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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Jan. 15, 1359
Can't Cram Culture
This is a culture-minded campus. Students and faculty both enjoy the many cultural activities sponsored by the School of Fine Arts and the University Theatre.
The majority of these musical and dramatic presentations are really worthwhile events. Either works of great renown and beauty are being offered, a performer or artist of high quality is here, or the blossoms of student creative efforts are on hand.
We can be proud of the extensive number of these events. KU receives great prestige from its high-quality program and everyone in the campus community can benefit from it.
The next, and satisfying, step will be the logical programming of these events. We have no quarrel with the quality or number of artists and productions. But we do defy the Fine Arts schedule-makers to choose more inopportune times to present their embellishments.
Take the past week for example. In eight days, Jan 7-14, the campus was blessed with five attractions.
A week ago Wednesday pianist Jan Chiapusso gave his Faculty Recital. On Friday, Cilli Wang made her appearance in the University Theatre, Sunday, the KU Band gave its semester concert. Monday the University Chorus sang Mendelssohn's "Elijah," and last night Rudolf Fir-
kusny joined the KU Concert Course in a piano recital.
This is a little too much before final week. Either students must ignore these attractive programs, or they must run themselves ragged studying in between events.
At other times the Fine Arts calendar announces programs in swaths of two or three at a time. One attending all of them can certainly foul up a weekend or muddle the mid-week study habit.
Of course, it is often hard to make other plans. The most advantageous time for large student groups to present their wares is at the conclusion of a semester, after the maximum hours of rehearsal have been utilized. Then we must consider that the University has almost no choice of dates when it contracts a professional to appear here. The schedule, being extensive, is pretty tight.
But since the current system hinders those who would like to attend all or most of the functions, a change is necessary. The students' schedules should be considered before the Fine Arts events are arranged.
Some area must give to support the change. It probably will have to be that of the student productions.
—John Husar
Democratic Executions?
Castro now is inviting American tourists to the beautiful island country of Cuba proclaiming that it is now a happy and free democracy.
But is is not entirely happy. So far at least 150 Batista supporters have been executed under Castro's rebel regime. Castro defends this by saying that they at least were given a humanitarian death instead of being tortured as his followers were while Batista was in power.
During a radio interview last week a man from South America said that Latin American revolutions are merely a means of changing governments just as we hold elections.
This seemed to be pushing the whole thing aside rather lightly. Enough men die during a revolution. Why must 150 more be executed? When was there time to hold trials for these men? And if there were no real trials how can it be called a democracy?
Until a government learns to live with its opposition it is not truly a free government. Certainly it has quite a ways to go before it becomes a democracy.
Editor:
In referring to Anonymous who wrote the letter which Martha Pearse quoted in Monday's Daily Kansan, I admit the KU male, as elsewhere, is a damned jewel.
...Letters ...
But perhaps it isn't all short-comings of the all-American boy. I use myself as an example,
(Editor's note; Miss Pearse's story concerned an anonymous letter supposedly from parents of a KU freshman woman who had complained about KU men.)
"I like wimmin," but I have to be well-beered before I would trade a cold bottle of Budweiser for a hot smooch or warm feminine companionship.
This is because the American female is still living in the preWorld War I days when the woman was a house pet and not the woman-of-the-world she is today.
Being a poor, struggling student,
I'll not squander my borrowed
funds on an animal that will be
making as much, or probably
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
more, money than I will in the future.
It seems that social obligations should go hand in hand with the financial benefits the rosy-faced modern beauty now enjoys.
Why shouldn't the female species call the male animal for a date to take in the town, a movie, some coffee, or even the local pub? The situation can be handled for a change is long past due. If little Jane wants a date, why doesn't she call someone for one?
"YES, I KNOW I'M GIVING TH' SAME FINAL THAT I GAVE LAST TERM — BUT THIS TIME I CHANGED TH' ANSWERS."
There is nothing degrading about being refused. I am every time I get beered up and I'm not discouraged vet.
If this is taken as merely another statement by the cynical KU male, it must be remembered that many a true word has been said in jest or through satirical comment.
Now that parents are complaining about the KU male, the next voices expected may come from grandparents, or better yet, the males complaining about themselves.
Abilene graduate student
Dick Moore
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
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BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Al Jones ... Editorial Editor
By Stuart Levine, Instructor of English
From listening to a few of his recordings, I had the impression that Rudolf Firkusny was guilty of that most basic of expressive faults, swallowing the ends of passages. After last night's concert in the University Theatre, I find myself confirmed in that opinion.
Mr. Firkueny is a superbly equipped pianist, but the effect of his performances is repeatedly ruined by this lack of care with the tail ends of phrases, especially technical phrases.
The effect reminds me of a comedian who would begin his sentences in a loud voice and then gradually trail off into a kind of double-talk which sounded almost like the real thing, although the listener could never quite make out what he was saying.
The program was taxing enough.
It opened with Beethoven's "Variations on a Theme by Salieri," an odd work, not methodical and symmetrical in the usual manner of the theme and variation, but rather crab-like and grotesque, almost as though it were a parody of the variation form. The effect it produces is one of going through the usual graceful procedures, which somehow come out, to steal Behrman's phrase, a "perpetual scherzo."
Next came the three "Intermezzi" and "Rhapsody" of Brahms' Opus 119, which the soloist handled very well. An enormous range of expression is called for, from the delicate B minor Intermezzo, or the sentimental slow section of the E minor, to the orchestral Rhapsody. Mr. Firkusny had a splendid variety of touch, and the work seemed to fit him nicely.
For all its well-worn cliches, the first movement of Chopin's "B Minor Sonata," Opus 58 was a magical thing in Firkusny's hands.
The performance was graceful, elegant and convincing, with just the right amount of rubato and an effortlessness which quite concealed the considerable technical difficulty.
Mr. Firkusny played the second movement tastefully, if a trifle slowly, but it is too hammy and rhetorical a section to be saved even by superb musicianship.
The finale, Presto, a show piece, was brilliant in this performance. Debussy's "Estampes" is pretty exotic stuff, and once again the pianist's good control of touch was in evidence.
You probably remember the old comment that, since Ravel's masterful orchestration, Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" doesn't sound right on the piano. Well, it does sound right, although to tell the truth I have never heard a pianist play it quite this way before.
Perhaps because he didn't want to sound like the familiar orchestral performances, our soloist did some unfamiliar things to the tempi. This made his reading fresh, if a little less convincing. He had his troubles in the last section—as though the ghosts of Hartmann and Moussorgsky were punishing him for his eccentricities in the first few "pictures," and as a result, the usual thunderous and soul-satisfying uproar at the close never came off. It's unplayable anyway.
As if to retrieve his dignity, Mr. Firkusny returned to play three encores impeccably, two by Chopin, and a third unidentified but dazzling.
I can listen to the man play turns and trills and "inside" runs all night long. I just wish he would round out phrases.
Increase Your Word Power
By Wilfred Funk
Check the word or phrase you believe to the nearest in meaning to the key word. Answers are on page 8.
(1) authenticity—A: signature, B: announcement, C: genuineness. D: creative work.
( 2 ) cuisine (kwe zeen')—A: cookery. B: household. C: dining-table equipment. D: fashion design.
( 3 ) composite (kom poz' it) — A solidity, B: compromise. C: strength. D: something made up of several parts.
(4) **intonation**—A: solemnity. B: inflection. C: modulation in music. D: emotion.
( 5 ) serenity—A: seriousness. B: calmness. C: shyness. D: gaiety.
( 6 ) *impact* (im' pakt)—A: forceful impression. B: solid mass: C: agreement. D: bruise.
(7) interception—A: encouragement. B: trickery. C: interruption. D: mediation.
( 8 ) **interjection**—A: exclamation.
B: argument. C: annoyance.
D: anger.
(9) **predecessor**—A: one who follows another. B: overseer. C: preconceived liking. D: one who precedes another.
(10) device—A: division. B: plan or scheme. C: imperfection. D: turning aside.
(11) disposition—A: pleasantness.
B: ousting or eviction. C: inclination. D: sworn statement.
(12) revelry—A; merrymaking. B: awakening. C: making known. D: wickedness.
(13) guiltyility—A: mockery. B: clumsiness. C: greed. D: quality of being easily fooled.
(14) felicity—A: ease. B: happiness, C: good nature. D: faithfulness.
(15) straits—A: need. B: rigidity.
C: harsh laws. D: sharp points.
(16) conciseness—A: extreme accuracy. B: fussiness. C: impertinence. D: brevity.
(17) ovation—A: flood. B: enthusiastic reception. C: confusion. D: banquet.
(18) adaptation—A: act of taking for one's own. B: imitation. C: act of fitting into an environment. D: surrender.
(19) detractor—A: instrument for plotting angles and lines. B: defamer. C: machine used for hauling. D: thief.
(20) reappraisal—A: act of complimenting, B: notification, C: re-estimation of values, D: taking away.
(From "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power," Reader's Digest, January 1959.)