Finale

WHAT HAPPENS when three of the best musicians at Harvard give a joint performance? They might engage in a battle of the gods, each trying to outdo the others. Or they might do what Lynn Chang. Yo Yo Ma and Richard Kogan did last Saturday night during their performance of Beethoven's Concerto for Violin. Cello, and Piano. The "Triple Concerto" rarely appears on concert programs because of the difficulty of finding three virtuoso musicians willing to share the spotlight. But none of the three Harvard undergrads playing with the Bach Society tried to upstage the others. Instead they played with a keen awareness of each other's musical statements, matching and blending their expression and style into one voice.

In its sensitive accompaniment, the Bach Society orchestra moved to the background, both physically and musically, to give room to the soloists. But the group opened its final concert inauspiciously, presenting the first piece they have played this year that was composed by their namesake. Bach, in his Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, abandoned his usual use of a group of a solo instruments against an orchestral background. Originally intended for chamber performance, the third concerto calls for three violins, three violas, and three cellos, each group acting as a unit. The string orchestra that played last Saturday was heavily weighted against the viola section, both in numbers and in ability. The thread of the music continually got lost; whenever the ball was passed to the violas, they dropped it. The orchestra continued its unpolished performance when it moved on to Stravinsky's Pulcinella Concert Suite. Although the solo work was outstanding, the piece as a whole suffered from ragged entrances and poor intonation.

Conductor Hugh Wolff '75 impressively handled the difficult off-beat rhythms in the Stravinsky work, and continued his authoritative and precise leadership in his direction of the premiere of John Thow's Astraeus. Thow is a graduate students in music at Harvard and completed this demanding work for Saturday's concert. It relies heavily on percussive effects--which begin before the conductor even walks on stage--and which the strings and woodwinds amplify. At times they overpowered the melodic line, perhaps because of acoustics in Sanders Theatre or weaknesses in certain sections of the orchestra. But Wolff deftly managed the complicated and difficult rhythms with precision that was rewarded by the same response from the members of the orchestra. To premier a contemporary work is a hefty task for any orchestra, and Wolff and the Bach Society accomplished it with ease.

The Bach Society concluded its season by following the pattern it set throughout the year--again taking on an ambitious program and succeeding only during some of it. But, as the performance of the Beethoven trio showed last Saturday when the Bach Society Orchestra plays its best, it can present magnificent music.