Review of concert

A Musical Celebration of the Life of Gardner Read

Saturday, April 8, 2006, 5:00 PM
St. John's Church , Beverly Farms, MA

November saw the death of another longtime Boston-based tonemeister .   Gardner Read, former faculty at Boston University and esteemed author of such books as Music Notation , Thesaurus of Orchestral Devices , and Twentieth Century Microtonal Notation was the subject of a memorial concert on this occasion.   Given that his music is rarely heard here these days, it was good to encounter.

Unique among Beantown composers, Read cultivated an unabashed post-Impressionist style of writing.   A prime example is his Poem , Op. 31a (1935) for viola and piano.   Modal in sound, languid in tempo, and serenely contemplative in mood, it strongly presages the slow movements of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time with its ecstatic, long breathed viola lines and predominantly static piano accompaniments.   It's a warmly attractive listen.   A clutch of solo piano selections, Spider Monkeys , Op. 54, No. 3 (1942, from Driftwood Suite ), Petite Berceuse , Op. 74 (1947), and Tears , Op. 36, No. 1 (1935-36, transcribed from a voice/piano original by John McDonald) are colorist character miniatures redolent of Loeffler and Debussy.   The first of these is bouncy and playful, the others plushly atmospheric -- and all pleased much, as did a McDonald penned piece d'occasion titled Gardner Read His Exequy (2005).

The even earlier song cycle Four Nocturnes , Op. 23 (1933-34) for mezzo-soprano and piano is disarmingly simple, exuding hints of Broadway directness in its pages.   If one didn't know its composition date, one could be forgiven for thinking it to be a freshly minted New Tonalist opus.   It takes guts to lay oneself out so nakedly, and Read succeeds admirably here in his risk taking.   The relatively recent violin and piano duo Five Aphorisms , Op. 150 (1991), three of which were programmed this afternoon, show a bit more clangor while still having a strongly scalar sound exhibiting some tonal focus -- octatonic , whole-tone, and pentatonic collections are clearly audible.   The movements encountered effectively convey moods that are by turns forcefully agitated, icily haunting, and soothingly lovely.   First-rate stuff.

First-rate too were the performances.   Janet Packer (violin), Scott Woolweaver (viola), and John McDonald (piano) all possessed obvious technical fluency but harnessed it in service to exquisite musicality and tastefulness. Mezzo-soprano D'Anna Fortunato sang beautifully, capturing the uncomplicated artlessness of Four Nocturnes without conveying even a whiff of amateurishness; secure chest tones, a warm high register, and spotless diction predominated.

Judging from these selections, Read's music should be heard more often than it is.   Let's hope more of it surfaces on future Boston evenings.

--David Cleary