This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED] /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Let NYTimes.com Come to You Sign up for one of our weekly e-mails and the news will come directly to you. YOUR MONEY brings you a wealth of analysis and information about personal investing. CIRCUITS plugs you into the latest on personal technology. TRAVEL DISPATCH offers you a jump on special travel deals and news. http://email.nytimes.com/email/email.jsp?eta5 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Flux Quartet: What's in the Title? Perhaps a Little Fun MUSIC REVIEW By PAUL GRIFFITHS he Flux Quartet's curious program at the Miller Theater on Saturday night was billed as offering "New American Visions." Only half the music, though, was American, and none of that was new, which left rather little space for the visionary. Presumably the players were playing what they wanted to play, but their criteria were mighty hard to discern. Their repertory ranged from the agile, imaginative and light-filled First Quartet of the highly gifted British composer Philip Cashian to the snarling textures and slow glissandos of Elliott Sharp's "Twistmap." John Zorn's "Kol Nidre," referring to the Jewish prayer, found this mercurial musician sounding like an Arvo P�rt from another tradition, with a slow chorale of beautiful wide- spaced chords, while Oliver Lake's "Input" was an unfortunate mistake: a frame of zealously abstract quartet music around an improvised solo from the composer on sax, with stray string accompaniments that were immediately obliterated. Also in the mix were a group of "transcriptions and audio realizations" by an Australian collective, Slave Pianos, based on sound creations by visual artists, including Bill Viola and George Maciunas, the founder of the Fluxus movement of the 1960's. Maciunas's piece, "In memoriam Ariano Olivetti," was a joke, but the Flux players told it well, bringing gusto to the rude oral noises that first interrupt and then overwhelm the pizzicatos with which the thing had begun. Perhaps hardest of all to understand is the quartet's continuing commitment to the French composer Renaud Gagneux, whose Second Quartet they were introducing to this country. The work had nice moments, notably the finely scored flourish at the end of the middle movement. But it also included sequences of scrubbing such as encourage these very talented and energetic musicians to throw caution and nuance to the winds. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/arts/12FLUX.html?ex=988087318&ei=1&en=2f2faab56cf1697b /-----------------------------------------------------------------\ Visit NYTimes.com for complete access to the most authoritative news coverage on the Web, updated throughout the day. Become a member today! It's free! http://www.nytimes.com?eta \-----------------------------------------------------------------/ HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
