The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 424

At the Ojai Festival: New Music Leavened With Mozart BY ALBERT GOLDBERG LUKAS FOSS: CURIOSITY HAS COME BACK from that, and he said he could not he had to write it out in notes first In the case of a piece by Sylva-no Bussotti he spent a whole night writing out the music from the instructions. The next day he played it for the composer, and he said Bussotti recognized it! "These are extreme cases. Who is the composer the one who presents the situation, or the one who translates it into notes? Is the one who presents the situation a composer or is he an inventor of various chance arrangements? Isn't the performer then really a kind of apprentice composer? This example shows one thing: Cage found a Tudor, a performer who can complete his ideas and make them a sounding reality. It is a brand new role for the performer. "Or take Luciano Berio and his wife Cathy Ber-berian, who will appear in Ojai and who have been heard here on the Monday Evening 'Concerts.

In Miss Berberian, a singer, Berio found himself a wife performer. She is also more than a performer. He and she work out everything together, even the choreographic movements that play a part in his music. "She has made something of a name for herself not alone through her husband's music but because s'le really adds a fascinating dimension to his work. He could not suddenly go to someone else to perform his work, This Is a closeness of relationship between torn, poser and performer that Is new, "Or there the ca-e of Olivier Me hk I a en, the.

I'Vench compos consider the pun in Yvonne Jorfo.J cmmM fo the performance of hi iiiuic, In all lb' re fcUnctij th pufonur To the average music lover, content with his Beethoven, Brahms and Tschaikowsky symphonies and concertos, his "La Traviata" and "Madame Butterfly," the world of music undoubtedly seems eatisfactorily stabilized. The ferment of the avant-garde movement touches him, if at all, only when he chances to read a review of some of these curious goings-on. But the forward ranks have a way of becoming the rear ones before the general public realizes what is happening, and it is well to be forewarned. Visitors to the Ojai Festival this week are going to get generous samplings of the new music, leavened by equal helpings of Mozart as the only "classical" composer represented. In preliminary sessions, Monday through Thursday, four composers of advanced tendencies Luciano Berio, Milton Babbitt, Gunthcr Schuller and Lukas Foss will explain and take part in performances of their compositions, as well as talk ibout Mozart.

Five Programs The five programs of th festival proper, on Friday, Saturday and next Sunday, will also be devoted to music of 20th-century vintage combined with Mozart. Lukas Foss, the direc tor of the festival, a him-df a composer, con doctor, and teach, rr, believe that the pro. Warn will Ik significant in the i mergence of a new type of niu fciclaii and of a new itIj. lie! Wei ll compos. iriud jk tJ'uj jii' r.

"Till-' I llllljll); I i ll 'I are JM ifu ill(J )l) Oj.ii c. Hut a growing In I away i ii a pei ulij" IiijiI wlili I) il' n't liuktf i) ti miy ii'm Li i 4 Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. The old-fashioned kind of conductor who had difficulty even learning a score doesn't have a chance any more "I'm not talking down performers. I'm talking them up. They are more creative than they know.

One might say that the tragedy of contemporary music until very recently was that the non-gifted performer could make a niche for himself trying to play it. Therefore, in the mind of the public modern music began to be a very dull thing. But new performers of the type of the Juilliard Quartet, David Tudor, Leonard Bernstein, Boulez and Leon Kirchner, to name a few, came along and began to show how it should be done." Choice Factor HJr As an example of the new demands upon the performer, Mr. Foss cited so-called "aleatory" music, in which chance and choices allowed the r-formcr play a prominent part. "In this kind of music the performer is suddenly called upon to make up his mind what notes to play, the order in which, various sections are to be played, or to find notes indicated only on a graph, things that a few year ago no composer would have dreamed of entrust, ing to a performer, "Tim other day John rage, the composer, a Jtavid Tudor, it pianist who )ui mailt? a career of this Mirl of thing, came my 1 looked jet mine of Cage' the tcojtt of which consist only of dug'tiir).

I nski Tudor If )i could lay the typical performer of the past is so stifled by. tradition that his performances have become dull, too egocentric, and concerned with what success he can reap with old masterpieces, and that makes him a bore," said Mr. Foss. "Whereas a composer who really can perform, or a performer who also composes, will reveal much more intimate relationship to the old masters from whom he usually learns how to compose, and therefore will be literally able to re-create the music. They will reveal a personal experience.

"This has always been done, of course, but nowadays there is an added situation. The average performer player or singer cannot do the work of new composers because he does not know enough about contemporary music. This latest music needs a special type of performer. This type now exists all over the world people who want to make their contribution and who usually are composers themselves. "When I started my experiments with ensemble improvisation I had no idea that in four or five years the performers would become an entirely different type of mul cian from what they been, "For the new music a new type of composer performer required.

The modern musician much more curioiu than Ms older counterpart. furiosity ha come back into tin; picture, The ww per. former ujnU to lean) Organize. The oilier kind if Jife i iiu dull 1' liiii), Tlii' kind cuiioik jiiu. Mi Kill Kill je (j 1 1 jiui )wiUi Will.

it'1-' tM) "I makes an enormous contribution making this music live. The real point is that there is a new generation of talented performers who are making careers with new music. "It is also interesting to see to what extent composers are beginning to feel they have to take a hand in performing and developing their own technique. I feel the urge. I feel close to the source of composition since I compose all the time.

It makes Mozart and Bach seem like the most contemporary music, as if the ink were still wet on the pages. On the other hand I like to do contemporary music with some of the respect and distance usually accorded the old masters. Gould Cited "The more alive a musician musically, the les he want to devote himself solely cither to performance or composition, Artur Bchnabel wa my favorite planlit, and la spent most of hi time at composition, fJUnn jouIiJ May I my favor-Me pla.ni.-t, although I violently di-atjice with some of Mi InWrprcU-tioix, consider jc lationship to the piano more interesting because he also composes." "What about the fact that the public doesn't give a damn about the music of either Schnabel or Gould?" we interpolated. "Gould is young and maybe some people do. He is reported to have said about his playing of Brahms Minor Concerto to which Bernstein objected, 'Anything to inject a little life into a dying Is the playing of a great concerto a dying art? I think he means that the typical virtuoso is dying.

That glamorous figure who travels around with a handful of surefire masterpieces that is what is dying. At least, I think that is what he meant. "In summation, now there are not merely composers and performers, but all grades between. The result is a shot in the arm to musical performance. We will get better performance of both old and new rouble.

The new type of performer ti e4 narclsfUtie, for more In-UrctUiJ hi music, for more I I I ami rough Improvisatory and aleatory technique inm ilo te tlw coin- Jjofci'r'n Wul MORE MUSIC ON PAGE 20 It If it.