Word: pasquini
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...great Russian bass, Alexander Kipnis, Igor Kipnis is a passionate champion of the harpsichord: he adds to flawless technique a virile attack and a vital conviction that the literature of an obsolete instrument can still be exciting music. Here he plays oddments by Frescobaldi, Galuppi, Pasquini, Rossi and Cimarosa-who wrote when the harpsichord was the highest ornament of Renaissance sensibility. Most elegant of all is Scarlatti's Toccata in D Minor, the last movement of which consists of 29 florid variations on an old Italian theme, tossed aloft by Kipnis like fireworks into the night...
Biggs' choice of program was ill-advised. He began with no less than five lengthy sets of variations--by Pasquini, Valente, Soler, Sweelinck and Handel. The theme-and-variations format has produced more dull music than any other, from the Middle Ages to rock 'n' roll. And many of the greatest composers have failed at it. The high quality of the Valente and Sweelinck works was partially obscured by the numbing tediousness of the Pasquini and Soler. The Handel work--the so-called "Harmonious Blacksmith" set--comes from a harpsichord suite and does not belong on the organ, despite...