Twentieth Century Chamber Music

Friday's concert in the Kirkland House JCR was an example of the quiet, unsung side of Cambridge musical life. There couldn't have been more than 25 people in the audience; nevertheless, Joan Fuerstman (mezzosoprano), Patricia More head (oboe), and Philip More head (piano) provided an evening's entertainment that was totally enjoyable and had all the virtues that more ambitious musical efforts here often lack: modesty, musicality, and ingenuity.

The concert's most attractive feature was a program devoted to music of the twentieth century--and there wasn't a chestnut within hearing. Some of the works were by composers whose names are quite unfamiliar (Maurice Ohana and Alexandre Hrisanide); others were of more familiar authorship but were themselves infrequently performed works.

The first half of the program concentrated on music of Francis Poulenc. The Sonata for oboe and piano dates from 1963 but is firmly rooted in the French neo-classicism of the twenties and thirties. The second movement even sounds a little like Gershwin.

La Travail du Peintre (1957) is a cycle of seven songs on poems by Paul Eluard, each of which portrays a painter of this century: Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miro, Villon. Despite their date, they, too, hearken back to an earlier period and have a great deal in common with the songs of Faure. Miss Fuerstman, who is studying for a Masters in voice at the Manhattan School, failed to achieve a sense of phrasing in the more declamatory songs; elsewhere, however, she exhibited a rare blend of spirit and control. Both compositions of Poulenc suffered from problems of balance.

Adventurousness was the word for the second half. Ohana's Neumes* (the asterisk is part of the title) for oboe and piano (1965) was alternately elegiac and expressionistic, contrasting long expressive oboe lines with fistand palm-technics for the piano. Hrisanide's A la Recherche de la Verticale (also 1965) utilized the noise-making as well as tone-producing capacities of the solo oboe, featuring effects such as clicking keys, blowing on a reed without oboe, and blowing through oboe without reed. The clicking-key effect got longer with each recurrence and, coupled with the title, apparently had some sort of mystical significance.

Joan Fuerstman's dark yet well-focused mezzo-soprano was the highlight of the evening. Besides the Poulenc she sang Ravel's Deux chansons hebraiques, which contrasts the rhapsodically set Hebrew poetry of the "Kaddish" with the simple Yiddish wisdom of "L'Enigme eternelle." She closed the program with a performance of the Siete Canciones populares Espanoles of Manuel de Falla. Both works date from 1914 and were perfectly suited to her expressive temperament. She performed them with an unostentatious professional polish that was pleasing to hear.

Special credit should go to pianist Philip Morehead for assembling the program and arranging to have it performed at Harvard. On leave from the Music Department this year, he will be returning in the fall as the music tutor of Lowell House. If Friday's concert was a preview of his plans for next year, music lovers have great deal to which they can look forward.