Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, November 26, 196c, Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAiLY music Classics: 'Made in ByR . A. Pmi When the Japanese repair a piece of broken pottery or por- celain, they do not seek to hide the crack but rather celebrate it with an applied golden seam. Only a Japanese orchestra could have dreamed up such a deco- rative, garish concert as the NHK Symphony presented last night in Hill Auditorium. Pro- grammed was Mayuzumi's bal- let suite entitled Bugaku, Kha- chaturian's Violin Concerto, and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. One came to the concert full of expectations: would a Japa- nese orchestra stand up to West- ern models in regard to sound and discipline; how would their interpretations compare stylis- tically? The answer to the first question can only be affirma- tive, but the disciplined ensem- ble soon became less engrossing as the orchestra's stylistic aber- rations grew more apparent. In Tchaikovsky's Fifth Sym- phony, for instance, the NHK were constantly stretching tem- pos in the most arbitrarily elas- tic manner; phrases would be slowed and elongated or, con- versely, would be hurried at. their endings in an exaggerated manner. The effect of this silly- putty tension was that an end- less series of minor climaxes were built up within phrases while no long-ranged architec- tonic concept tied musical ideas toge ther. For Tchaikovsky, such an ap- proach is simply deadly. The composer himself wrote that "I cannot complain of poverty of imagination, or lack of inventive power: but on the other hand, 1 have always suffered from my want of skill in management of form. Only after strenuous labor have I at last succeeded in making the form of my compo- sitions correspond with their contents." By fragmenting tem- pos, Hiroyuki Iwaki, the con- ductor of the NHK, destroyed what cohesive form Tchaikov- sky could produce. In another letter to Mme. von Meek, Tchaikovsky is more revealing: When inspired, he writes, "the soul throbs with an incomprehensible and indescrib- able excitment . . Everything that flows from one's pen, or merely passes through one's Japan Yoshio Unno performed with enormous technical mastery; clean, correct notes flewx from his bow with firm assurance of pitch. Without demeaning Mr. Unno's accomplishments, it must still be said that what the music nedq, if it is to have any mean- ingful existence at. all, is a bit of Russian gypsy schmaltz--the kind of hamming that Heifitz or Francescatti can handle with- out losing control of the part's virtuoso requirements. Mr. Unno is one hell of a whiz with his instrument, but he showed little understanding of the roots of Khachaturian's music. Opening the program, Toshiro Mayuzumi's Bugaku offered the most enjoyment by far. Mayu- zumi, born in 1929, represents that pastiche unique to Japan wherein an artist tries to unite contemporary Western and tra- ditional Japanese forms. Thus we find in Bugaku, a ballet suite commissioned by George Bal- anchine, certain sounds of Ja- panese court music --suggested by elliding and pizzicato strings. by flute calls sliding in pitch, Lee by numerous sharp percussive efects -enneshed in a Western symphonic ambient of sustained movements of massed instru- ar~ inents. Tie piece works best, pos that is, most interestingly, when individual instruments speak ky 21 directly in voices simultaneously 1o pern and abstract; the piece rto is less interesting when massed rd, strings surge like orchestral swells in La Mer. In general, the ay- composition tends in its second or half to fall apart into disjointed ul- .. sonic events. "Liza Minnelli has given a performance which is so funny, so moving, so perfectly crafted and realized that it should win her an Academy Award but probably won't, because Oscar is archaic and Liza is contemporary!" -Thomas Thompson, LIFE MAGAZINE "Brilliant! Fresh light on, the subject of youth! Liza Minnelli plays Pookie to perfection! Marvelous!" -Joseph Morgenstern, NEWSWEEK -- Daily--Richard L brain under these circumstances is invariably good, and if no external obstacle comes to hin- der the creative glow, the result will be an artist's best and most p e r f e c t work. Unfortunately, such external hindrances are inevitable . . . Hence the joins, patches, inequalites and dis- crepancies." It must be the con- ductor's responsibility, not only w i t h Tchaikovsky's basically fragile music (!) but with all compositions, to smooth the "joins" and make less momen- tous those discrepant "patches." Hiroyuki Iwaki and the NHK only found new seams. That they did so is curious, and if the blame may be lifted from the conductor's shoulders, two answers might be offered. One, the Japanese aesthetic it- self is one which appreciates isoiated units or events that may be stretched but neverthe- less have definite, separate boundaries. Secondly, sticking more closely to musical style, is the fact that the most revered Western conductor In Japan Is a man himself noted for thea bitrary manipulation of temp -Wilhelm Furtwangler. Preceding the Tchaikovs Aram Khachaturian's V i o 1 Concerto was performed by so ist Yoshio Unno. The conce -tedious, crass, simple-mind and ingenuine-is usually pla ed (for instance by Ormandy Bernstein) for all its zircon v garity; the NKL, however, understating such vulgarity,r vealed the work's broad found tion of intolerable boredom. The first movement thro together two contrasting them in a most rudimental and ban manner, and at endless lengt the second movement, a sop ific andante, is eminently f gettable and proves that there more to serenity that a lack noise; the third movenw breaks whatever folk-dance n mentum it builds by the incl ion of a retrospective s I recitative. I Paramount Pctures Presents An /& Jf. b Productio C..V by re - Ia- Ws 's th: 0'is of n- io- UIs- ) ts. FOX ; F-,rR iTHi AR 375 No. MAPLE RD.-769-1300 HURRY! ENDS SOON MON.-WED -7:10-9:20 THURS.-SUN.-l:00-3:05- 5:10-7:15-9:30--- - ---- -- 40th CNILUR FOt PRU S BuTCH CASSIDY AND q THE SUNDANCE KID PaA "s k T COLOR BY EUXE R NEXT-"Take The Money & Run" starring . - based upon the novel executive producer iZafMinneui|-W en DBurton-1T nMdfi by John Nichols David Lange produced and directed music scored by song:'Come Saturday Morning" performed by The Sondpipers(A&M Records Recording Artists) byAlan J. 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