Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society

Tuesday's program of Baroque and modern pieces illustrated two current musical trends: revival of the 17th Century and the growing public interest in products of our own era. And the concert made it further apparent that concern for the present day has begun to outstrip our fascination with the esoteric past.

A Responsory(1952) by Rev. Russell Woolen ranked highest among the contemporary works. Taken from the Matins of Holy Thursday, it is unmistakably oriented toward the solemnity of Catholic worship. It is rather his modernistic freedom of line and rhythm that can suggest, without limitation, a style that was already perfect for hundred years ago.

Nearly as impressive was Karl Kohn's The Red Cockatoo (1954), based on three Chinese poems of extraordinary beauty. Lime Woollen, Kohn understands how to emphasize a world without a shout from the singers or an unnecessary consonance. The percussive piano solo functions as a commentary on the singing piano solo functions as a commentary on the singing and only rarely stoops to outright chinoiserie. The Monk from Shu is especially effective in its delicate evocation of "icy bells." The climactic poem, however, fails to give the work a proper finish. The fate of the red cockatoo in the poem is a half-bitter smile and shrug:

They took a cage with stout bars

And shut it up inside.

Kohn has made it a passionate catharsis, and the inappropriate spill of emotion at this crucial point vitiates the cycle as a whole.

The Tarentella (1937) of Randal Thompson uses a Hilaire Belloc poem dedicated to the temps perdu of greengrocers everywhere. Thompson's setting deliberately employs the most outrageous musical cliches; it satirizes the maudlin text, yet simultaneously renders it--however grudingly--a sympathetic validation.

While unusually skillful in difficult modern styles, the singers gave the early music somewhat second-hand treatment. Two choruses by Schutz and Sweelinek exhibited some of the worst tenor tone the Glee Club has ever offered. The sound of Carissimi's Jepthe seemed much richer, but it was still only a routine performance of a routine oratorio. The program's success, despite Baroque appendages, lay principally in the stimulating compositions of our own time.