Alea III
Contemporary Music Ensemble in Residence at Boston University
Tsai Performance Center
Boston University
Boston, MA
Lukas Foss was a celebrated professor of music at Boston University for many years, and a composer of international renown, who died last year at the age of 86.
In 1967, when Mstislav Rostropovich, the late great Russian cellist (who later emigrated to the United States and became the music director of the National Symphony in Washington, DC), made a rare and momentous visit to New York and played, in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall, all of the major cello concertos and several world premieres. A concerto by Lukas Foss was among them.
Alea III, under the able guidance of Theodore Antoniou, coordinated a full evening’s tribute to Foss. It was varied and lovely. From the atonally wandering Echoi (1963) pieces, through the haunting melodies and words of Elegy for Anne Frank (1989), to the large, sonorous choral tones of The Prairie (1944) and Behold! I Build A House (the piece Foss composed in 1950 for the dedication of the main chapel at Boston University), there was a broad sampling of Foss’ range and it was interesting and fulfilllng to hear it in one place. (Sadly, due to having to circle around endlessly looking for a parking place, I missed the first piece, For Toru (1997). Oh well. At least I discovered, in the process, a better parking strategy for that area of town.)
Eighteen Epigrams formed the basis for the second part of the program. This collage piece is an amalgamation of short works in honor of Foss by his former students. Though highly varied in tone and orientation, it is a lovely work, a kind of testament not only to Foss but to modernism itself. How many composed collaborative pieces of this sort, in the world of classical music, do we typically hear? It is a pleasure to have the occasion to sew together the varied feelings of devotion to a beloved teacher and to witness the result in a singular form. I noted in particular the segment composed by Julian Wachner, but, truthfully, I lost count of the many pieces somewhere along the line and there were, in addition to that one, a number that were particularly striking. Alea III and the Boston University Chamber Chorus delivered very capable performances, but, in the end, it was the overall sense of Foss’ legacy and presence that governed the evening.
– BADMan
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