MUSIC REVIEW : Winning Composers’ Works

It was as if the last 80 years of music history had never happened.

So conservative were the pieces on the Winners Concert of the Pacific Composers Forum’s Competition for New Music that they might have been written that long ago, and even then not caused a stir.

Challenging their listeners would not seem to be among these composers’ concerns. Pleasantness, accessibility, wistfulness would.

The works on this year’s program--given Wednesday at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Griffith Park--all made use of the harp (presumably a competition requirement, though unstated) with varying combinations of strings, clarinet and flute. All were unadventuresomely, staunchly tonal.

Arnold who?

Igor what?

By far the strongest offering, and an exception to the above, came from Zita Carno, better known as the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s unflappable pianist, in her Variations for seven players.

Upon a starkly scored and austere theme, Carno crafted dark-hued, sometimes furious elaborations that acknowledged confidently the influences of Shostakovich, Bartok and Hindemith. What’s more, her imaginative orchestration proved a successful, and lone, attempt to pique, not soothe.

John Alan Cohan’s “Warrior Saints” for solo harp also impressed, through idiomatic writing and the antique quality of its aural moods. Biographies of the women saints depicted should have been included, however.

Elsewhere, solid workmanship and easy listening prevailed. Paul Gibson’s “The Calls of the Owl” evoked nature imagery with its lyrical counterpoint and flowing ostinatos. George S. Clinton’s “Inertia” revealed little, despite some pleasing touches of scoring, chiefly because its routine theme and elementary harmonies offered sparse material for the following variations.

Brief works by Jonathan Sacks, Susan Christiansen and Zina Josephs completed the event.

An uncredited Mark Watters conducted the efficient chamber ensemble, with the Philharmonic’s own Lou Anne Neill as the indefatigable, persuasive harpist.