The Music Box

As the closing feature of the three day symposium of music criticism, Martha Graham and her dance company staged two ballets, "Dark Meadow," with music by Carlos Chavez, and "Night Journey," with music by William Schuman, Saturday evening at the Cambridge High and Latin School. Both works were commissioned for Miss Graham, who was the author of their choreography, by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of Congress. "Dark Meadow" had been presented before, but Saturday night's audience was the first to witness "Night Journey."

A music reviewer discussing a new ballet must limit his comments mainly to its musical aspect. The subject of "Night Journey" is the Jocasta of the Oedipus legend foreseeing her destiny. It is a theme of dark and unrelieved tragedy, and its prevalent emotional atmosphere is reproduced with general conviction on Mr. Schuman's score. The score is expertly wrought in the treatment of its musical ideas, and in the atmospheric contribution of its scoring and instrumental hues. It gives a sense of portentousness, while it seemed at times rather less revealing of the full scope of the emotions of the protagonist of the drama in these climactic moments. It gives a sense of the individuality and of stylistic coherence, but also has some measures which give a certain sense of reminiscence, while seldom of specific influences. One wondered whether, if heard apart from its choreography, it would sustain interest at a constant pitch--in the impression of a first hearing the use of the musical ideas is stronger than the ideas themselves--but then it should be considered primarily as an essential part of the dance drama as a whole.

Mr. Chavez's music reveals the expressive content of its choreography in general, if not unvarying success; it has both discreetly employed dissonance and pungency and melodic inventiveness. Sometimes it gives a sense of conventionality as well as of skill, while the closing episode provides some of the most expressively persuasive measures of the score.

Louis Horst conducted the orchestra. The sets were designed by Isamn Noguchi. Miss Graham appeared in both works, with May O'Donnell, Erick Hawkins, and Mark Hyder as her fellow principals.