Word: allegretto
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...first movement, Allegro, certain motifs played by the violinist were to be echoed by the violist, who, in contrast, failed to match the agility and lightness of Schneider's playing. The group did, however, make very effective transitions and tempo changes. Played with apparent quickness and ease, the Menuetto Allegretto had an incomparable dance-like quality. The final Allegro moved well and provided an excellent ending to a piece that started off rather slowly...
...interplay of plucking between the violin and cello. This was done in such a way as to give the listener the impression of a teasing, question and answer conversation between the two instruments. Not once did the piece move slowly or the sound lose its rich quality. In the Allegretto especially, the opening theme was brought back with force and clarity. By the response of the audience, it was clear that the musicians had overcome the handicaps of the heat and Sanders Theatre...
...program closed with Haydn's Symphony No. 82 (L'ours). This attractive symphony, complete with a warlike minuet and growls in the last movement, was well handled. The violins blossomed, especially at the beginning of the Allegretto, producing a brilliant, focussed sound. The rest of the strings were almost equally effective, if one overlooks murky cello noises in certain fast passages...
...Allegretto Con Amore. It is as if Liszt or Paganini had returned from the grave. Everyone in the hall's 2,760 seats rises and gives the 61-year-old pianist a standing ovation before he has played a note. He rushes to the piano and begins. The lean, intense face seems to exhale a melancholy all its own, but the fingers are as joyous as they were in the old days. The Chopin sings; the opaque, psychedelic visions of Scriabin are somehow made lucid. A critic calls him still a monarch. His wife is overjoyed...
Aside from excessive volume, the orchestra handled the complex score amazingly well. Especially delightful was the clarinets' witty opening of the Allegretto, the tuba's blustering fifths in the first trio, and the fine horn ensemble at the end of the first movemnt. The Bach chorale and its successive variations were somewhat less than serene; but the transition to Baroque harmony and sublime peace ("My Jesus comes--farewell world"), from twelve-tone sufferings does demand incredible skill...