Word: bache
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Scarlatti-Tommasini: The Good-Humored Ladies; Bach-Walton: The Wise Virgins (the Concert Arts Orchestra, Robert Irving conducting; Capitol). Two ballet scores, dating respectively from 1917 and 1940. The Ladies, adapted by Italian Composer Vincenzo Tommasini from the works of Scarlatti, is airy, bright, bubbling, and contains scarcely a note that does not please the ear. The Virgins, adapted from the works of Bach by England's William Walton, is unfailingly evocative of a less harried time. Neither of the ballets survives as a stage work, but their music deserves a better fate-and gets it here...
Three of the four compositions on the program were each highlights, and this suggests how remarkable the concert was. Understandably, the Bach Society Orchestra playing Bach's fourth Klavier concerto in A major was a fine show. Luise Vosgerchian, soloist and preceptor of music in the Department of Music, seized the concerto firmly in hand and gave it an energetic and clear performance. Miss Vosgerchian and conductor Layton worked together very closely; the taperings at the ends of phrases and changes in dynamics, for example, fitted together like fine-tolerance metal work. Although the second movement (Larghettoo) may have been...
...expected an equally precise performance of Haydn's Symphony No.6, "Le Matin," since this work requires agility from the woodwinds and brass as well as the strings, and relies on soloists within the orchestra. But, in fact, the Haydn came off at least as well as the Bach. After a slightly sluggish start, Layton moved the orchestra onto the solid, fully-packed tone one looks for in a classical symphony. Layton followed what seems to be the current musical fashion and took all the repeats. Unfortunately, by repeating Haydn's musical joke in the last movement four times, he killed...
...size of Layton's orchestra kept him from playing any Romantic works; the other half of Friday's brief program included works by Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives. In its New England premiere, Stravinsky's Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa received a bludgeoning the Bach Society had not intended to give it; someone in the orchestra arrived after the concert had begun. Naturally the counterpoint had strange empty spots. Monumentum, composed in 1960 on Gesualdo's four-hundredth birthday, is essentially an alteration for chamber music of three of Gesualdo's madrigals. Even if one makes allowances for what...
...Bach Society Orchestra advertises at least two more concerts this year. The first is certainly a convincing argument for buying a season ticket...