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March 16, 1968 - Image 2

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The Michigan Daily, 1968-03-16

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Page Two

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Saturday, March 16, 1968

Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, March 16, 1968

music
Cliburn, the Manager's Dream, Earns His Billing

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By R. A. PERRY
The Power of the Press does
more than win votes, accuse the
suspect, and sell tuna fish; it.
creates our various culture-heroes.
Not surprising therefore, people
who would never come to another
concert this year swarmed through
heavy rains to fill Hill Aud. in
order to hear and see Van Cliburn,
the young pianist who showed
the Russians.
Van Cliburn is a concert-man-
ager's dream, for he allows, by the
assured security of his box-office
sellout, other concerts to take
place at inevitable financial loss.

The regular concertgoer thus may
be a bit annoyed by the constant
passing back and forth of binoc-
ulars or the strange man dozing
down the row at this Special Oc-
casion, but he must silently say
thanks, along with musical society
director Gale Rector, who is mak-
ing up for previous deficits.
The question, of course, re-
mains: did success spoil Van Cli-
burn; the answer is not a simple
one. He openly will have little of
the precipient adoration, and in
his own way, is rude to the audi-
ence. He wants no fuss, and before
the crowd is hushed, or even seat-

ed, he has begun the piece at
hand, has begun sometimes, before
his own posterior is on the bench.
Between pieces, he takes no walk-
offs or three ovations, but with a
smile and a nod, begins the next
piece. He has clearly come to
make music.
One wonders though if this no-
nonsense, non-sentimental ap-
proach has not taken its ironic
toll. Van Cliburn is a mighty
pianist with a thoroughly mascu-
line approach; his technique is
polished and graceful and he uses
it not really to shape the music
but to strongly declare the music's

rhetoric and poetry. He might I played the Sonata Opus 26 by I plays not as if he himself is cre-

4

Micallef: A Buckley with Blues

By BOB FRANKE
Professional singer-songwriters
have few places in which to start
out nowadays. The small clubs
are being froten out of business;
established performers prefer to
give concerts - they're more lu-
crative and less physically taxing.
So when singers like John Mic-
allef (who? you've spilled your
orange juice, Edna) plays a, well-
known club like the Canterbury
House, you go see him initially
with the words "support your
local poet" bouncing around in
your mind, and a sense of cur-
iosity.
But Micallef deserves more than
that' He's not only worth seeing,
but worth paying to see. His songs
are a sensitive outgrowth of the

contemporary blues-derived music
scene, and he is more than a
good enough singer and guitarist
to bring them off without any
pretension.
John's high, well-controlled
tenor voice, the subject matter
of his songs (the man-woman re-
lationship, mostly), and occasion-
ally his guitar style make it a
great temptation to compare him
with Tim Buckley. He is as good
a singer as Buckley, certainly.
As a guitarist, he is technically
better. Buckley strums with en-
ergy, finesse, and a cerain in-
ventiveness; Micallef does this
and plays a fine, clean blues
guitar. John's songs are closer
to the blues than Buckley's; then
again, some of them are harmon-

ically reminiscent of Tim Hardin.
The lyrics of his songs, like
those of Buckley's (and a lot of
people's, these days), abound in
descriptive similes of the "can-
yons of my mind" type, some of
which work well, but most of
which are hard to get into simply
because there are so many of
them so close together.
There are some fine touches
of irony in Micallef's songs, and
now and then a particularly good
insight ("she doesn't want to
have, she wants to be").
But, like many of Buckley's
songs, Micallef's tend to trap
themselves below the level of art
because they show more of what's
going on in Micallef than what's
going on in all of us, making in-
rospection and self-expression
ends rather than means to the
creation of beautiful things that
are universally human. In this,
it's a matter of degree, and Mical-
lef is a little farther back along
the line than Buckley.
Regarding the performance it-
self, the comparison fails. Buck-
ley's got a band, and can oper-
ate on a much higher level of
excitement; sometimes you won-
der when he's going to go into a
James Browncape routine. Mical-
lef doesn't have one and, instead
he puts his own personality
across with a pleasant kind of
low-key humor that doesn't al-
ways sustain the attention that
he deserves. His thing without
a band is good enough to make
you hope that he makes it to the
point where he can afford one.

well compare to Alfred Brendel in
these respects, in the virile ap-
proach, but for all his ability to
excite aurally, he lacks a certain
tenderness that can move one
deeply.
The varied attributes were pos-
sibly most apparent in Cliburn's
performance of Beethoven's Opus
31, No. 3 sonata, a work that starts
out in the realm of Mozart and
at its conclusion, reveals the sonic
massiveness and daring of the
major Beethoven.
The opening Allegro was all
sweetness and light, exquisitely
played with manual dexterity,
clarity, and finesse. In the inner
movements, however, one became
aware of the pianist's reluctance
to linger over and love the music,
and even if one found in this an
admirable intellectual dignity, one
might stilltdesire a greater use
of rubato to create a tension in
the musical line.
Two Brahms rhapsodies were
given forth with wonderful energy
and authority. Cliburn's propen-
sity for the big poetic exclamation
found just cause here, and he re-
vitalized pieces that so often sound
like a warmed over Romantic mul-
ligatawny. So great was his driv-
ing home the major episodes that
bridge passages and quieter mo-
ments somehow seemed to exist
only to anticipate the returning
themes.
For the third major work, he
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Samuel Barber, a composer of
much wit and lyric inventiveness.
This sonata, presenting a perfect
tableau for Cliburn's inclinations,
held much rhetoric whose portents
I did not always understand, but
it also contained much melody in
the sparkling facets of chromatic'
coloration, gems encrusted in the
larger masses of sounds.
The three final Chopin works
illustrated again that Van Cliburn

DELI * HOUSE
Resumes

I

ating the music, but rather as if
he is stating the given in a bold
poetic manner. He neither plastic-
ally shapes the flow of phrasing to
any remarkable degree, nor does
he pay great heed to a structural
overview; straightforwardly but
strongly he articulates the phrase
at hand, almost as if the music
were film pulled beneath his fin-
gers, film to which he must give
sound.

IVl-V-O

Sat. 11:00-1 :00, $un. 1:00

SUNDAY at 5:30 P.M.

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JurLus Th AMIY
PLAYS 7
WACKY YOUTH MATINEE
RL ES ALL SEATS 75c

GODARD CANCELLED
His recent film "La Chinoise" will be shown
sponsored by CINEMA GUIILD-Mon 7-9
"CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS" resumes Tues. 7-9:15

Sat.-3-5-7-9:15-11:20

Sun ,-3-5-7 -9:15

$1.00 members
1429 HILL STREET

$1.50 Qthers
ALL WELCOME

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dip the chicken in
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TODAY
from 1 P.M.

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"Exquisite is only the first word that surges in my
appropriate description of this exceptional film.
absolutely gorgeous. The use of
music and, equally eloquent, of
silences and sounds is beyond ver-

John Micallef

FOURTH BIG WEEK!

bal description.
performances
perfect-that is
only word."-B
Crowther, New1
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ACADEMY
AWARD
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SWn en by igDNEWW and RDBER EdIN Produced b WARREN8 EAlY- Oiwctedry ARTHUR PNN
TECHNICOLORO PROM WARNER PROS.-SEVEN ARTS
See Feature at 1:00-3:00-5:00-7:05-9:10

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sometimes truth is

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Written and directed by Bo Widerberg. With Thommy Berggren and Pia Degermark.
Winner, Best Actress.1967 Cannes Festival. A Bo Widerherg-Europa Film Production.

-,

SUNDAY Matinees are
not continuous

I

Next: "COP-OUT"

Dial NO 2-6264
(

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r

'INEMA I11
RICHARD HARRIS
RACHEL ROBERTS
in
"THIS SPORTING LIFE"
Internatonal Film Critics Prize & Richard
Harris, Best Actor, Cannes Film Festival, 1963
ALSO: Chapter 10

1AWARD
NOM11NATICONS!
- BEST PICTURE
" BEST ACTOR DUSTIN HOFFMAN
" BEST ACTRESS ANNE BANCROFT
JOSEPH E.LEVINE s BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
MIKE NICHOLS KATHERINE ROSS
LAWRENCE TURMAN ., *BEST DIRECTOR
* MIKE NICHOLS
- BEST SCREEN
// /\~,,PLAY
,rf . BEST
CINEMA-
TOGRAPHY
GRADUATE
ANNE BANCROFT.NDUSTIN HOFFMAN - KATHARINE ROSS
. ....... .-, . fx m ll 1ik n~ AiI llAnn i

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