Monday, March 10. 1980


Curtis Institute concerts salute Barber's 70th birthday

By Daniel Webster
Inquirer Music Critic


Composer Samuel Barber's 70th birthday was celebrated yesterday in two concerts produced by the Curtis Institute of Music. The two programs, brought to Curtis and the Academy of Music, performers who had premiered the works a few decades ago and fiiends and colleagues in a tribute that was broadcast around the country by public radio.

The mood of the day was tempered by Barber's abscence. He is undergoing treatment for cancer and was unable to leave his New York apartment. The sounds of the celebration reached him by radio, however, and, at the intermission of the evening concert at the Academy, Efrim Zimbalist Jr. called Barber "the poet of composers" and wished him a happy birthday.

The celebration was aptly centered in Philadelphia. Barber was born in West Chester, and had entered Curtis at 14 and entered the school's first class. Colleqgues recall that his talent was so ample that he trained for careers in singing, piano and composition before settling on composition. His first published pieces were finished at Curtis - string music, an orchestral overture and the first of a lifelong stream of songs - and he established there the havit of winning major prizes and recognition.

The chamber music performed yesterday afternoon included some of the earliest pieces, while the orchestral concert - after the "School for Scandal" Overture dating from his Curtis days - offered three pieces from the center of his output.

The choices invited evaluation. Barber had done what composers must - written prolifically and in varied forms, not to establish and orthodoxy or pattern, but to clarify his own artistic voice. His music avoided the currents of fashion and remained his own from the earliest examples to the songs of 1974. His music did not open the door on the 21st century any more than it closed the door on all that had happened before he wrote his Opus 1. It expressed the vision of a composer wholly in the command of his craft, a man with special gifts for melody and song for whom all of his music echoes with the eloquence of the human voice.

For that, the most memorable performances yesterday were centered around song. Donald Collup, a baritone studying at Curtis, stepped into the program at the last moment, replacing Theodor Uppman, and sang three recent lyrics with such command and musical affection that he crystallized the essence of Barber's gift for song.

In the evening, soprano Marianne Castello joined the Curtis Orchestra to sing "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," catching the simplicity of James Agee's youthfull memory without making the performance a display.

In the afternoon, the Curtis Quartet with mezzo-soprano Rose Bampton managed "Dover Beach," but only succeeded in making it lugubrious. Pianist Ruth Laredo, however, snapped the event to a close with the Piano Sonata in which she used her potenet technique to produce music of leaping energy and color. The final fugue was pure dazzle, but put together with a jeweler's care.

Calvin Simmons conducted the orchestral concert beside the "School for Scandal" Overture, his program included the Second Essay for orchestra and the Violin Concerto with Jaime Laredo, soloist. The care and attention in these readings were tribute to the composer.



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