LENTZ PREMIERE : THE NEW MUSIC GROUP DISCOVERS POP CULTURE

The New Music Group, the subsidiary of the Los Angeles Philharmonic that champions small-scale adventure, opened its season Monday night at the Japan America Theatre with Stravinsky’s still-spiffy 63-year-old Octet for winds.

Nothing revolutionary about that.

A revolution of sorts did hover, however, over the work that closed the program: Daniel Lentz’s “the crack in the bell.” (Thank e.e. cummings for the lower-case letters.)

The first work commissioned expressly for this series, it hardly fits the conventional art-music mold. It documents a diligent excursion in the glitzy direction of the mod-pop culture, class of ‘86--a culture predicated on brash electronic impulses, repetitive minimalist modules, primitive expressive gestures and a bang-em-over-the-head dynamic ethic.

Like it or lump it, we have come a long way from the refinements of Stravinsky.

Lentz’s performance setup told it all. There were wires, wires everywhere. The conductor, series director John Harbison, beat time, offered cues and communicated with outer space via earphones.

Earphones also bedecked the assembled Philharmonic brass, string and percussion virtuosi. Regardless of gender, they sported stubbornly conservative black tuxedos with--a nice touch--crimson ties and cummerbunds.

Four outer-space keyboards lined the front of the stage. One of them was womanned by a tall, blond, wide-ranging soprano equipped with new-wave hair, a clingy gold- lame pantsuit and spiky heels.

The program credits listed the composer as performance engineer. One suspects he had some troubles engineering. The balances between choirs seemed to go awry from time to time, and the soloist frequently got submerged in the amplified semi-instrumental garble.

The loss of verbal clarity seemed regrettable because Lentz had selectively culled a poignant anti-war message from cummings as his point of textual departure. He toyed knowingly with the obvious quotations, the National Anthem and “America,” but, for the most part, used the voice merely as part of the blown-up instrumental texture.

“I chose this poem,” he explained in a program note, “not only for the sentiments expressed but for its phonetic content.” The phonetic content won Monday night, tones down.

When she emerged from the sonic murk, Jessica Lowe, the loudly muffled quasi-soprano, crooned scrambled duets (even trios) with her magically miked self (and selves).

The instrumental onslaughts--repetitive arpeggio clusters, whomping glissandos, wild and mild contrapuntal murmurs--at least had economy in their favor. It took only about 15 minutes to crack this neon bell.

It was difficult at first hearing to sort out sound and substance. It was hard to tell if Lentz had tamed the new-fangled technology in the service of aesthetic communication, or just jumbled a lot of bright and noisy ideas.

To these fossilized ears, it all seemed too slick, somehow, and too easy. But it was, without question, clever. Compared to this, the other novelties on the program sounded academic.

Harbison’s own Variations for clarinet, violin and piano (1982) turned out to be an elegant but sneaky fusion of old forms and new harmonies. Just when one was lulled by its prettiness, it took off in delicate flights of excruciating dissonance. It was as if a velvet-gloved hand were scratching on the blackboard. Then, innocently, it would resume its pose of poise and sweetness.

Michele Zukovsky (clarinet), Rose Mary Harbison (violin) and Zita Carno (piano) were the able, avant-gardish Andrews Sisters on duty.

Fred Lerdahl’s Fantasy Etudes (1985) started out with the cheery simplicity of neat and prickly little melodic patterns. The plot thickened, however, as did the fabric, when the composer gradually piled ideas on ideas, even patterns on patterns. Busymusic.

The jaunty ripples of the introductory Stravinsky, deftly executed by all concerned, served as an especially beguiling overture in this context.