THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music Review
SOURCE: BY PAUL SAYEGH, SPECIAL TO THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
THE NORFOLK Chamber Consort's final concert of the season - a program devoted to music by contemporary Virginia composers - was highlighted by consistently excellent performances, with the added advantage of the composers' presence.
The music itself was less consistent. If any generality could be inferred, it would be that classical music in the final years of the 20th century is more concerned with creating new and unique sounds, often to an arresting degree, than with expressive substance such as development and structure.
Adolphus Hailstork was represented by three compositions. ``Arabesques,'' scored for percussion and flute, began with a brief series of contrasting interchanges and ended in the union of the two instruments. The opening flute solo evoked Debussy's harmonies in ``Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.'' Laurie Baefsky was the expressive flutist, while Robert W. Cross provided the colorful percussion sounds.
Hailstork's other works, ``Impromptu I and II'' for solo harp, were also Impressionistic in tone. The pieces were given elegant interpretations by Elisa Dickon and Barbara Chapman. Hailstork's writing sounded idiomatic, and he credited his two soloists with helping him in this aspect.
Clarinetist and consort co-director F. Gerard Errante was both composer and soloist in the evocative ``Shadows of Ancient Dreams,'' for a variety of exotic instruments and an effects processor. The fascinating, improvisatory, non-Western sounds created a provocative atmosphere; the quiet, metallic sounds of the mbiraa were particularly effective.
Allan Blank's ``Selected Songs,'' to texts by Yeats and e.e. cummings, were dramatic, tonal and concise. Fay Putnam's performance was forceful, but the playful cummings songs could have profited from a less-strenuous approach. Blank is a professor of composition at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The ghost of Beethoven hovered over ``Janus Quartet'' by Judith Shatin, professor of music at the University of Virginia. The single-movement work, which included a quote from the Ninth Symphony, consisted largely of separate string-quartet gestures but seemed unable or unwilling to tie these together. Still, the quartet - Vahn Armstrong, Anthony DeMarco, Beverly Baker and Janet Kriner - gave an intense and energetic performance.
Margaret Brouwer's ``Chamber Concerto'' was the most ambitious piece on the program, even if its two movements did not seem totally comfortable with one another. With piano and percussion providing a background that at times recalled Bartok, the clarinet floated in and out, occasionally threatening to break into Gershwin.
The quick second movement featured a demanding solo that, while highly impressive for Errante's committed performance, included some sounds that were unpleasantly aggressive. Cross and Charles Woodward ably supported Errante, with Brouwer, composer-in-residence with the Roanoke Symphony and Washington and Lee University, conducting. by CNB