Music : E.A.R. Unit Offers Weak New Music Program

In 1791, as in 1991, the majority of new music was of only passing interest. Time has weeded out those ephemeral compositions of yesteryear, so that from this vantage point it seems like a golden age. Not so, 1991.

The indefatigable California E.A.R. Unit, now in its 10th year, offered what turned out to be a weak agenda of new music Saturday night. The inspiration of monsters was the puzzling binding element in this program at Thorne Hall, Occidental College.

The concert opened with players in Halloween garb, including a violinist/ghost, performing John Bergamo’s brief “Barf on the Ghoul,” a Zappaesque barrage of amplified sound with heavy beat. The only discernible lyrics were the words of the title, though to these could be added the aural pleasures of screams and the visual ones of mock retching.

Burr Van Nostrand’s “Nightlines” followed, a work inspired by Ann Rice’s vampire novels. No programmatic details were printed, however (though a short and unfollowable outline was read aloud beforehand), so that what proceeded failed in descriptive impact.

Free form and plaintive in manner, “Nightlines” is atonal night-music imaginatively scored for seven instruments, including prepared piano. It moves along slowly, mostly non-metrically, a rhapsodic flute solo here, a groaning cello solo there, violin wailings, percussion clangs and thuds punctuating. Its bigger moments seemed merely louder moments, its 23 minutes interminable.

The second half brought Frederic Rzewski’s “Mary’s Dream,” reportedly based on the Shelley nightmare that led to “Frankenstein.” A kind of concerto for amplified heavy breather and ensemble, the piece builds from the inhale/exhale of the monster, through his stupefied attempts at language, to Mary’s waking revelation, “If it scares me, it will scare others.” Deep.

Steve Reich’s “Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ” (no monsters here) wound up the evening in predictably hypnotic fashion, though poor balances clogged up many a polyrhythm.