TRIO SUPPLIES PLENTY OF FRENCH MUSICAL WIT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 11, 1993                   TAG: 9301110012
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TRIO SUPPLIES PLENTY OF FRENCH MUSICAL WIT
It was a day for Francophiles on Sunday when the Wind Trio of New York came to town. The oboe/bassoon/clarinet ensemble presented an afternoon program consisting almost entirely of 20th-century French works to a sparse crowd in Roanoke College's Olin Hall. The concert was the third in the current season from the Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society.
The trio is a splendidly professional group and made for a pleasant change from the usual round of string quartets and piano trios. Though this combination of instruments is uncommon in America, its peculiar sonorities and timbres were popularized in France earlier in this century by the famous Trio d'Anches.
Though the composers on Sunday afternoon's program belonged to various hostile factions in the French musical politics of the first half of this century, their music displayed certain family resemblances. Tangy, astringent harmonies, clean neo-classical lines, a Gallic wit and a refusal to take themselves seriously were all characteristic of these pieces.
Henri Tomasi's "Concert Champetre" offered oboist Thomas Gallant a chance to show off his abundant technique. Gallant's thin French tone and precise intonation made this little-known work a pleasure to hear. Especially lovely was the melancholy nocturne section.
The "Cinq Pieces en Trio" of Jacques Ibert were similarly airy and light, with lyrical moments that flowed like quicksilver. It was a fine musical reading due to the extraordinary ensemble of these players, who sound as if they've been together for decades.
The group did an arrangement of Mozart's Divertimento No. 1, K. 439a, which was originally intended for three bassett horns. This was the only non-French, non-20th- century work on the program.
The most unfamiliar piece on this program was the Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon of Georges Auric, a composer who was a colleague of Ibert and Poulenc. Auric's trio exemplified the wit and polish that are the strong points of this generation of French artists, though by the time it ended this reviewer felt as if he'd had several times his minimum daily requirement of Gallic irony.
Darius Milhaud's "Pastorale" was an oasis of un-self-conscious lyricism on this program. The gently flowing song-like lines of this work made it the loveliest piece of the afternoon.
Clarinetist William Reinert, who provided most of the commentary between works, performed alone in a section from Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time." The "Abime des oiseaux," or "Abyss of the Birds," is the strange and in places haunting product of Messiaen's time as a prisoner of war.
The final work on Sunday afternoon's program was the brief "Divertissment" of Jean Francaix, which dates from 1947.
The next Roanoke Valley Chamber Music concert will feature the Australia Ensemble on March 8.

Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB