Flutings and Floatings: A Concert of Music for Flute Composed by MIT Composers

Sunday, October 2, 2005, 7:30 PM
Killian Hall, MIT, Cambridge , MA

Flautist Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin, while perhaps best known as a member of the Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, is also a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Music Department. It was under the auspices of the latter that she appeared this evening, devoting herself exclusively to pieces by composers at this college.

The program was of varying quality, but at its best proved memorable. For flute/piccolo and percussion, Peter Child's Duo (1979) makes East Coast angularity sound delightful. There's plenty of variety in color and texture to go with the expected motivic tidiness and vertical consistency. Formats, while inspired by Neoclassic models such as preludes and two-part inventions, are expressed in a clever, non-prescriptive fashion. And a friendly yet energetic personality peeps through every measure of the score. The flute and electronics entity Law of Floating Objects (2000) finds Elena Ruehr taking Rite of Spring -inspired melodic lines and overlapping them into gorgeously evocative textures, allowing the whole thing to ooze subtly from one section to the next of an intuitive yet satisfying overall shape. Judicious underpinning of percussive sounds suggesting tablas and tambourines impart an exotic touch. Your reviewer had heard its premiere a few years back and is happy to report that none of its luster was lost the second time around.

The rest regrettably proved less enjoyable. Brian Robinson's Cats' Cradle (1995) was busy textured, liberally spiced with unexpected silences, and -- as might be expected from a piccolo-percussion-piano trio -- saturated with high tessitura writing. Charitable sorts may consider it a perpetual variation set, though the more discerning will likely find this eclectic composition spinning its wheels instead of going somewhere. A Tern's Flight (1995) for flute solo by Frederick Harris by and large consists of ostinato material cast in a jazz-tinged tonal idiom. But its block-like sectional delineation and naive manner of speech do not impress. John Harbison is a tonemeister who normally hits the mark squarely in his work, but sadly, his polytonal flute and string trio entry Six American Painters (2002) frequently gets bogged down in a bucolic ethos that does not compel. The artwork inspiring this opus demonstrates a saturated richness and at times menacing vigor that only rarely finds a musical analogue.

Hershman-Tcherepnin's playing was of top-flight capability, characterized by fleet-fingered technique, sensitive phrasing, and a sturdy, commanding tone. Percussionist Robert Schulz and pianist Yukiko Ueno proved excellent in supporting roles, though the three string players -- Lynn Chang (violin), Anne Black (viola), and Joshua Gordon (cello) -- did not always put forth exemplary intonation in the Harbison.

--David Cleary