MUSIC REVIEWS : 12 WORKS PLAYED IN MONDAY SERIES

Normally, a concert-goer expects at least one premiere at a performance of works dedicated to music of the current decade. Yet, at the latest Monday Evening Concert--this one given in conjunction with the “Avant-Garde in the Eighties” exhibition--12 works written within the last seven years were offered, and none were premieres.

Instead, the concert turned out to be a showcase for six performers who had conveniently tucked away in their repertories of recent music several solo pieces, a pair of duets and one trio.

The 2 1/2-hour result, a hodgepodge of compositional styles and sensibilities, was a test of stamina for members of the the fair-size audience, which was asked to sit on and carry tiny, uncomfortable stools to three locations within the Robert O. Anderson Building at the County Museum of Art.

Guitarist David Tanenbaum highlighted the evening with four virtuosic works for solo guitar including Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Hill Runes” (1981), a gentle, pan-diatonic rhapsody with soft chordal textures, and Hans Werner Henze’s “Drei Maerchenbilder” (1980), a study in Renaissance lute music which was specifically written for children. Obviously, Tanenbaum is a musician of the highest quality. His exceptional facility and memory accompany a deep understanding of the music he performs.

Music for electronic sounds and live performer aptly displayed the frenetic, wild and sometimes even madcap style of percussionist William Winant in Gordon Mumma’s “Than Particle”(1985), a dialogue between loud and soft noises using computer-generated sounds and large percussion battery; Chris Brown’s “Iceberg” (1985) for bowed crotales, glockenspiel, hi-hat and other idiophonic sounds produced via live electronics, and an improvisation on a new electronic instrument called Airdrums.

Opening the program was trumpeter Mario Guarneri’s untidy, highly undramatic performance of “Entry and Formula” from Stockhausen’s seven-day theatrical work “Light,” followed by Charles Boone’s enigmatic study in architecture, “Solar One,” adequately performed by Guarneri and flutist Janet Ketchum.