Music Festival Off To A Rousing Start

The Music Festival of the Hamptons returned for its third season on Friday, offering a rich tapestry of musical styles and world-class performances over the 10 days of its residency on the East End.

Eleanor Sage Leonard, the festival's president, opened the series on Friday night by remarking on the challenges and rewards of offering music in the open air.

Certainly the festival has taken great pains to establish a bucolic ambiance by choosing locations at a distance from surrounding businesses and residences.

L.I.R.R. Chimes In

A stunning white festival tent rising from the grounds of the Hampton Classic on Friday night was the setting for the opening concert by the Boys Choir of Harlem under the direction of Dr. Walter J. Turnbull.

In one of those rare moments in life that could never have been anticipated, the Long Island Rail Road's 8:10 train tooted off in the distance as the first work, "Lamentations of Jeremiah," began and rumbled past blowing at full volume as the last notes of "O vos omnes que transitis per viam" died on the singers' lips.

Gentle Pathos

Undaunted, these marvelous young men continued with this a cappella work by the 20th-century composer Alberto Ginastra, lending it a gentle pathos and never once wandering off-key as well they might have in the wake of the locomotive's blasting A-flat.

Remarkably, the choir uses no sheet music, and I count it a creditable achievement for these boys, aged 8 to 18, to have memorized the difficult Latin and German demanded by the evening's selections, and to render the texts with fine diction and clarity. One can only imagine the hours of practice and rehearsal Dr. Turnbull and the choir put into the preparation of each performance.

Dr. Turnbull founded the Harlem Boys Choir in 1968 as a small church group, and over the years the choir has grown to an internationally acclaimed performing group. The Boys Choir offers young inner-city kids the opportunity to participate in something truly special while providing them with consistency in their urban lives and teaching them values.

Noble Aims

"I know they look angelic, don't they," quipped Dr. Turnbull, "but they ain't." However, he went on to speak with intense pride of his young singers, of their dedication and hard work, and the accomplishments of present members and choir alumni.

"The Boys Choir is about life," said Dr. Turnbull. "It teaches them courage and integrity." Watching these young people standing with dignity in their maroon blazers and holding their heads up high as they sang their hearts out, one can sense that noble aims are being achieved.

Dr. Turnbull pointed out that "a boys choir is always a challenge because you never know what tricks Mother Nature will pull on a young man." But the young sopranos were in full voice on Friday night, the tenors and baritones were strong and the basses rich.

Fine Balance

There is a fine balance in the Boys Choir's control, and dynamic equilibrium was at its best in "Four Spirituals" by Moses Hogan, drawing several appreciative sighs from audience members.

The boys seemed to be having a good time with these songs, performing their individual parts with great confidence, and at other times together as if in one huge voice.

Thunder rumbled ominously outside the tent, another train chugged and blew past the assembly, airplanes growled overhead, and the Harlem Boys Choir sang on. The audience cheered, and with good reason. It was a rousing experience. And a charmed one: A bone-rattling thunderstorm held its fury until audience members were safely in their cars leaving the field.

Went Astray

The next night found me wandering aimlessly along Daniel's Hole Road in East Hampton, having been informed that the second concert of the series was to be held at the East Hampton Airport.

After cruising desultorily through the crowd at what turned out to be a chic food-tasting party, I finally got smart and moved on to the festival tent at the horse show grounds, where I found "Bach: Real and Surreal" in progress.

I therefore cannot comment on the Stockowski arrangement of "Air on the G-String," nor the second featured work, the "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3." Sad was I to miss these splendid works, and, due to the lateness of my arrival, I was tucked into the very back of the audience and could not see the performers, Lukas Foss and the Resident Chamber Ensemble.

Spirited Work

However, when Stephen Halloran, pianist, Bryan Gumm, bassist, and Joseph DeMarco, drummer, hit the first notes of Claude Bolling's "Bach to Swing," I was glad I had snaked through the back roads to get to Bridgehampton for at least the second half of the concert. This spirited work proceeded from beginning to end with seamless energy.

Mr. Foss sat at the piano and joined David Oppenheim on clarinet, Zuill Bailey on cello, and Mr. Halloran on the organ for Mr. Foss's own composition, the troubling "Non-Improvisation: A Bach Nightmare." It was well named.

There seemed to be some rather nice piano playing going on, possibly a real Bach piece, but it was drowned out by cacophonous wailing of the organ and knocking of the percussion, to say nothing of the disconcerting cheeping of the clarinet and some waddling of a gong from time to time.

Torturing Bach

The audience, sipping wine in anticipation of the dinner which was to follow the performance, glanced around with strange looks (possibly fear) on their faces, but clapped enthusiastically at the end. I suppose no one at these affairs wants to appear to be unappreciative of music, however confounding, especially at gala dinner prices.

In any case, Mr. Foss is personally engaging, and he congenially promised us "the real thing" after a short break, which I eagerly anticipated. Bach was reworked by the Swingle Singers and synthesized on the Moog, but I'm not convinced it can ever be made surreal. But I know now that it can be tortured.

My jangled nerves were soothed by "Concerto in D Minor," rendered with warmth and passion by the Resident Chamber Ensemble, including Messrs. Bailey and Gumm along with Brian Krinke and Jackie Carrasco on violins and Ralph Farris on viola with Mr. Foss at the piano.

Dexterity On Display

Mr. Foss's dexterity as a pianist, buried in his own composition, was appreciated here, and I look forward to hearing more of his playing and that of the ensemble in upcoming concerts in the series.

The festival's artistic director, Mr. Foss, had guaranteed "an adventurous series of concerts designed to challenge the performer as well as the listener, by playing classical music as if the ink were not yet dry and by treating contemporary works with the respect usually given only to the music of the past."

Promising, indeed. And judging from the tremendous lineup of concerts the festival offered last season, I am sure the festival, which continues through Sunday, will deliver a good deal of fine music and, no doubt, more surprises.