Word: fortissimo
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DIED. Stan Kenton, 67, patriarch of progressive jazz; of a stroke; in Los Angeles. When Kenton crashed onto the West Coast jazz scene in 1941, his fortissimo "walls of brass" sound struck some critics as "sheer noise," but his popularity endured long after the demise of swing. He helped introduce Afro-Cuban rhythms to U.S. pop, invented the mellophonium, a trumpet-French horn hybrid, and wed classical music with jazz both in his own dissonant compositions (Artistry in Rhythm) and in unorthodox interpretations of Wagner and Ravel...
Harvard junior Geoff Stiles is to a pole what F. John Adams is to a baton, and Saturday he turned in a fortissimo effort in setting a meet and facility record with his 16 ft. 1-1/4 in. leap...
...sauna, two clay tennis courts, a one-hole, three-tee golf course, a two-lane bowling alley, a trout stream, skeet-shooting and archery range, movie facilities, a wide selection of music (Richard Nixon used to stand in front of the stereo speakers and "guest conduct" his favorite symphonies fortissimo). Comments former Nixon Counsel John Dean: "It has a rustic feel but no rustic hardship. If Baked Alaska is what you want, Baked Alaska is what...
...quiet. The rest of his sorcery was soon at work. The concerto's immense hurdles (lightning-fast chord sequences, densely complicated ornaments) were leaped smoothly, and the occasional moments of romantic treacle were turned into pure honey. Cascades of notes ar ranged themselves in perfect, multicolored symmetry. The fortissimo climaxes arrived like evening thunder. Nobody else can hit a piano that hard and produce something more than an ugly...
...technique is flawless. Modern composers lay finger-mangling minefields in the thickets of their pieces, but Rostropovich negotiates them with cheerful ease. "I don't even know why my hands do certain things sometimes," he says. "They just grab for the notes." His dynamic range, from the greatest fortissimo down the line to a pianissimo that comes on little cat feet, is nothing short of phenomenal. "You played like a god!" swooned a woman one night in New York. "Yes," replied Slava with a twinkle and a verbal pinch on the cheek, "but like a god with...