Music Reviews : California E.A.R. Unit Offers Stockhausen

The fearless California E.A.R. Unit came up with a cracking good program Wednesday night at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art. All evening long, the quality and appeal of the material was worthy of the skill of the performers--which doesn’t happen often enough in the avant-garde world for some patient ears.

The provocative megalomaniac Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose recent output is more discussed than actually heard these days, was given the lion’s share of attention.

“Zungenspitzentanz” and the uncredited “Bandertanz”--a tiny chip from the opera “Samstag aus Licht”--were heard in stripped-down versions where Dorothy Stone’s skittering solo piccolo was accompanied by a graceful ribbon dance from Ron Johnson.

The shimmering “Musik im Bauch”--literally Music in the Belly--found members of the E.A.R. Unit eagerly taking on music-theater roles, particularly percussionist Arthur Jarvinen as he whipped a baton audibly through the air in his deadpan John Belushi-samurai manner.

The most striking quality of these strange theater pieces is not egomania after all, but playful whimsy--and one could even be touched by Stockhausen’s gentle coda of simultaneously tumbling tunes from three music boxes.

Not to be overlooked was Burr van Nostrand’s “Night Lines,” a ghostly, brilliantly conceived slice of Nachtmusik that could build and hold tension throughout its 24 1/2-minute length. Though “Night Lines” is conceived as an “opera for instruments,” one could easily ignore the detailed program and revel--as did conductor Stephen Mosko--in its whirling colors and smashing crescendos.

Frederic Rzewski, freedom-fighter, turns into an environmentalist in his “To the Earth,” where Jarvinen delicately tapped out repetitive patterns on four tuned flowerpots while reciting a pro-Earth text. And Earle Brown was represented by “Syntagm III”, loaded with cunningly organized cascades of sound and pretentious heavy silences.