Moderns in Manhattan

In Manhattan's concert halls last week the intermission air was filled with overcordial "hellos," frequently followed by apologies: "Sorry I didn't hear your new work, but I--uh--was having rehearsals for my own, you know . . ."

The meetings of composers were brought about by the fullest fortnight of modern music Manhattan has ever heard. Chief instigators were the Juilliard School of Music, which commissioned 32 U.S. composers for its 50th anniversary celebration, and New York City's highbrow station WNYC, which stages an annual American Music Festival between Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays. With a handful of other outfits also producing 20th century music, there were no fewer than 236 compositions by 149 U.S. composers, as well as a few imports. Last week's standouts:

P: A one-act operatic spoof called Apollo and Persephone, staged by the adventurous After Dinner Opera Company. Gayest of the week's premieres, it was written and composed by 40-year-old English Composer Gerald Cockshott (pronounced kosher), who originally dreamed up his libretto for his mentor, Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, but liked it so much that he set it to music himself. The story is a salty, zany rewrite of the Persephone legend. The young goddess is hoping for a man to come along before she gets "broad in the beam and saggy"; first Pluto catches her, then is talked out of his catch by a fast-singing stranger who turns out to be Apollo, who is himself caught. The music is neat and attractive, tonal but shifty in the English folksong-arrangement tradition.

P: Leon Kirchner's Piano Concerto, the week's toughest nut, which the composer played with the Philharmonic Symphony, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. It was romantic in its delicate, lyrical episodes, its sudden, violent climaxes, and the virtuosic intent of its solo part. It contained, as does all of Brooklyn-born Kirchner's music, many ideas of ear-bending originality that made flashes of beauty in a dark atmosphere. There were so many, in fact, that the listener became worn down before it was over.

P: Juilliard President William Schuman's revised Violin Concerto, played by Isaac Stern and the fine student orchestra, firmly led by Jean Morel. The concerto moved under a powerful drive (oldfashioned gear shift, not fluid) that led it into some stunning effects of developing tension. The violin was almost continually active, but it was frequently drowned in the tricky accompaniment; before it was over, the work had turned into a fancy juggling act.

P: Walter (The Incredible Flutist) Piston's Symphony No. 5, probably his best work to date. It began with something that sounded suspiciously like forest murmurs, complete with flute and pizzicato strings. But soon it built a blazing climax on a pyramid of harmonies, brass on winds on strings, in orchestration as solid as Tchaikovsky's. The first movement, indeed, was a rejuvenated Piston; in the other two, however, he reached his high points of lyricism without seeming to aim for them, leaving a feeling of puzzlement.

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