Premieres

Before he decided to be a full-time composer at 27, Walter Piston worked as a draftsman for the old Boston Elevated Railway (he helped draw plans for an "articulated streetcar") and studied painting. His painting teacher advised him: "Don't be afraid to make a poor one." Since then, unafraid Composer Piston, now 64, has turned out a steady flow of works, none of them poor, most (including a 1948 Pulitzer-prizewinning Third Symphony) concise, witty, technically brilliant. Last week the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed the latest Piston, Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, to warm applause. As played by the Boston's first-rate Violist Joseph de Pasquale, the concerto unfolded as a simple, strongly exuberant piece with clear orchestral coloration and precise balance. In its climactic third movement, there was plenty of agitation, some gay syncopation, and an enticing dialogue between the solo viola and the orchestra. All in all, another reason to be grateful that Walter Piston got off that streetcar and turned to composing.

Some other new works performed last week:

P: French Composer Henry Barraud's Third Symphony, played on the same program with Piston. It proved to be a craggy piece that achieved its emotional impact through a series of sharp contrasts. The music was by turn slow, dense, lyrical, harsh, full of sharp emotional edges. Composer Barraud got a polite hearing but sent his audience delving into their programs in search of the unifying idea the music seemed to lack. CJ Peter Mennin's Piano Concerto, performed in Manhattan by the Cleveland Orchestra, which commissioned the work, along with eight others, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The work by 34-year-old Juilliard Teacher Mennin was driving, gusty, brilliantly animated, but it often seemed more like an exercise in pure virtuosity than a statement of musical intent.

P: Spanish Composer Joaquin Rodrigo's Fantasia para Gentilhombre, performed by the San Francisco Symphony under Spanish Conductor Enrique Jorda, with famed Spanish Guitarist Andres Segovia as soloist. Said blind Joaquin Rodrigo, 55, Spain's No. 1 contemporary composer: "I was afraid to compose a work for so great a guitarist." Replied Segovia: "I was afraid to perform it." After the low Spanish bows were over, soloist and orchestra set to work, unveiled an appealing, fastidious, slightly melancholy piece whose dance rhythms gave Segovia's guitar a chance to enthrall the audience.

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