Word: sonata
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Debussy: Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (Julius Baker, Lillian Fuchs, Laura Newell; Decca). This is one of the sonatas for various instruments that occupied Debussy in 1915, just before he learned that he was dying of cancer. It is a beauty. Its outlines are firmer than usual, but the darkling tones of the viola, the haunting, woody quality of the low flute, and the romantic harp are as ecstatic as ever. Performance: hard to beat...
...appearances. The second and third prizewinners would do almost as well, and even the next nine would reap fair-sized consolation prizes. As the finger-wringing elimination concerts wore on, contestants fell by the wayside under the demands of such compositions as a Vieuxtemps concerto, an Ysaÿe sonata, and a collection of "transcendentally difficult works...
...shorter works which filled out the program, a sonata by Johann Christian Bach, and Hinde mith's Sonate (1938) were delightful and superbly performed. At first hearing, the Hindemith revealed a compression of structure in which a few, simple ideas receives coherent, sometimes fascinating development, though within quite limited terms...
...short Bach sonata was tossed off at the beginning of the program almost in the spirit of a game, and its success was total. I cannot imagine a more perfect agreement on the spirit of a work and the gestures for its expression than the Kohns' attained in this piece...
These failings did not badly mar the Appassionata or the closing Beethoven Sonata Op. 111, but they seriously detracted from Brahm's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. This work is rarely performed, partly because of its extreme difficulty and partly because it represents a far more abstract approach than the familiar Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Levy's playing lacked the rhythmic urgency needed to keep the Handel set form foundering, in its own intellectual richness. And a lack of clarity first apparent in the swirling Appassionata finale let Brahms' Fugue become a hodge-podge...