Word: brahmsians
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...first half of the program thrust us into intermission in the wake of a rather dreadful anticlimax, the Suite in B-flat for thirteen winds by Richard Strauss. This childhood product suffers from the uneasy mixture of a strong Brahmsian influence with overly thick scoring in all but the last movement. The work occasionally possesses a deep sable ambience characteristic of Strauss and is permeated with his incomparable horn writing, but the material is for the most part as boring as a bog. Strauss' penchant for opaque writing, as if he feels guilty when someone isn't playing, only redoubles...
Lassus' Psalmus Poenitentialis sounded like the least well-prepared work on the program. Instead of paying meticulous attention to the clarity and independence of each part, conductor Elliot Forbes treated the audience to gorgeous but amorphous Brahmsian sonorities...
...Mozart-Sussmayr Requiem complete, Adams had Robert Levin compose an Amen fugue to follow the sequence Dies irae. Levin's fugue was based on fragments left by Mozart which Sussmayr, for some obscure reason, preferred to leave untouched. Brief but masterful and prodigious, the fugue sported a long Brahmsian timpanum roll which acted as a tonic pedal bringing the fugue to conclusion. It was another plume for Levin's many chapeaux...
Stephen Addiss '57 contributed an optimistic little Allegro for Woodwind Quartet (1957). Based on a Brahmsian "ladder motive," it proved attractive enough, though rather monochromatic and pallid in effect...
...Mandelbaum wrote both the music and the libretto. His work is mostly a spoof on the conventional opera form, although in the course of an hour he also parodies Freud, 12-tone composers, science, and the self-made man. The music enlivened the parody, especially in a romantic mock-Brahmsian chorus to the text "The complete and utter destruction of the universe." Saturday night's performance suffered from inadequate rehearsals, but the general informality helped make the opera delightful...