Word: rachmaninoff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Scheduled to come on during the second half of the program to play the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. I (which, along with the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 3, is still his big showpiece), Cliburn artfully delayed his appearance for several suspenseful minutes after the lights went down. Finally he strode boyishly out, all arms, to thunderous applause...
...Basch-Reisinger Museum the program of recorded music, 1-2 p.m. next Monday through Friday, is Schubert's Impromptus, selections from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (related to works of art), Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead (related to works of art), Satie's Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pair (related to works of art), Mozart's Symphony no. 36 ("Linz"), and Beethoven's Symphony...
Roamin' in the Gloamin', one of his most popular tunes, and a 1911 track by that "loud, cheerful noise," Sophie Tucker, in which she belts out Some of These Days in a voice already impressively seamed and corrugated. The piano selections by Rachmaninoff (Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, recorded in 1919) and Moriz Rosenthal (various Chopin Preludes, recorded in 1929) are less successful, chiefly because the early acoustical method of recording tended to blur the percussive piano sound. But Rachmaninoff's glittering technique is there, and so is a remarkable and ornate cadenza that is preserved...
...Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 (Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Sanderling; Artia). When it received its premiere in 1897 in St. Petersburg, the First Symphony was so violently unpopular that Composer-Critic César Cui nominated it for first prize at "a Conservatory in Hell." Rediscovered in 1945, it proves no more shocking to modern ears than Richard Rodgers' Victory at Sea. A romantic but vigorous work, it gives little hint of Rachmaninoff's later rhapsodies. The Leningrad Philharmonic is properly muscular...
...violent passages-notably during Sonata No. 6, when he flailed the keyboard with a clenched fist-Richter drew forth a tone that was warm instead of strident, as full of shadings as a guttering candle flame. Later in the week Richter offered programs including Haydn, Schumann, Debussy and Rachmaninoff, playing each one with the uncanny air of direct communication that he conveys better than any other pianist alive. Under Richter's hands, even Debussy's much-abused Clair de Lune looked like a new moon. Wrote an all-but-wordless critic, the New York Herald Tribune...