Murky Midnights

THE HRO DID everything but sell popcorn last Friday night. Its fourth annual Midnight Concert, a late-night supper of light, easily-digestible music, strove too hard for broad mass appeal. The program--the most commercial work of Benjamin Britten, the showiest piece of Debussy, and one of the plainest concertii of Mozart--was all butter and no salt.

The orchestra sounded terrific on Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," especially during the unnerving exposure of its long section of solo variations for each instrument. Debussy's "Iberia" brought out the HRO's characteristically rich, warm sound and some beautiful wind solos, and its supporting part in Mozart's Second Horn Concerto was cleanly accented and clearly phrased.

The problems stemmed from the lateness of the hour and the fact that the material wasn't much to work with. "The Young Person's Guide" brilliantly serves its original function--that of musical back-up for a children's documentary on the instruments of the orchestra--and is even a catchy enough piece in its own right. But the narration, rarely leaving the level of "And now, here's the Big Bass Drum," was clearly written for children and is a pointless text for this audience. Even Professor John Finley's gracious reading couldn't help but bog down the action and make us feel that it was getting past our bedtime.

Mozart's Second Horn Concerto is a thematically and harmonically uninteresting work, and soloist Charles Kavaloski--principal horn with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and HRO alumnus--did nothing to liven it up. His tone and pitch were flawless, but his interpretation was deadpan and uninspired. The third movement is written as a spirited march, but Kavaloski played it like an exercise and looked as though the monotony of it all were putting him to sleep. "Iberia" is too flashy and difficult a work to do justice to at 1 a.m. It was the only truly entertaining work on the program, but everyone--including the orchestra--seemed too tired to enjoy it.

THE MIDNIGHT CONCERT was conceived three years ago, when someone decided that a program with "Till Eulenspiegel" and Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" would be much more fun played at midnight. It was a pitch to stonies and straights alike, and was so successful that it was followed the next year with a real gimmick--President Bok narrating an impeccably played "Peter and the Wolf"--which drew an even rowdier and more enthusiastic crowd. The next two midnight programs tried to recapture that success by continuing to take the audience back to its childhood with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "The Young Person's Guide." But last year the program was more frivolous than fun, and this year it just wasn't very interesting.

The Midnight Concert has probably outlived its usefulness. First, the HRO has only four concerts a year, and is too good an orchestra to justify spending one of them either on good music which it could perform better at 8:30 or on bad music which isn't worth its time. Second, with notable exceptions like "Peter and the Wolf" there isn't much children's music which still appeals to adult concertgoers, no matter what state their heads are in by midnight. The question may even be academic, since the only piece left of this genre which comes to mind is "Tubby the Tuba"--not that it would be difficult to get a narrator, but a good brass player is demonstrably hard to find.