Word: conductor
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...past season he has also directed the symphony orchestras of Seattle, Salt. Lake City, New Orleans and Montreal. A large section of the U.S. concertgoing public has heard Sir Thomas prove beyond question that the first requisite of a fine symphonic performance is not a great orchestra but a conductor of Sir Thomas' own shining ability...
...cheerleader, stand on one foot, kick up his heels, shake his fists, lunge with his arms, yell at the brass, lose his baton, nearly lose his balance. They have watched this catalogue of gestures bring from the orchestra a beautifully controlled flow of pliant, clearly articulated symphonic sound. No conductor has a more eloquent sign language for encouraging, warning, cajoling or just plain frightening orchestra musicians into giving him what he wants. Sir Thomas, unlike most maestros, seldom bothers to beat time-he seems able to infect musicians with the desired momentum. But always he is about the subtle business...
...pushed on the stage in a wheelchair and conducted the performance while sitting. At one New York Philharmonic rehearsal he became so elated that he fell off the podium into the second violins. "Podiums," he remarked, on recovering himself, "are expressly designed as a conspiracy to get rid of conductors." Like every other conductor worthy of his salt, Sir Thomas has told noisy audiences to keep quiet-his phrase for it in Covent Garden was: "Shut...
...probably best known for his ubiquitous Prelude in C Sharp Minor (the "Flatbush" Prelude). Son of a captain in the Russian Imperial Guards, gaunt, towering Sergei Rachmaninoff was a close friend and protégé of the late great Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, made his first reputation as a conductor of the London Philharmonic and of the Imperial Grand Theater of Moscow, in 1909 toured the applauding U.S. in the dual role of pianist and composer. An unbending foe of the Soviet revolution, Rachmaninoff left Russia in 1917 to spend most of his remaining life in Manhattan...
...Conductor Artur Rodzinski last week felt something like the dreamer who arrives at a dream party without his pants...