Review Of Concert

Longitude

Tuesday, April 27, 2004, 8:00 PM
Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall, Longy School Of Music, Cambridge, MA

Tuesday’s concert by Longitude consisted of three obscure works by well-known names and a trio of items by lesser-knowns. While not every piece was a winner, there were enough worthy listens to tempt an audience.

Fare by two of the more obscure composers proved particularly pleasing. The Walls of Morlais Castle (2000), a mixed trio by Hilary Tann, deftly outlines an arch-like structure in which later sections superimpose the work’s two primary ideas. These materials, respectively plaintive and restless, prove highly evocative and compelling. And the composition’s harmonic language, tonal with leanings towards Bartok-style feistiness, is confidently handled. Paul Brust’s Elegiac (1989), scored for soprano and mixed quintet, was originally commissioned by the Alea III ensemble. Despite employing an Expressionist East Coast sonic universe, the vocal writing is excellently idiomatic and accompaniment textures are bracingly lucid. Dramatic and eloquent, it’s a fine listen.

By far the best utterance from an established tonemeister this evening, Thea Musgrave’s flute/oboe duet Impromptu No. 1 (1967) plows a convincing furrow traversing both serial pitch organization and free rhythmic notation. Melodic writing is fetching and architecture is both natty and non-standard.

The sins of the Duo for Flute and Piano (1961) by John Harbison can be chalked up to its fledgling composer’s groping to find a suitable style. His melding of Stravinskian neo-classicism and dodecaphonic pitch organization, infused with dollops of jazz, seems inelegantly forced—though the attractive manner of speech suggests good things for the future. For solo piano, Sofia Gubaidulina’s clangorous, grimly intense Chaconne (1962) comes across as plodding, too shackled by this format’s sectional nature to allow the music to breathe. And Lyric Trio (1983) by Kathryn Hoover regrettably incorporates not only Hindemith’s block-like rhythms and Milhaud’s polytonal harmonies but also the former’s stodginess and the latter’s superficiality.

Performances were fine, with special citations due for the vital readings of the Tann (oboist Susetta Dunn-Rockett, violist Roy Rudolph, and cellist Thomas Kraines), Gubaidulina (pianist Paul Jacobs), and Brust (conducted by its composer).

Mining in out-of-the-way places doesn’t always produce veins of ore—but in this case, ensemble director Brust and his charges were able to unearth some sizeable nuggets of listening pleasure. Received with thanks.

--David Cleary