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Show .. Osceola, the latest hot rock group out of San Francisco, will be at the Old Mill this weekend. Symphony plays eleventh contemporary festival BY PAM TAGGART Entertainment Writer Tuesday and Wednesday evenings eve-nings marked the University of Utah's Eleventh Annual Festival o Contemporary Music, featuring the Utah Symphony in a performance perform-ance of twentieth century compositions, com-positions, conducted by Ardean Watts. The concert opened with a reduced orchestra presenting Charles Ives' "Central Park in Die Dark." Ives was an innovative American Ameri-can composer who has only recently re-cently been discovered, first by musical scholars, and more lately, late-ly, by American performers and audiences. "Central Park in the Dark" is highly impressionistic and consdering that it was composed com-posed in the first decade of the twentieth century, filled with de-rices de-rices and ideas fresh to the American Amer-ican musical scene. There is an overlay of hazy jazz and carefree mood that remind one of Pen-dergast's Pen-dergast's paintings of Central Park of the same era. They are both somewhat distant from today's to-day's Central Park filled with litter and crowded people and into which one cannot safely venture ven-ture at night. Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony Sym-phony No. 4 in F minor comprised (he balance of the first half of the program. The orchestra's performance per-formance was for the most part timid and unconvincing. The first violins particularly could not get together in the first and third movements. This was disconcert-, ing both to ear and eye. The trumpets sounded tired most of toe time, as they might well be. In the second movement the Eng lish horn provided a lovely solo but there seemed to be little relation re-lation between what he was doing and the activity of the rest of the orchestra, who couldn't seem to synchronize with him. In contrast, con-trast, every major entrance of the viola section was a pleasure to listen to. They have become of the best disciplined sections of the orchestra. The last movement move-ment of the symphony was marked by the contrast of stac-catto stac-catto and legato treatments of the same theme, coming consecutively consecu-tively and later superimposed on each other. This symphony is certainly more far out than the balance of Vaughan Williams' works, and one that requires familiarity fa-miliarity to beget appreciation. Krysztof Penderecki's "Threno-day "Threno-day (To the Victims of Hiroshima)" Hiroshi-ma)" was performed by strings only. Beginning on a minor second sec-ond interval, dissonance was heightened with the addition of instruments and tones culminating culminat-ing in a jumble of mechanistic protests. Unusual qualities of sound were produced by such methods as thumping on 'celli and using the bow on the side of the basses. The entire work was one thread of swellings and dyings, a surrealistic experiment in tone color and timbre. The Symphony displayed its real mettle in Samuel Barber's "Medea's "Me-dea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance." Mr. Watts guided the orchestra through rhythmic complexity and frequent metric changes with sensitivity and authority. au-thority. There were beautifully rendered woodwind solos in flute, (Continued on Page 10) Symphony plays eleventh festival (Continued from Page " oboe, and clarinet. The per sion section was kept busy a variety of instruments to PIJ-and PIJ-and did an excellent job. The concert ended with i hearted performance of Schehdrin's "Concerto for ft. ;n tra (Mischievous Melodi ?p which seemed to typify t ious bustle of mid-twentieth J- k tury society. The basses T kept busy with a fran ,A of jazz pizzacato. Tlrs rou: rapid chatter was pa , Js the orchestra and ttow ,f with varying degrees o t The first trumpet mte. a caricature of a Spams bJ which was later taken French horn. The co ( 9 cemented with some , pletives which were remie by the tuba. The bass 11 trld to inject a serious J , the scene but was o J a, piece ended with a 4 ando and a crash. , . -ifi t . , j ' r 1 |