Word: pizzicato
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...everywhere. Retro is getting tired. Until they start making ice cream flavors in Postmodern Pistachio Pastiche, this headlong rush to reassemble everything from its self-conscious rubble can still be stomached. Put postmodernism in your mouth and you'll find it's indigestible. Thankfully, and refreshingly, kitsch-pop masters Pizzicato Five can still render postmodernism an enjoyably tasteful joy ride. They trip through safe and smiley TV-land in a jalopy heap slapped together from '60s and jap pop, hip hop beats, funk threads, classical samples, bossa nova riffs and exotica, running on smooth easy-listening gas. Maki Nomiya...
...unearthed a simple, hymn-like melody and molded it into an intricately layered set of variations. Even if the talents of the oboe, clarinet, flute and bassoon players did receive the spotlight in most of the theme's airy permutations, the constant alteration of the string players' style-from pizzicato to spiccato to longer, lyrical bowstrokes--carried the listener through the eight variations and finale, all executed with swift precision under Silverstein's direction...
...theme throughout the orchestra, the violinists' hands becoming nothing but a blur from the rapid bowing. The orchestra members' faces crinkled by concentration, the rapid succession of each measure reached a point of chromatic suspended progression, only to return back to the frantic rapidity, ending in a clever pizzicato ending...
...first two pieces. In 24 variations for orchestra and piano, the musicians crisply passed the theme from one section to another with the vitality and enthusiasm that made the first HRO concert so appealing. The orchestra attacked each new alteration with unfailing skill, making the transition from treacherous pizzicato and spiccato sections into lingering waltz-like melodies seem deceptively easy...
...third movement waltz added a lighter note to the top-heavy symphony, and the interchange of pizzicato notes increased the diversity of texture yet again. By the final movement, the Andante Maestoso, one had seen fleeting smiles pass across the faces of more than a few HRO members, and the toll taken by the the grand volume sustained throughout the finale showed in the flailing of broken bowhairs in the orchestra...