MUSIC REVIEW : U.S. COMPOSERS FEATURED IN CONCERT

How do American composers fit delicate, finely honed European instruments into the largest, most aggressive industrial society in the world? The best of them, e.g., Ives, Ruggles or Varese, find clever solutions. Indeed, such solutions sometime turn out to be the most vital part of the composer’s music.

The latest installment of the Monday Evening Concerts series at the County Museum of Art promised music by four recent American composers plus one older work by Varese. Entitled “Music Made in America,” the concert delivered some, but not enough, moments of genuine ingenuity to a sparse and barely polite audience.

Charles Boone’s odd duo, “Solar One”--the evening’s highlight--creates a minimalistic architecture of melodic tidbits and effects for trumpet and flute. Typical of Boone’s music, there is a wonderful combination of stasis and expression that is a style all its own. Boone continues to be one of the most underrated West Coast composers of his generation. The performance by Janet Ketchum, flute, and Mario Guarneri, trumpet, was tentative but successful.

Faye-Ellen Silverman’s “Passing Fancies,” for 13 instruments, begins as a strong composition with plenty of wonderful trills and materials, but soon fades into a watered down Romanticism; a waltz melody recurs throughout, and the final cadence is on a major triad. Like Boone’s piece, this world premiere performance, by members of the MEC Ensemble conducted by Robert Ziegler, was strong.

Also performed were two predictable, academic compositions. “Snapshots,” by Tina Davidson, explores sonorities and effects for cello and piano, but discovered nothing new--even though the performance by Delores Stevens, piano, and Roger Lebow, cello, was polished and well delivered. An ambitious 12-tone study, “Lalita,” by Peter Lieberson, demonstrates some compositional skill, but not enough to carry the listener.

Opening the program was a warm-up performance of Varese’s “Octandre” that seemed out of place; perhaps a more recent work would have fit better.