MUSIC REVIEW : Zukerman and Newman at Keck Theater

There was a nice mingling of art and education, a sort of academic musical bonhomie, in the recital offered Tuesday by flutist Eugenia Zukerman and keyboardist Anthony Newman. Enhancing and complementing that feeling was the site: Keck Theater at Occidental College, a paradoxical paragon of spacious intimacy and comfortable elegance.

Completed last summer, the $9 million Keck Theater is the new home of the Oxy theater department and--so far, at least--only infrequently a concert hall. It makes a spectacular one, however, acoustically clear and even, for all of its 400 comfortable seats. As word spreads, the theater department’s gain will quickly become the music community’s envy.

The basic Keck configuration is a traditional opera-house horseshoe, with two gallery levels of mock-boxes facing a proscenium stage. But the innovative, floor-level seating, on electronically controlled risers, can be altered in many ways, accommodating an orchestra pit, a thrust stage or even an arena stage.

It would be an ideal house for opera. The stage is relatively large, equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and technical facilities. Sight lines are unencumbered, and there is a sense of immediacy and connectedness even at the back of the top gallery.

Although Zukerman and Newman performed in the most conventional arrangement of the hall--a thrust stage might serve chamber music better--without a shell, their sound projected cleanly, retaining both warmth and sparkle.

Not a note was lost, nor a word. The duo approached their program as a team-teaching project, with Zukerman giving a general, biographical introduction to each work, Newman following with details about the music. Their demeanor and dynamic level was conversational, and easily sustained in the crystalline acoustic.

The program itself consisted of a chain of master-pupil (or at least friendly) relationships, beginning with J.S. Bach and ending with Czerny. The concept certainly intrigued, but neither the cheerful talking nor the equally agreeable playing made the connections organic or revelatory.

More rewarding, both musically and instructionally, were the instrumental comparisons. Zukerman’s suave, articulate sound left little to choose from between her flutes, but Newman’s alternation between a harpsichord, fortepiano and Bechstein concert grand provided distinctive juxtapositions.

Surprisingly, the harpsichord proved the most consistent in sound, at least as manipulated with fleet--though not inevitably accurate--stylish authority by Newman in transcriptions of works by Haydn and Bach pere . The fortepiano sounded uneven and out-of-tune, and, with the lid down, the Bechstein sounded muffled in the bass and tinny in the high treble, in works by Hummel and Czerny that exceeded the range of fortepiano.

The first half, then, the transcriptions plus C.P.E. Bach’s Sonata in D for flute and fortepiano, offered the most assured music-making in the strongest repertory. Some of the fast movements--very fast--suffered from blurred individual and ensemble articulation, but possessed abundant energy and a lithe sense of musical line, and Zukerman and Newman delivered slow movements with expressive elan.

The combination of minor Beethoven, the three Themes with Variations of Opus 105, with big virtuosic pieces from Hummel and Czerny on the second half, provided a surfeit of technical display--and all too little substance.