MUSIC BOX

Last Sunday's program was probably the best so far in the current season of Sanders Theatre Concerts, at least from the standpoint of technical perfection. Georges Laurent demonstrated his marvelous precision and control of the flute by playing three difficult virtuoso numbers in succession. The Mozart quartet, K. 285 and the Roussel Serenade, Op 30 were played in combination with a small string ensemble; the Three Pieces by Walter Piston was a woodwind trio,--flute, clarinet, and bassoon. This composition, one of Piston's earliest, has a humorous grotesqueness and vitality apparently much appreciated by the Cambridge audience, for it received more applause than any other on the program, Dr. Piston rising twice to acknowledge it.

The second half of the program was the long and complex Beethoven Septet, consisting of a string quartet with three wind instruments added, which was performed with a perfect balance and dynamics hard to attain in so large a group without a director. I venture to predict that so perfect a program will not be heard in Sanders Theatre until the last of the series on August 29, when Richard Burgin will conduct another small string ensemble.