A Piano Recital

Though Harvard is often called a dead end for performing musicians, one has escaped. Friday, a freshman, James Boyk, presented a brief, but full piano recital in Paine Hall. Boyk gave his program virtues student recitals usually lack: clarity in widely divergent styles, and assured control. He played the opening Fantasy in C minor by Bach at just the right speed. In a piece easy to muddle, Boyk avoided the temptations of slopping meat where only a staunch skeleton was appropriate.

The transition from Bach to Ravel's Payane pour une enfante defunte justified Boyk's bypassing the tradition of chronological order in programming. This unusual juxtaposition sounded natural, although the Ravel, both composition and performance. suffered by comparison with the Bach: the piece meanders, and Boyk lost the melody en route.

Beethoven's grand "Tempest" sonata (Op. 31, No. 2) dominated the program. Mr. Boyk's interpretation could be challenged here more than anywhere else. For example, he began at a Killing tempo, and it ended up wounding him; the first movement was too fast. While he had never swelled beyond a forte in the first two numbers of the program, here he used his six-foot build to advantage: the Steinway really stomped. Again in the third movement, an "Allegretto," Boyk travelled presto. As a result, he had to stretch rhythms at the crucial transitions. But the music's momentum carried the listener through in one long dash to a brilliant conclusion.

Whether or not Boyk intentionally programmed Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude to follow the "Tempest" sonata, the music unfortunately dropped from a storm to a drizzle. The Chopin prelude in D minor ended the program on a dazzling, but musically insubstantial, note. Chopin, though entertaining, cheapened the program.

If future student recitals, and particularly more by Mr. Boyk, offer more good music performed as well, perhaps they will attract the audience this recital deserved.