Contemporary Music
The International Society of Contemporary Music opened its season at the Ninety-second Street Y. M. H. A. last night with a concert of major significance to those who are concerned with the evolution of music in its creativeaspect. A program confined to the music of Anton Webern is not only without precedent here, but would be a rarity anywhere, and is something to bepromptly noted in historical records. Even more important than this wasthe remarkable impression the occasion made, the wonderful sensitivityand taste that the music of the late Austrian composer maintained throughout, and the degree of satisfaction that a whole evening of his reticent, predominantly “sotto voce” miniatures was capable of offering.
More than a small part of the credit for this goes to the performers fortheir intimate knowledge and understanding of the music and the greatpains that had obviously gone into mastering its enormous difficulties. Jacques Monod who appeared both as conductor and as piano accompanistis clearly one of the best musicians around, and he brought staggering discipline and shading to his executions. Accompanying Bethany Beards lee intwo groups of songs without the aid of printed music was a sheer tour deforce. The young soprano for her part maneuvered the relentless vocalskips as if they were no more challenging than scale-wise passages, and herlight voice is extraordinarily suitable to the skips and gives a curve to their ostensible angularity.
The incomparable virtues of the New Music Quartet are thoroughly familiar by now, but the degrees of pianissimo it achieved last night, the precise values it gave to Webern's imaginative string coloration heightenedthis fine ensemble's stature. So also did the appearance as soloists of twoof its members, Broadus Erie, violin, and Claus Adam, cello, each of whomplayed with a polish far exceeding what we expect from ensemble musicians. It was an uncommon delight, too, to hear the bass clarinet, in the hands of Sidney Keil, played quietly and soothingly, and the clarinetist, Luigi Cancellieri, is also to be complimented.
It is only through performances of last night's caliber that we may cometo appreciate Webern's music, for its sparse constellations of notes are almost all about color, subtle variations of loudness and delicate balancing oftones widely removed in pitch. In traditional music such tones denoted climax, and the impulse is to play heavily. This impulse has been responsiblefor misrepresenting not only Webern, but also the other two members of
Webern is capable of making his point in as short a period as twenty seconds, as in the third of the Bagatelles for Quartet, Op. 9. It is as if a little, intensely personal confidence, rich in meaning, were whispered into ourear. The Five Canons, Op. 16, and Six Songs, Op. 14, reflected a bolder and more complex approach in Webern's middle period. The String Quartet, Op. 28, the latest work on the program, dating from 1938, had the longestmovements, and lasted in all about ten minutes. Webern had obviously bythis time exhausted the most minute rhythmic intricacies and had developed a style of evener note-values in which a single melody is shared insuccession by several instruments to establish what is, perhaps, his mostoriginal contribution.