Word: scherchen
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...Alban Berg could not find an opera house willing to produce Wozzeck. On Hermann Scherchen's suggestion, Berg produced a three-movement suite about Wozzeck's mistress, Marie. From 1924 (the first performance date) to the present, the opera has remained Berg's most popular work all because of the initial spark provided by the suite. The public must have acted on faith to hail Wozzeck on the strength of the suite excerpts: they contain only a fraction of the tragedy and sarcasm that pervades the opera. The last suite movement in particular loses nearly all its power...
...Mass is no Mendelssohnian adaptation from the original. Careful attention was paid to ornaments, most noticeable in the brilliantly-played trumpet parts. Richter varied his tempi quite a bit though they were generally fast by standards of only twenty years ago (such as on the Scherchen recording of 1952). Richter had the courage to vary the tempi quite a bit to his taste. The bass aria Quoniam tu solus was taken very slowly. The horn playing in the obbligato solo to this aria is the best that might ever be expected. The soloist exhibited a precision of control that allowed...
...over-dotted rhythms of the overtures and in some imaginatively-ornamented solo passages. The flute and harpsichord playing, by William Bennett and Thurston Dart respectively, is first-rate. But this is just another rendition with tempos quicker than usual. If you are wearing out your old Herman Scherchen or Karl Ristenpart' discs, then this would be a good replacement...
Died. Hermann Scherchen, 74, Berlin-born conductor known as an indefatigable champion of modern composers, introducing works by Schoenberg and Hindemith when they were unknowns, who scorned U.S. orchestras as timid traditionalists, rejecting invitations for 35 years until 1964, when his five-part concert in Manhattan proved stunningly worth waiting for; of a heart attack; in Florence...
...Berlin's Deutsche Oper and Conductor Hermann Scherchen have brought Moses and Aaron out of the wilderness. Last week the Deutsche Oper's 318-member traveling company performed it for the first time in Rome. The staging, obviously, was an unrealistic but no less gripping realization of Schoenberg's directions. The orgy scene was a stylized ballet danced against a crazy-quilt backdrop of emotionally escalating designs beamed from a dozen slide projectors. The tragic conflict between Moses-who, unable to articulate his spiritual vision, symbolically chants rather than sings his role-and the worldly, silver-tongued...