-made structures like lighthouses enhanced their natural surroundings by emphatically signaling progress. But the prevailing mood changed to awe as Americans pushed westward, and it reached a climax in Albert Bierstadt's enormous canvas of the Rocky Mountains. Almost Wagnerian in scope-soaring peaks, resounding cataracts, blazing shafts of sunlight-it shows nature completely overwhelming insignificant man. On a lesser note, such painters as Jasper Francis Cropsey saw nature as a metaphor for God and respectfully depicted people as tiny objects in glorious settings...