Word: pizzicato
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fiery Duo (1914), full of rich and varied strong sonorities, gets a passionate reading from Phillips, who has a flourishing chamber-music career, and Grossman, a Chicago Symphony cellist. Even better is the brooding Sonata (1915), which employs just about every string-writing trick there is, including left-hand pizzicato and scordatura (nonstandard tuning). As close to technical impossibility as a piece can be and still remain playable, the Sonata is a 20th century masterpiece that deserves to be known by all music lovers, not just cellists. Grossman's performance, while not as pyrotechnical as, say, Janos Starker's, captures...
...musical ethos, demanding though it is, is still far from that of old-fashioned tyrants like his mentor, George Szell, or Fritz Reiner. "Perfectionist is one of the stupidest words in the English language," says Levine. "Take any performance. I promise you that there will be a pizzicato chord that's not together; somewhere or other a horn will crack. If there are a number of magical and successful moments that really capture what they should, then a technical imperfection here or there will pass. The question is whether you are counting successes or counting mistakes...
...unpromising material. The opera, his first, is filled with striking set pieces: a lyrical duet for China (Tenor Neil Rosenshein) and his wife Annabella (Soprano Sunny Joy Langton); an ominous interview between China and his moneyed friend Orchis (Tenor Michael Fiacco), whose threatening nature is underlined by a snap-pizzicato line in the low strings; a good-natured, bibulous ensemble lauding the joys of wine. In his handling of the choruses, Rochberg is especially skillful; indeed the final chorus, extolling the virtue of confidence, recalls the Falstaffian spirit of Verdi. For the interpolated minstrel show-the liveliest and dramatically most...
...Russian slides to double stops. In the juiciest piece--Recitativo and Scherzo Caprice op. 6, written in the style of Ysaye--Mintz plays his solo. He digs too much, overemphasizes the triple stops and phrases the Presto poorly. It is messy and out of tune in the final pizzicato passage...