Chamber Music

The Adams House Music Society opened its concert season last Sunday afternoon with a heterogeneous program of chamber music. The first in a traditionally imaginative and informal series of concerts, it featured unusual combinations of instruments.

Although J. S. Bach did not indicate the instrumentation for his monumental Art of the Fugue, he would no doubt have been surprised to hear his opening fugue played by two trumpets, French horn, euphonium, trombone, and sousaphone. More appropriate to the group, and receiving a better performance, was a group of pieces by Johann Pezel, an early German composer of brass music for town bands. Although it was a pleasure to hear these seldom performed works, the group played with more gusto than polish.

Another unusual piece was a Suite for Flute and Guitar by Kaspar Furstenau, a contemporary of Beethoven. Its rather uninteresting music was partially redeemed by the sparkling flute playing of Karl Kraber, and the rare use of a guitar as the accompanying instrument. Richard Zaffron handled this part adequately, but with a curious disinclination to dampen a string once sounded.

Balancing the two novelties on the program was Beethoven's Trio No. 4, a very early work, which has much of the scope of Beethoven's later chamber works without their unity and continuity. Its effects, such as a too close imitation in the adagio, do not show the later Beethoven's sense of pace. This trio was handsomely and forcefully played by violinist David Hurwitz, cellist Walter Wheeler, and pianist Landon Young. They provided fine musicianship in a concert otherwise interesting only for its instrumental novelty.