Word: berman
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Most fortunately for those of us who love the sound of music, Lawrence Berman has not changed his tune in the slightest. As Monday evening's concert demonstrated once again, he combines with consummate artistry the lucid insight of a musicologist, the precise execution of a virtuoso, and the upretentious sincerity of his personality, to recreate music for the piano in a very convincing...
...mark of genuine musical integrity that an interpretation emerges organically from, and is always justified by, the immediate musical context--nothing is distorted or superimposed, and yet the performance is a vital and personal reading of the composer's work. Mr. Berman's playing embodies such integrity. One may disagree with certain aspects of his interpretations, as I occasionally did; but I felt, as I feel in the case of few other performers, that his conception was rarely in any way arbitrary. And perhaps even more praiseworthy was Mr. Berman's exceptional sensitivity to texture. Listening with score in hand...
...composer's style, was treated as such, rather than as a means of jolting the listener. In these pieces (Improvisations, op. 20, and Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, from Book VI of the Mikrokosmos), as always, the clarity of texture and poetry of phrasing characteristic of Mr. Berman's playing brought forth all aspects of the music in a deliberate, well-balanced interpretation; and so precise was the technical execution that even the most complex rhythms were never unclear...
...extraordinary pianist indeed--as far removed from mere crowd-pleasing as he is from pedantry. Mr. Berman's is a musicianship which so naturally blends the elements of feeling and idea, that one can quite honestly say (in the words of the great George Szell): he thinks with his heart and feels with his mind. The Music Department may well lament their loss...
...Carmen starring Marilyn Horn, with Leonard Bernstein conducting and Gentele himself directing. Bing also spent a probable $700,000 on his swan song, last March's new and spectacularly good production (by Franco Zeffirelli) of Verdi's Otello, when the nine-year-old and commensurately splendid Eugene Berman production was in perfectly good shape. That indulgence (including 100 costly costumes that were never used) will not help Gentele at all in the current labor negotiations he must settle by this summer if the Met is to open...