Plucking at Your Heartstrings

Pop quiz: Who was the sixth member of Les Six?

For those of you not in the know, Les Six was a loosely associated group of 1920s French composers who shared similar modernistic tendencies. Three of them - Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, and Darius Milhaud - achieved worldwide fame, while a fourth, Georges Auric, was well-known in his chosen field of film scoring. But the works of the only female member of the sextet, Germaine Tailleferre, have languished in obscurity.

Thus I was eagerly anticipating a performance of Madame Tailleferre's music during the joint recital of the guitar students of Sharon Isbin and the harp students of Nancy Allen, sponsored by the Juilliard School on Wednesday at Alice Tully Hall. Maura Valenti performed Tailleferre's Harp Sonata brilliantly, not just with impressive technique but also with just the right touch of Gallic ebullience.

This is one of those works that simply make you glad to be alive, especially when presented so energetically. The first movement is a swirling perpetuum mobile, the second an extremely inventive rhythmic fantasy wherein one repeated triplet figure in 2/4 time is played underneath a delightful series of melodies.The final section is a charming piece of chinoiserie. Very Parisian, very optimistic, very charming.

The other modernist on the program was the Swiss composer Frank Martin, whose music will be featured by the American Symphony Orchestra in May as part of an all-Swiss program that also includes two works by Honegger, a card-carrying member of Les Six who enjoyed dual citizenship. This guitar suite by Martin, titled "Quatre pieces breves," takes full advantage of the unique sonority of the instrument, allowing the player to pierce individual notes through space with crystalline accuracy.

Connie Sheu was particularly good at this type of accenture and did an excellent job of framing the more bizarre notes meant by the composer to shock. Ms. Sheu intoned the third piece, titled "Plainte," in a ruminative and searching manner,and her measured interpretation of the final "Comme une gigue" was scholarly.

The other guitar number, performed by Stefan Roos, was a more standard Spanish affair. Fernando Sor's "Introduction and Variations on 'Marlborough s'en va t'en guerre'"emphasized the exquisite blending of the strum and the continuous, spidery spinning of tone. The main theme had a decided similarity to "The Bear Went Over the Mountain,"but the variants were highly interesting, calling to mind the waltz by Diabelli or "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as source material for fine extrapolations of melodic thought.

You need to be somewhat of a harp junkie to know the name of Henriette Renie, but she occupies a position in her instrument's history roughly equivalent to that of Theodor Leschetizky at the piano or Leopold Auer the violin. Renie was a master teacher who held sway for the first half of the 20th century as the ultimate pedagogue. Not only have her methods become the sacred materials of the modern harpist, she was also an active composer for the instrument. In the best performance of the day, Sivan Magen dazzled with her "Ballade Fan tastique After Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' "

Even in a recital of highly talented aspirants, this rendition was a distinct cut above. Mr. Magen delivered a dramatically charged, suitably mysterious, and stunningly strong-handed realization. This is a rather old-fashioned work, the kissing cousin of a Lisztian tone poem.There is one particular expansive melody that sticks in the ear and Mr. Magen made the most of it. His tone was superb. Considering his gender, he might be in line for a position with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Oh, the sixth man of Les Six? He was the now totally forgotten Louis Durey. Did you know the answer? Good. Now name the quintet of composers known as Russia's "mighty handful."