Programming all five of Rameau’s instrumental gems was as straightforward as could be. His title page of the original score gives away the idea that these concerts could be played on keyboard alone or with other instruments: “Pièces de clavecin en concerts avec un violon ouune flute, et une viole ou un deuxie’me [sic] violon.” But the five concerts were not played in the “right” order. Who would end with one of Rameau’s concerts where two of the three movements are in the minor key, furthermore one of them being a fugue? The concluding movement, “La Marais” (Marin Marais, renowned viol-player and composer) is a delightful romp from Cinquième concert in D minor, which cannot beat out the straight-ahead excitement of a dance — better yet, two of them: “Tambourin I” and “Tambourin II,” both from the Troisième concert in A major. (An explanation of the movement titles is in order: Rameau appended titles after he had composed his music using the names of acquaintances and family, dances, and even a countryside that is now a suburb of Paris!)

Perhaps, though, the most likeable, popish of all the pieces is the middle movement of the fifth concert, the beautiful, touching “La Cupis” (after the composer François Cupis), which you can hear on YouTube played by the Swiss flute sensation, Emmanuel Pahud emoting over a harp accompaniment, to give you an idea. I thought Les Bostonades articulated this movement with great clarity and refinement. as they did throughout the evening.

Yet, here and elsewhere, Baroque period etiquette impeded flow. This etiquette appeared to dictate their letting up too often on downbeats, hesitating before rather than thrusting into oncoming phrases, and, to a lesser extent, calling upon ritardandos for expressive effect.

Highly effective, though, was the performance of the third concert’s middle movement by Les Bostonades. It was the surprise of the evening. The trio came up with both tempo and phrasing unlike any I have so far encountered (and I listened to some dozen or so recordings in preparing for this review). In particular, the trio breathed life into the opening section, which is repeated over and over again and can, and often does, get on one’s nerves with its square rhythm and simple pitch patterns. Not so with Bostonades. A huge round of clapping was completely in order.

The entire evening was instructive if not interpretively spot-on. Impeccable balances among allthree instrumentalists made clear nearly every Baroque note that sifted through the modernistic First Church of Boston —  a perfect space for the trio.

Sato invited the audience of some 70 or so to join Les Bostonades after the concert for a reception and to tell the trio “which one you liked best.” Of course, for me, the surprise in “La Timide” was tops. “Tambourin I” was next on my list, but not so “Tambourin II,” where violinist Metcalf held onto the quarter notes that initiated each phrase, throwing off the dance.

Fine moments there were, during the evening. In “La Boucon,” the slow middle movement of Deuxième concert in G major, Les Bostonades exacted a touching très doux, as indicated in Rameau’s score. The gently flowing triplet rhythm in “Laborde” was ever so pleasing, a delight.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Stirring narration from Ron Williams completely lifted up the dramatic oratorio through his effective mix of old and new delivery styles. His baritone voice set the perfect tonality for Honegger’s 1921 symphonic psalm.

The Masterworks Chorale carried off both worldly and ethereal biblical themes ever so convincingly, such as in the rousing “Dance before the Ark” and the contrite “Behold in evil I was born.” Better still, all the singing was in English, relating more vividly the story of David from his days as a shepherd until his death as a king.

Of the twenty-seven songs and marches, tableaux, that the oratorio comprises, “The Psalm of Penitence” might be one of the most touching of all of Honegger’s settings. In a kind of antiphony, men’s then women’s voices chant over a repeating single chord, “Pity me, God, in my distress! Turn not away, but heal me again!” Using the original orchestration, Karidoyanes directed the instrumentalists and voices to a higher plane where there was abundant making of music and meaning.

In pure, clear-throated tones very much like the beautiful birdsongs of cardinals, Jason McStoots delivered the three Psalms Honegger set for tenor. Teresa Wakim’s soprano voice conveyed an angelic and deeply felt pureness in the concluding song “The Death of David” with its Bach chorale overtones.  Mezzo-soprano Krista River provided worldly nuance for “Song of the Handmaid” that played intelligently off the Swiss-French composer’s forward-looking, yet always appealing harmonic language. Looking the part of the Witch of Endor, Paula Plum was a bit over the top for me — her theatrics going beyond the decorum of the whole.

The orchestra of mostly winds and percussion drawn from Boston’s most amazing pool of musicians, summoned up sonority upon sonority along with sharp-edged excitement for a virtually flawless King David. During certain moments of Honegger’s personalized scoring and the orchestra’s own voicing, I was reminded of the sounds of jazz band master, Gil Evans. Balance between chorus and orchestra wavered more in the early going than in the third and final part of evening-long oratorio. While the singers did all they could to create the kind of presence needed, the orchestra often needed toning down to help foster a presence so all important for drama-making.

Also coming to mind were Lili Boulanger’s inspirational psalm settings for chorus and orchestra that were composed about the same time and that Hollywood took to in its religious epics dating from the fifties.  In his brief welcome and introduction to the concert, Karidoyanes informed us that Stravinsky was first to be asked to write incidental music for Swiss poet and playwright René Morax’s play, “Le roi David.” Turning down the offer, Stravinsky said something to the effect of “go to Honegger.”

Disappointing was the sparse turnout for a once extremely popular and often performed work — “a hit,” as Karidoyanes remarked. At intermission, two concertgoers related their own experiences with King David: quite a few years ago, one performed it while in high school and another while in college. About that same time, I first encountered Honegger’s “hit” in a church. Those were the days. Nearly a half century later, I find myself wondering what would King David be like with the addition of, say, background visuals projected on a screen. What with Honegger’s penchant and adeptness for musical image painting (think of Pacific 231 and Rugby), does this work not call out for such enticement or enhancement for today’s listeners?

Ed. Note: Edited in response to comment.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

After experiencing their performance of Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2,  I could only begin to imagine the extent of talent and experience walking Cambridge’s Ivy League campus. Heart-pounding passion engulfed in a French nature-scape was in near complete reach of the four Harvard performing groups. “Frenzy” was the word from one of the choristers describing to me his take on the final stretch in the second, more popular, Daphnis et Chloé Suite.

A long-standing spring semester tradition at Harvard is the James Yannatos Concerto Competition that ferrets out the best of the university’s soloists, who then get the opportunity to perform with the orchestra in a pubic concert. This year’s winner of the competition was violinist Julia Glenn ’12, who chose to play the Brahms Violin Concerto and had a good grip on it. Orchestral uncertainties and a prevailing drag did not help the soloist who mastered all the notes up to those requiring a higher virtuosity such as those in the first-movement cadenza. A strong showing of listeners and supporters for HRO’s final concert of the year fully enjoyed every bit of the evening, rising to their feet after Glenn’s commendable demonstration, some encouraging like cheerleaders, others showing true appreciation and respect with noisy clapping.

According to one of HRO’s violinists with whom I spoke briefly before the concert, the tough thing about Debussy’s Ibéria from Images pour orchestra is not so much the notes to play but the way they have to be played. Progressively through the three colorful Spanish portraits the orchestra exuded a musical life, strings particularly leading the way with outstanding wind soloists, in particular the clarinet’s wild “Iberianisms.” On hand were the principle harp player’s parents from Cleveland. They should be proud; their daughter’s solid musical rendering of one of the catchy main themes from the third of Debussy’s Iberian pictures, Le matin d’un jour de fête (Morning of a festival day), was an elevated spot — as were a good number of spots from soloing students.

What does one expect from an undergraduate orchestra these days, especially where there are so many musical options at Harvard vying for instrumentalists? One thing to keep in mind: a good many members of this year’s orchestra were weaned on the baton of the late James Yannatos, whose 40-plus years of leadership developed the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra into a highly respectable performing entity. Only a few years ago, Federico Cortese, the young and exceptionally gifted conductor of more than a few select Boston orchestras, became HRO’s new leader.

During most of last night’s demanding program of Brahms, Debussy, and Ravel, Cortese appeared to work very hard at providing clear-cut entrances and even harder at summoning orchestral expressiveness. All of this was evident in nearly every gesture, where his arms covered far greater space than the actual music called for. This was most telling when the softer, more delicate passages did not match the sweeps of fully extended arms. Cortese’s approaches to the podium conveyed some apprehension. His bows before each of the three pieces were curt, catching the applauding audience off guard, their enthusiasm quelled. Repetitive handshakes with the first chairs also puzzled. An 8:20 start, rather than the scheduled 8:00, also raised concerns.

It was a most wonderful audience for classical music and the hundreds of youth dressed superbly in formal wear, attentive, openly eager and engaged. This strong showing was surely the highlight of the evening.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Soprano Shari Wilson, mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi, tenor Michael Barrett, and bass Brian Church brilliantly actuated Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion (2008) drawing out of it the increasing hallucinatory state suffered by “the little girl” who “went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold,” to her death. Guest conductor Andrew Clark, director of Choral Activities and senior lecturer on music at Harvard University, inconspicuously savored leading the four exquisitely timbred and compatibly voiced singers, who were also called upon to add percussive touches from bell-type instruments, xylophone, and bass drum.

Through 15 songs based on the words of H. C. Andersen, H. P. Paull, Picander (the nom de plume of Christian Friedrich Henrici, the librettist for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion) and Saint Matthew, this individualistically conceived, Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the passion alternates obvious homophony with heterophony. In “Dearest Heart,” a simple conventional harmony with Lang’s twists and turns conveys text in remarkable directness and innocence. Along with repetition, the message comes clearly, no straining on the listener’s part.

Dearest heart/Dearest heart/What did you do that was so wrong?
Dearest heart/Dearest heart/Why is your sentence so hard?

For the many longer texts, Lang opts, brightly so, for a fast moving line, sol-do-re-me, (opening notes of millions of songs, one an old stay but in the major key, “How Dry I Am”) to which he adds a range of variants and crisp punctuations to create textures in heterophony. Here, despite the diction of the singers, the density and velocity of text delivery hindered words coming cleanly.

When it is time to die/Stay with me
When I am most scared/Stay with me

To express this state of mind, fast tremolo repetitions such as me-me-me-me-me and go-go-go-go-go shuttered around a centering quasi-homophonic texture. Betwixt and between, I found myself enjoying its musical playfulness while at the same time rejecting its unmitigated overtness.

Featured in Arvo Pärt’s Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem (1982) were soprano Margot Rood, countertenor Martin Near, tenor Lawrence Jones, bass Paul Guttry, with Matthew Anderson as Pilatus and Sumner Thompson as Jesus, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and five instrumentalists from BMOP, all under the direction of Gil Rose. Along with a program providing both Latin text and English translation, two monitors exhibited English text in alternation with images across centuries of Christ’s arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

During an hour plus, Arvo Pärt’s Passio confined the dramatic Good Friday story to a small box of virtually inert phrases, cadences, and textures — all but a few moments in the same key of A minor, all hovering around the A. Time was in stasis, space severely moderated. It was as if watching the same scene over and over again most oftentimes noticing varying minutiae along the way. Compared to Tibetan Buddhist overtone chanting in the Himalayas, this Medieval and early Baroque shadowing induced too much consciousness of artifice, too little meditative trance. It was overly long, no equivalences to Tibetan cymbal crashes or whacks on the back preventing trance to go into sleep.

It was a rare experience hearing the story in Latin, and guest vocalists and chorus took to diction like congregating for water around an oasis in the Middle East. When Jesus sings Consummatum est, (It is finished) clarity, cleanliness, comprehensibleness are communicated. Their reenactment of Christianity’s commemoration of the events leading to Christ’s death at Calvary was an all-engulfing, awe-inspiring expression of limpidness and mystic purity. Thrillingly and intensely moving, out of this emerged a radiance: Pärt’s final Amen on a resounding D-major harmony.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net

So, sit in the sweet spot, or center of the room, and “Please enjoy the concerts” as Tutschku urges in his introductory program notes. Tutschku, who is Fanny P. Mason Professor of Music and Director of the Harvard University Studio for Electro-acoustic Composition, stated his  premise for this festival: “large-scale ensemble works with electronics that are rarely performed in the United States” and that encompass “cyclicality, slowness, and expansion of timbre through the use of electronics.”

The festival presented works of Charles Wuorinen, Gérard Grisey, Jonathan Harvey, Kaija Saariaho, Alvin Lucier, and Roger Reynolds. Featured was the Boston Modern Orchestra Project made up of top-flight Boston musicians and conducted by its highly touted founder, Gil Rose. Program notes were written by BSO Assistant Director of Program Publications, Editorial, Robert Kirzinger. He is also editor of the program book for the annual Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood.

With all of these heavy hitters in the lineup, one has to wonder why so few attended the Saturday night concert. Maybe it was because the concert was “free and open to all” (my father was a businessman who observed that freebies may not always draw)? Maybe too much intellectualizing, too many dissonances, no beat? Of course, one might well argue that it was actually quite a good turnout for the kind of concert it was.

To provide some perspective on thinking of the compositions at this year’s Fromm Players at Harvard event as being new: Wuorinen’s Epithalamium dates from 1997, Grisey’s Jour, Contre-jour from 1979, Harvey’s Bhakti from 1982, Saariaho’s Io from 1986-87, Lucier’s In Memoriam,  Jon Higgins from 1985, and Reynolds’s Personae from 1990.

To think of these live performances as illuminating, given that space and technology are in the public eye — or ear, requires multiple experiences for purpose of comparison. Of the four works I heard (Saariaho, Lucier, Reynolds, and Wuorinen) it was Lucier’s extremely lean piece for clarinet and slow-sweep pure-wave oscillator that hit home technologically and spatially in Paine Hall. As one listener put it, “There was lots of atmosphere. The sound wrapped around me.” That was true for me as well. I realized, though, that I had wandered off for a good portion of the slow and rarified music that was lovely and haunting and beyond meaning, or, could I say, beyond “sound-as-signifier.”

The two soloists for the evening were clarinetist Michael Norsworthy in the Lucier and violinist Gabriela Diaz in the Reynolds, both taking their roles in complete control and with complete conviction.

Wuorinen’s two-trumpet piece eluded me. Saariaho’s Io for chamber orchestra, pre-recorded sound, and electronics, and named after one of the moons of Jupiter, glistened with color and contrasts during its 16-minute “sonic landscape.”  It was a great joy to see Roger Reynolds take several bows to a wondrous explosion of applause from the thin but receptive and appreciative audience.

Much of what I heard still leaves me up in the air. Hearing spatially does not always come so easily. I am listening and learning. I noticed some people sitting in the balcony and wondered what their ears told them. Being so personal and individualistic, one might assume these works can be taken on any number of levels and in any number of ways.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Boston Symphony Chamber Players in Tchaikovsky (Stu Rosner photo)

The Boston Symphony Chamber Players took to New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall for another of one its accounts of Nationalism this afternoon. Preceding this concert were a Czech and an Austrian (Viennese) program, next will come the English. Last year, I heard their magnificent French program, which fared far better than today’s outing of Russian composers. Ironically, Sofia Gubaidulina’s late 1980s Hommage à T. S. Eliot that thrust terror and tragedy into timelessness was the emotional experience of the afternoon. The equally long Serenade in C for Strings, Op. 48, from 1880 of Peter Tchaikovsky received a highly refined, concertized interpretation that said little, if any, of life a century ago.

It was Anatoly Liadov’s Eight Russian Folksongs, for wind quintet, Op. 58, from 1906 that indisputably hit the mark all around. Both composer and BSO players depicted happier and sadder times in Russia through rare artistry that never once overlooked the simple roots and expressions of Russia’s folk music. It was as though one were seeing back a century ago through a crystallized but sympathetic auditory lens. The quintet included Elizabeth Rowe, flute, John Ferrillo, oboe, William R. Hudgins, clarinet, Richard Svoboda, bassoon, and James Sommerville, horn. Their contrasting wind instruments spectacularly colorized the music; while their breathing everything from slight nuances and voluble trilling to rhythmic dancing and unison cutoffs transformed the five into one single formidable and exhilarating authentic voice.

Never was there a doubt that soprano Jessica Rivera and an octet of BSO principals perfected their idea of the highly chromatic work of Gubaidulina, which is one of the darkest of darkest and immobile experiences in concert music. It was over one-half hour of an intense focus on cold and searing isolation, this coming in a stationary stance. With the super extroverted emotional content furnished by the composer, BSO Chamber Players focused on string and wind modernisms also furnished by the composer, presenting them as if digitized into perfection.

Soprano Jessica Rivera with BSOCP (Stu Rosner photo)

After the Tchaikovsky that concluded the concert, I heard someone say, “Well, they finally redeemed themselves,” something with which I would agree at least in terms of programming. Certainly this Russian salute could not have ended with Gubaidulina’s unending dirge. Certainly, too, all would have to acknowledge the BSO Chamber Players’ extraordinary flair, their being an ensemble par excellence, and their unimaginable, unsurpassable technical accomplishment. But why take this music so fast? It’s so trendy. For me, a blast from the past was what I was yearning to find in this segment of the program, not mere modernistic, contemporary up-to-datedness. I would love to have heard something of a throwback in a true contrast to the Gubaidulina. Malcolm Lowe and Haldan Martinson, violins, Steven Ansell, Viola, Jules Eskin, cello, and Edwin Barker, double bass superbly tuned and phrased the Serenade as they saw it.

Also on the program was a tiny piece of Igor Stravinsky, Pastorale, which has been heard in all kinds of arrangements from the original consisting of violin and piano to one which can be seen on YouTube featuring the musical saw. Rivera was tidy and loving in her line, but her presence was lessened, especially by the oboe. Emphasis was again on perfection, concert art.

My sense of the half-filled Jordan Hall’s reaction might be best described as betwixt and between.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

His reason for playing the program that he did was to give us a lesson, teach us about the piano that “ranks among the most influential inventions in human history, on a level with the printing press and the Internet.” Fascinating as this all sounds, his commentaries shed no light on his somewhat far out yet possibly credible assumption. In fact, much of what he said came from out of his “Program Notes.” Chiu, who is very relaxed when speaking, tends to place an “uh” or “umm” between every phrase.

It was his stated intent that we were to learn more about how Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev dramatically altered the course of piano technique and expression after Mozart and Beethoven. Chiu’s programming might have done the trick; it was his playing that ran extreme interference. His individualistic tactics, that were for the most part considerably limited, and very possibly self-imposed, smeared these four composers’ distinctive voices together with overwhelming decibels, piercing, pulsating melodic designs, mushy textures from too much legato and pedaling, and overall, little variation, little detail, virtually no subtleties.

But yes, he can play faster and louder than most anyone else. Prokofiev’s Toccata, op. 11, especially at the end, was a barnburner in terms of sheer acrobatics and extreme virtuosity. The opening of Debussy’s Cloches à travers les feuilles (Bells through the leaves) was most promising, but not long after the softened whole-tone undulations, bells stabbed the air. An extraordinary effect occurred at the piece’s close when Chiu suddenly reduced his piano roaring to the lightest almost faintest of touches, a huge vacuum resulting.

Along with the Debussy and Prokofiev were six Chopin Études, Une barque sur l’ocean  of Ravel and three pieces from Suite from Lieutenant Kijé arranged expertly and effectively for piano by Chiu.

Liszt’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s fifth symphony took up the second half of the evening’s concert. Chiu’s fast tempos and more marked contrasts kept the famous piano version  moving along. Chiu told us it was Liszt and the piano that popularized the work after Beethoven’s death. Chiu also told us that Liszt kept a second piano close by to back up the first when its strings or hammers broke. Today’s pianos can take such a beating, “So it is not so much will the piano survive, but will the pianist!”

The encore was Chiu’s piano arrangement of Bach’s aria “Erbarme dich” (for alto, violino obligato and basso continuo) from the St. Matthew Passion. Little to no rock, but a jazz notion of playing came over the Bach. A steady left hand beat against improvisatory webs of line and harmony intrigued and could be likened to, say, a Bill Evans. Similar to the rest of Chiu’s inauspicious search which we experienced, the youngish individualist went looking for a new voice with which to speak the old classics. For this comes one big solid vote from me.

Was I any better informed from having heard him play and speak? Yes and no, but I did not take to his unabashed bombastic conceptions.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Christoph Eschenbach and Cédric Tiberghien (Stu Rosner photo)

Guest conductor Christoph Eschenbach and our Boston Symphony Orchestra put on an unbelievable display for its UnderScore Friday last night. At seven o’clock we were underway with BSO harpist Jessica Zhou engaging in a little harp talk. French music was on the menu with Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in a performance that reached hitherto unreachable heights. The Overture to his opera Benvenuto Cellini served as one very mouthwatering appetizer. French pianist Cédric Tiberghien made his BSO debut in a highly seasoned Ravel Piano Concerto in G that was maybe a bit over-seasoned.

Zhou, in her short and sweet introduction, said she took up harp because of her mother, who played one for China’s National Symphony. We learned that the harp part of the second movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie is always required at an audition; and yes, Zhou played it when she auditioned for principal harp of the BSO three years ago. One of the toughest parts, she told us, was having to wait through the 17-minute-long first movement, hoping all the while that, for her opening notes of the second movement, her hands would be warm enough to move and her harp still in tune. Unassuming, even a tad shy, Zhou is very likable and very much appreciated in her new role.

At my first glimpse of German conductor Christoph Eschenbach, he reminded me of those sudden, darting motions of animated characters in video games. By concert’s end, he had turned hero, along with co-heroes Berlioz and the BSO. There could not have been a single person in the hall that did not thrill to every — I mean every — last note. Will we ever again experience what we experienced with this life of an artist high on love and opium, doomed to Romanticism’s darkest and scariest, who gave us one solid hour of intense dreaming, a novel communicated through music? Highest of highest drama, this performance of Berlioz’s extraordinary program symphony, from passionate sweeps to tiniest of peeps, breath-holding nuances, heart pumping climaxes, eye-dazzling gestures, ear-alluring sounds, was assuredly all there. How did conductor and orchestra fare together in their 19^th-century elocution? Fantastique!

Colors blazed anew in Ravel’s not-at-all Impressionist piano concerto. Cédric Tiberghien and Christoph Eschenbach have performed together before, and it showed: in the Allegramente, with its American blues and Spanish tints shifting in muscular syncopations, in the minute rubatos, in the flawless balances between piano flourishes, in the wild dabs of solo wind, brass and percussion, and in the playing of the full orchestra. Tiberghien revealed a singular, new voice which is emerging from the sonic canvas of explosive playing we are hearing from today’s young artists.

Ravel’s Adagio assai is one of the most difficult piano concerto movements to pull off because of its abnormally long opening piano solo. Yet it is those very stretches that tempt too many pianists into overdoing it by relying on too much detail. It can hide Ravel’s formidable Baroque manifestations, among them the “Doctrine of Affections” — one movement, one mood. In the final Presto movement, BSO’s brilliant dappling overshadowed Tiberghien; and strikingly, at other times, the young phenomenon had the piano sounding very much like a harp.

Looking for someone to replace James Levine, it turns out, has been a great ride for BSO concertgoers so far this symphony season. Being introduced to old- and newcomers to Boston’s podium has provided an opportunity rarely afforded in the past. Could this ever become the future practice, possibly?

A complimentary reception for UnderScore Friday subscribers followed the concert. What’s going on? Is the east coast taking on the west coast, with its Keeping Score (San Francisco Orchestra)?

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

The evening began at 6:45 with the Callithumpians tuning instruments, warming up — even practicing — all of this producing quite a din. A half hour later, 15 minutes after the announced start of the concert, it was finally underway. There will inevitably be any number of reasons offered in response to my complaint. For a time, I wondered if making such a racket was intentional, another manifestation of aleatoric music, or perhaps a bit of “theater of the absurd.” To be perfectly honest, I was annoyed — to put it mildly.

Seated very near the harpist, some 15 feet from the conductor, and not that much more from any one of the 20 or so instrumentalists, my irritation gradually began to subside. In the end, I succumbed to Zorn’s For Your Eyes Only (1989), an extravagantly boisterous, self-contradictory, far-fetched, bracing and sustainable work whose objective could have been to outfox its listeners. Drury and his Callithumpians outsized their responsiveness to Zorn’s score, boggling minds and sensibilities. Cage’s crazy Piano Concerto kept popping up in my mind. However, instead of experiencing Cage’s freewheeling mazes of notational graphics, listeners found themselves more sheltered in Zorn’s well-controlled environment.

As was the case with Zorn, Earle Brown’s Available Forms I (1961) grew moment by moment, unfolding with uncommon naturalness. This outcome had to have been a combination of Brown’s open-ended score, Drury’s poetic insights into its nature, along with a keen alertness on the part of every single Callithumpian. The remarkable sublimity in Brown’s music-mobile contrasted by the goofy realm of Zorn should bring raves for their having been programmed together.

“Shhhh. Don’t tell a soul!”

That’s what John Cage responded in 1976, after I excitedly called out his name from far across the room, this, upon meeting him for the first time. I would be driving him to Symphony Hall for a rehearsal of his bicentennial commission, Renga with Apartment House. (A Renga is a collaborative composition of poems, originating in Japan over 700 years ago.) I was not surprised when Steven Drury told us that he was also at that same concert in 1976, which was for him, as it was for me, a momentous occasion. Just after its Boston premiere that following evening, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Do you know what all of this means?”

That was not at all the case at last night’s one-hour-long foray into the realm of indeterminacy and irreverence. The reenactment of John Cage’s Apartment House 1776 would have seemed to be a perfect fit for the multi-tiered seating arrangement in Calderwood Hall. With Steven Drury, who is among the few truly great interpreters of Cage, one wonders why this performance did not connect. Listeners appeared less puzzled than disappointed. No Renga for one, no big orchestra sounding out drawings of Thoreau. Four vocalists delivering songs of the Protestant, Sephardic, Native American, and African American dominated timid instrumentalists. None of them sounded indigenous enough in their songs, dance tunes, hymn harmonies, and drum rolls out of early America. Could it have been a case of too much music for the Cage? Calderwood’s four tiers came up short as an apartment house.

These are the perils of Cage. John Adams once demurred “…without the benevolent presence of Cage himself, the result of all the coin tossing and chance operations was more often than not emotionally cold and expressively indifferent.” Yet, what a tribute it was — if only to catch glimpses of Cage’s spirit and spiritualism.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Today, a walk through the main hallway past upgraded classrooms is quite a different experience with its updated wall sconces casting their inviting glow on the freshly painted pastel. The underground hallway leading to new, state-of-the-art practice rooms is now a burst of color, a feast for the eyes. What a complete contrast these visual changes are not only to the past but to what we have come to expect. You might believe you were in an Art rather than a Music Department.

No more “hissing and clanging radiators,” reported Professor Shreffler. Equipped with a modernized heating and cooling system, both the Music Building and  John Knowles Paine Concert Hall are finally quiet — one can still hear sirens coming from the nearby Cambridge fire house, but now only faintly.

Expressing appreciation to the many people involved in the renovation, Shreffler also reminded us of how the times have changed since Paine’s days and the creation of the Music Building. She had us thinking about the frieze in the John Knowles Paine Concert Hall with its chronological “misplacements” and “omissions” of composers’ names.  As in Boston’s Symphony Hall, the name of Beethoven also appears as the “center of history” in Harvard’s Paine Concert Hall. “Why Tartini, and not Vivaldi?” Shreffler asked. Her answer: the former was more popular when the frieze was conceived. Also at that time, history meant no medieval music, no women in music, neither being the “powerful vectors” they are nowadays.

Harvard Fellow Evan MacCarthy’s slides and stories steered us to Harvard’s production of Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles and the “modern” music that John Knowles Paine had composed for the ancient Greek play; the yeas and nays caused America’s first most recognized composer considerable anxiety. Much of the same kind of faculty opposition was voiced at the time by a well-known historian, a Professor Francis Parkman, who would proclaim: “Musica delenda est” (Music must be destroyed). What is new on the campus these days?

To help celebrate the new renovations, the Portland String Quartet performed Paine’s String Quartet in D Major, Op. 5 composed at age 16. The 1855 manuscript score was made available to the Portland String Quartet by Houghton Library and was premiered by the quartet in 2011. The young Paine’s craft drew upon the Classical-Era’s menu, but without much expression and very few modulations — nothing daring — strange for a 16-year-old.  Also on the program was Quartet No. 1 by Harvard composer and former Music Department chair, Walter Piston. Connection: Paine, Piston, and the Portland Quartet are all Down Easterners. Listening tells us that Paine was very European, Piston more American, the former a Classicist, the latter a Neo-Classicist. The third movement of the Piston was the best thing on the program, as written and as played

Bravos go to PSQ for its dedication to American music, especially that coming out of Maine. Its performance renewed the great soul of craftsmanship visible in Piston’s early work, its display of commitment to historical chronicles with Paine’s adolescent quartet (which went on for 37 minutes).

Paine Concert Hall itself, though, raises serious acoustical concerns. For more information on this, see David Griesinger’s recent review “Chiara in Paine.”  As an aside I note that the backstage curtains were deployed for this concert as suggested by Griesinger..

My own memories of Paine Hall are many. I will never forget John Adams conducting his student chamber composition (possibly his first) on the stage, his rhythmic life of animation and vitality we have come to know already ever so present. Paine Hall is where we witnessed farewells to another fellow student, the late Ivan Tcherepnin; one of his students recalled evenings his class spent together on the roof looking at the stars. The three of us — Adams, Tcherepnin, and I — were composition students of Leon Kirchner in the 1960s. One Monday afternoon, upon discovering that none of the class had anything to show, Kirchner pondered whether we needed a piano in the room — or a couch.

Harvard’s band and jazz leader, Thomas Everett, tells of the time when the Harvard Wind Ensemble along with then-Principal Trumpet of the BSO Armando Ghitalla arrived at Paine Hall to present their concert, only to find the place closed up tight. Harvard had shut down — when does it ever, even when there’s a New England snowstorm? Everett recalls the breakdown in communication as much of a surprise as was the University’s closing.

Music is alive and well at Harvard. Thank goodness Parkman’s philosophy did not prevail.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston,  was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net