Harvard Composers

Three organizations--the Adams House Music Society, the Music Club, and WHRB--sponsored a concert of music by Harvard composers last Wednesday.

Two pieces for piano by Ivan Waldbauer 2G, though emotionally neutral, had at least the merits of consistent style and logical writing. John Bavicchi 2G and David Hughes provided the instructive picture of two men trying to be different--but in very different ways; Mr. Hughes by a weak and half-hearted reversion to an old musical style and form and Mr. Bavicchi by an aggressive rejection of the ideals of melodic and textural beauty evolved in the subsequent history of this style. Such a rejection is of course not uncommon in contemporary music but some glimmer of compensation is expected in such cases. I saw none in Mr. Bavicchi's Sonata for Two Pianos. Passages of elementary and conventional sentimentality were occasionally introduced only to be brutally transformed into sequences of unrelenting harshness. Abrupt shifts of mood and rhythm marked no inventive richness; rather, they seemed indicative on one composer's inability to develop any one thought. Any unique merit may well be missed in a first hearing and I hope I may have a chance to re-evaluate this piece.

Mr. Hughes' Sarabande for violin and piano alluded to a number of styles from Bach to Bloch and made none of its own. Not even the instrumental writing showed great expertness although one uninspired performance may have conveyed this impression.

Antony Bonvalot's settings of three odes of Horace belong in an altogether different class from the preceding works. Each of the odes has is distinctive medium in one it is the visual evocation of a dramatic scene, in another a philosophic monologue, and in the last the very experience of the poet's madness.

How complex and rich must be the devices of a composer who would attempt to capture all this. The melodic declamation must match the mood of the narrator (and in these odes the poet always speaks in the first person). The piano writing must reflect the external scene--now the roaring sea, now the realm of abstract speculation, now the very power of Bacchus. In all these shifting moods the composer's emotional intensity must be just a degree less than the poet's; the musical setting must heighten, not dwarf the spirit of the poetry. Finally, there is the language--the cool, stark quality of Latin in this case--to render beautiful, Mr. Bonvalot's settings fulfilled these qualifications to a remarkable dgree. The power and intelligence with which Mr. Bonvalot, one soloist, conveyed both the dramatic and musical aspects of the work further contributed to their overwhelming impression upon me.