Word: sonata
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Speck of Humanity. The overflow crowd in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall burst into applause when Violinist Oistrakh stepped from the wings. Then he and his longtime accompanist, Vladimir Yampolsky, began Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1. The whole first movement went by, muddled by Carnegie's overrated acoustics -or because of a debutant's jitters-before Oistrakh began to project the full voltage of his enormous musicianship...
...vibrato. In a concert full of lovely little touches-his method of approaching such an essentially meaningless figure as a trill was a joy to the sense of propriety-Oistrakh even managed to breathe warmth and dignity into the withered carcasses of Tartini's "Devil's Trill" Sonata and Ysaye's distraught Sonata-Ballade...
Another feature of the concert was the performance of two Baroque flute sonatas with the accompaniment of a harpsichord, played nicely by Sy Hayden. Flautist Eric Herz overcame some nervousness at the beginning of a sonata by Loeillet and went on to play Bach's Sonata in G minor with assurance. The work is a typical Italian trio-sonata structure enriched by Bach's genius...
...them have a solid enough appeal. String Quartet No. 1, by Russian-born Alexei Haieff (played by the Juilliard Quartet), is a gentle composition that makes the most of the ensemble's wispy, wistful potentialities. The piece is old-fashioned without embarrassment, sometimes uses modern techniques without effort. Sonata for Piano and Percussion is by one of the world's few women composers, Australia-born Peggy Glanville-Hicks, 42. A vigorous piece, it craftily blends the disparate instruments, but drives home its points, even in the lyrical slow movement, almost too insistently...
...Bartok: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (Rafael Druian, John Simms; Mercury). Written at Bartok's most dissonant period, in 1922, this rarely heard sonata bursts with haunting effects. It contains whole sections where adjacent notes sound sweet as a simple triad, others where the same kind of crowded combinations become strident and even brutal, and yet the whole mysterious piece works out as logically as a Haydn minuet. It is expertly played by the concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony and Pianist Simms...