Word: flute
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...resist adding grace notes of Puckish humor to the attendant figures, two angels and a faun. To visitors who came to see the all-but-complete figures in the studio, Milles did his tongue-in-cheek best to explain away the oddities: "Why is there an angel playing the flute? Horses love music, didn't you know? Why did I put the angel on one side? Don't you think God sends his people down to see what we are doing? The other angel has a wristwatch; I don't know...
Most of the numbers on the program came from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque. The major item, however, was the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, 'Cello and Harpsichord (1952) by Elliot Carter '30. The Piano Sonata (1946) marked the beginning of Carter's complete technical mastery. The present Sonata, which won the Walter W. Naumburg Musical Foundation Award in 1956, was written between two highly controversial and monumental works, the String Quartet (1951) and the Variations for Orchestra...
...four demonstrated considerable instrumental versatility. Mr. Brown, a virtuoso of long standing on the modern flute, also played several kinds of recorder. Mr. Fuller, a concert organist, here showed his skill on a rich-toned harpsichord built in 1955 by the local firm of Hubbard and Dowd. Miss Davidoff played both the 'cello and its quite different predecessor, the viola da gamba. Mr. Senturia, a first-rate oboist, also played on several sizes of recorder; and, in three pieces, he provided the chief novelty of the evening by performing on a krummhorn--a long obsolete, J-shaped woodwind with...
Still, on the whole, Carter handled well the many problems of timbre and balance presented by this odd medium, though in a few places he smothered the low register of the flute. The Lento was the most appealing movement, with its recurring effective series of chord clusters on the harpsichord and its busy, feathery middle section, which seemed to be Carter's idea of a modern Queen Mab scherzo...
...conductor of both works was Allan Miller, who stayed in firm command even when the going got rough. Among the instrumentalists, Joel Lazar's flute, Ralph Lane's french horn and Mr. Perkins' piano solos were particularly effective...