Claremont Group Plays Middleton, Haydn, B'thoven

A concert by the Claremont String Quartet, presented last evening in Sanders Theatre, was the first in a series of special events sponsored jointly by the M.I.T. and Harvard summer schools.

The novelty on the program was the first local performance of the String Quartet in E (1950) by Robert Middleton '43, assistant professor of Music at Vassar College and a member of the Summer School faculty. Cast in three movements, this is an attractive and conservative work, readily accessible on first hearing. The traditionally shaped first movement is graceful and neoclassical.. The second movement, somewhat more adventurous stylistically, offers a theme and several clearly separated variations. The finale is bright and perky, with much the character of a scherzo.

Haydn, the first great master of the quartet medium, was represented by his Quartet in G Major, Opus 77, No. 1. Although composed in his last years, it is a fresh and daring work. The four musicians--violinists Marc Gottlieb and Vladimir Weisman, violist William Schoen, and 'cellist Irving Klein--performed it with a fine sense of ensemble and suitable restraint; in fact, the 'cellist tended to be too restrained. The first two movements went particularly well.

The concert concluded with Beethoven's Quartet in F Minor, Opus 95. This is the last quartet from the composer's middle period. Beethoven labeled the work "quartetto serioso," an apt designation belied only by the racing Rossinian coda to the last movement.

Here the players were not so successful. There is a lot of electricity in this highly compressed work, and it never really flashed as it should. None of the musicians has what could be termed a big tone; and each of them tried to hide the fact by forcing his tone to the point of buzzing. This resulted in harshness rather than playing of tang and guts. The more restrained music of Haydn is obviously their proper dish of tea.