Word: harping
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Zabaleta rippled out a notable program anyhow. Instead of the usual keyboard music arranged for the harp, he played nothing that was not written specifically for his instrument. Instead of misty sound effects and undulating glissandos that have become a trademark of harp performances, he played clean-cut melody and counterpoint. High point: Hindemith's Sonata (1939), with its ear-twisting harmonies and Celtic echoes...
...Zabaleta is too well established to suffer from the silence of the Manhattan press. Basque-born (he now makes his home in Puerto Rico) Zabaleta has been a student of the harp since seven, a recitalist since 22. After early successes in Europe, he turned to Latin America, and has made more than 1,000 appearances there, but only after an interval of bad luck: he had barely started when he caught a fungus infection in his fingers. For four years he was limited to teaching (in the Caracas conservatory). But "I do not have the teacher's mentality...
Since there was little available music for solo harp and he has "no ability for composing" either, Zabaleta decided that he must uncover music written for the harp rather than resort to arrangements. For a year and a half he searched the libraries of Europe, turned up some surprising finds, e.g., harp music by one of Bach's sons, by Beethoven, Handel and Faure, as well as by early Spanish and French composers. That still left one gap: the moderns. To fill it, Zabaleta began badgering living composers to write for the harp. So far, six concertos have been...
Next after his recital, Harpist Zabaleta will make a record (for Esoteric), then load his harp into an airplane and take off for a month-long Caribbean concert tour. After that he heads for more recitals in the U.S. Northwest and Alaska...
Just what authoress Jane Bowles is groping for in here trellisted summer house, a real Child's Garden of Freud, is difficult to imagine. Her characters are strays from the snake-pit, her dialogue is obscure, and the play is wildly incoherent. With cery strains from a vibra-harp introducing the scenes and occasionally backing the dialogue, the play is something for a Grenwich Village theatrein-the-round. Even in this setting, however, the play might be poorly received, since the obscurity seems hardly worth penetrating and often embarrassingly silly. In the Summer House, in fact, has many inadvertently funy...