Faculty Concert highlights music of all ages

The sounds of Paris filled the air of Finney Chapel this past Sunday as Oberlin's faculty chamber music series presented its third concert of the 1996-97 season. The recital featured both romantic and contemporary works that were masterfully rendered. An otherwise brilliantly played concert was disturbed by the departure of several audience members.

The afternoon's recital began with the Poulenc Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. This piece proved to be a very lively and interesting selection to open with. Poulenc's writing for the ensemble was highly effective as he exploited every sonority combination available to him. His alteration between pathos and chaos kept the audience members on the edge of their seats throughout the duration of the work.

Particularly noteworthy was the bassoon solo in the mysterious second section of the first movement, played effortlessly by associate professor of bassoon, George Sakakeeny. Teacher of oboe Elizabeth Camus did an equally admirable job, as did the rest of the sextet.

Perhaps the most aurally striking piece was Chansons Madecasses, a setting of three Evariste Parny poems by Maurice Ravel. The first setting, Nahandove, opened with an eloquent cello solo performance by Jay Humeston. Shortly thereafter, mezzo-soprano and assistant professor of voice, Lorraine Manz, entered accompanied by cello with rapid diction. One by one, the rest of the players entered adding to Ravel's hazy instrumentation. The opening cello solo returned at the end of the piece.

The second setting entitled Aoua! was a wild, seemingly crazed, jumbled yet profound movement. The recurring words in this movement translated from the French mean, "Beware of white men." Such a powerful statement was adequately portrayed in the music with Manz's frightening screams of apprehension.

Compare that harsh movement with the next setting, Il est doux, or, It is sweet. Ravel employed many unusual musical devices in this movement including a passage in which the cello was playing in the same upper register as professor of flute Michel Debost. This very surprising effect would be surpassed by an even more unexpected device. The end of the piece was tonally open or lacking a firm harmonic stability. As soon as the audience realized that the piece had ended, a hearty applause greeted the performers, followed by a brief intermission.

The final piece on the program was Chausson's Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet. Despite the piece's title the work essentially turned out to be a virtuoso concerto for violin which associate professor of musicology, Claudia Macdonald, executed flawlessly with both fire and passion. This work was very romantic in form. Chausson makes use of an extremely rich harmonic language allowing for a lush musical texture in this concerto.

The only fault of Chausson is that he became too absorbed in the romantic ideals. This piece, although very original and full of creative energy, was at times too long. It seemed like Chausson wrote music as if it were speech; when the ideas run dry, the speech - or, in this case, the movement - is forced to end. The music occasionally felt as if it were a run-on sentence. This was especially true of the first and third movements that seemed to go on ad infinitum.

During the following concerto, the movement's structure was somewhat unusual and abstract in style, which may have confused the audience. In fact, during both the Poulenc sextet and the Ravel mini song cycle, several audience members got up and left the concert not realizing that the recital was meant to be experienced as a whole and not as three separate pieces.

Those that did leave early missed out on the Ravel cycle and the Chausson concerto and disserviced the performers. Hours of dedicated rehearsal time and effort went into producing the best program possible, but was enjoyed only by the few who stayed.