Christmas Concert

It was disappointing to see Sanders only half full for the H.R.O.'s Christmas concert of modern music. If the poor attendance was in main due to the fact that the program consisted entirely of works composed in this century, then this speaks ill for Harvard's intelligentsia. Certainly the first and last pieces on the program by Samuel Barber and Manuel DeFalla could not possibly be considered "difficult" works and, to those familiar with Schoenberg's atonal period and the orchestral songs of Mahler, the Octandre by Edgar Varese, the French avant-garde composer and the Four Orchestra Songs by a young American, Benjamin Cutler, should not have posed insuperable problems of listening. More importantly, perhaps, they all provided ample opportunity for the orchestra to demonstrate its improved technical virtuosity and musical sensitivity.

Samuel Barber's Adagio for String Orchestra, the second movement of his String Quartet, Opus 11, which he later reorchestrated, was performed by the entire string section of the H.R.O. This lush work, somewhat trite in its impassioned repetitiousness and a bit too derivative in its handling of thematic material, requires much control of intonation and dynamics. The strings met its challenge well and, by the enormous crescendo near the end, their tone fairly shimmered with intensity.

A small brass and wind ensemble (augmented by a lone bass viol) had far greater problems to overcome in Varese's Octandre, composed in 1924. One of the major difficulties of this score is that it depends for its effect almost entirely on subtle variations of volume and orchestration for its effect. Moreover, it is written without much care for the capacities of the individual instruments and makes enormous, almost unattainable, demands on the rhythmic accuracy of the players. It is certainly not an aggressively unpleasant work and some piquant arrangements of the brass sonorities were intriguing. Yet, the work seems not, even after several hearings, to have justification for its length or most of its peculiar characteristics. The performance suggested that Mr. Senturia had steered the group well through the score's most complicated sections. Only a lovely oboe introduction to the first movement by Carl Schlaikjer seemed anything more than competent. But then, in this piece, a competent performance constitutes a major achievement in itself.

The four songs of Mr. Cutler, who is now a graduate student of composition at Brandeis, were finished two years ago and sound a bit adolescent, a bit melodramatic. They center around the ambitious subject of death and, from their excessive use of tremolos in the strings punctuated by over-orchestrated fortissimo chords, one gathers that Mr. Cutler's concept of death is merely a scary mood, not unlike the effect of the most terrifying sections of a horror movie. The pseudo-meaningful verses by that overrated American poet, Kenneth Patchen, do not help the listener in his attempt to grasp the unprofound programmatic idea that Mr. Cutler seems to have had in mind. Yet, in spite of this immature approach to the subject that Mr. Cutler chose to pursue, the last two sections show that he has a fine control of the resources of an orchestra. The orchestral song based on a death in wartime is stunning and gripping in its controlled hysteria. The H.R.O. and Mr. Senturia acquitted themselves well as they put the often unrelated elements of Mr. Cutler's score into shape. The soloists, Jenneke Barton and Thomas Beveridge, kept on pitch throughout and negotiated their at times pointlessly demanding music with skill.

The second half of the program was devoted to Manuel De Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with Luise Vosgerchian as piano soloist. This luminous work, which uses the piano more as a part of the orchestra than does a formal concerto, combines evocations of Spain and its festive music with the muted orchestral transparencies of French Impressionist compositions. The orchestra and its marvellously accomplished soloist gave the work a stunning reading. The rapport between them was evident from the first and, throughout both Mr. Senturia and Miss Vosgerchian brought out DeFallas alteration between Latin passion and delicate poetry with judicious phrasing and well-varied tone coloring.

The most radical works on the program were not too successful, it is true but, even here, Mr. Senturia is to be heartily congratulated for his determination not only to present them but to present them as well as he did with an undergraduate orchestra. Those who let the program keep them away not only missed some engaging music but also missed a further demonstration of the H.R.O.'s increasing capabilities.