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    Norman Carol, Violinist in Historic Concert in China, Is Dead at 95

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    The concertmaster and first-chair violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra for decades, he took part in a diplomatic breakthrough in 1973 with concerts in Mao Zedong’s Beijing.Norman Carol, a former violin prodigy who was first chair and concertmaster for the acclaimed Philadelphia Orchestra for nearly three decades, accompanying it on a history-making trip to China under Mao Zedong in 1973, died on April 28. He was 95.His death, at an assisted living center in Bala Cynwyd, a community on Philadelphia’s Main Line, was announced in a statement posted on social media by the orchestra. It was not widely reported outside the classical music world at the time.As concertmaster, tuning the orchestra and overseeing the string section, Mr. Carol served under the celebrated conductors Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti and Wolfgang Sawallisch.“He was dashing, comfortable, even swashbuckling as a leader,” Paul Arnold, a violinist with the orchestra, said in the statement. “His playing was bold, expressive and hall-filling.” Mr. Carol “went on to personally embody the ‘Philadelphia Sound,’” he added.That fabled sound, which emerged under Leopold Stokowski and took shape under Ormandy, the orchestra’s longtime music director starting in the 1930s, is built on “distinctive honeyed timbre” emanating from its strings, as the journal Classical Voice North America noted in 2015, along with softer attacks from the brass section and a more blended percussion approach.The orchestra’s sound became known around the world in tours of Europe and Asia during Mr. Carol’s tenure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Beijing Spring’ Review: The Politics of Aesthetics

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      This new documentary chronicles the movement for democratic artistic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China.Can art effect real change in the world? To this ever-urgent question, “Beijing Spring” — a new documentary about the titular movement for democratic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China — responds with a resounding yes.Directed by Andy Cohen with Gaylen Ross, the film focuses on the Stars Art Group, a collective of self-taught practitioners who seized on the tumult after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and deployed their art like Molotov cocktails. They circulated their paintings and literature via underground magazines; papered revolutionary poems and calligraphy on the famed Democracy Wall; and, most notably, mounted a show on the exterior of the National Art Museum of China after being denied permission to exhibit within.Rousing if somewhat schematic, “Beijing Spring” unfolds as a kind of art-history lesson: In interviews, the Stars look back wistfully on their work, which married ravenous experimentation — including abstract styles and nude figures violently forbidden under Mao — with strident political critique. Wang Keping’s sculpture “Idol” uses some canny detailing to turn a likeness of Mao into that of the Buddha, quietly excoriating the leader’s deification.But the most stirring parts of “Beijing Spring” showcase the power of the cinematic arts. The film weaves in long-unseen footage of the artists’ demonstrations that thrums with both history and stunning aesthetic beauty. Perched on a fence while dodging the police, the young cameraman, Chi Xiaoning, captured the thronging crowds with startling, intuitive immediacy.Cohen and Ross’s own filmmaking suffers in comparison to the crafts on display within the film: “Beijing Spring” assembles its materials into a by-the-book progression of archival excerpts and talking-head commentary, serving best as a primer on — rather than an embodiment of — the radical possibilities of artistic form.Beijing SpringNot rated. In Mandarin and French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More