THE MUSIC BOX

Vladimir Dukelsky, better known as Vernon Duke, the composer of the zestful. "Taking a Chance on Love," contributed a major part to the worst program presented in Cambridge this season by the Boston symphony orchestra. Described by its perpetrator as "having certain earmarks of the sonata form without being written in that form at all," his Concerto for violin and orchestra was a meaningless mass of dissonances which effectively disguised the technical ability of the soloist, Miss Ruth Posselt. The allegro molto seemed to lack any structural form and wandered aimlessly through a series of cacophonous variations on the first subject. The second movement, valse, combined an absurdly technical display by the soloist with a weak background on the strings. Several abrupt pauses in the final movement punctuated the variations on the G-minor theme. Noel Coward's description of Dukelsky's operetta "Yvonne" as "Yvonne the Terrible" might well be extended to include this concerto.

And there were no redeeming features in the other two selections on the program. Burgin's direction of Haydn's C-minor Symphony lacked the lustre and precision of a Koussevitsky' performance; the first movement of Mahler's Third Symphony was nearly as oppressive as the full six movements would have been. The evening proved conclusively that it takes more than a good soloist and a good orchestra to make a good program. R. C. N.