And now for something experimental.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

THE OREGON Mozart Players - and guest conductors Robert Ashens and Diane Retallack - may just be wondering exactly what they've gotten into with Witold Lutoslawski's ``Three Poems of Henri Michaux.''

Conductor Andrew Massey resigned at the beginning of the 2002-03 season. The orchestra asked Ashens, the Eugene Opera's artistic director and conductor, and Retallack, artistic director of the Eugene Concert Choir/Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble, to join forces and pull together the program for Nov. 16-17.

Its centerpiece is Lutoslawski's 20-minute experimental piece, which lies far outside the Oregon Mozart Players usual oeuvre, which includes works by Wolfgang Mozart and other stalwarts of the chamber music form.

By comparison, Lutoslawski is a wild man, a radical with musical ideas that will stretch the orchestra's definition of itself.

Ashens describes the composition as "a tour de force for percussion instruments, featuring 20 instruments in the percussion department, plus strings and chorus. It is very, very `interesting.' ''

The orchestra consists of three flutes and three clarinets, two each of oboes, bassoons, trumpets, horns, trombones and pianofortes, one harp and a large percussion section including bells, vibraphone, xylophone and celeste.

"There's an undulating quality to it that I find appealing," Ashens says. "It spins itself out at the end. It's very, very quiet, then the voices gradually disappear. It's almost like a Haydn farewell.

"My impression of it is, he was really experimenting with sounds and using them as a buffer or foundation underneath, on which the text could sort of float."

The text is three poems by French poet Henri Michaux: ``Pensees (Thoughts),'' ``Le grand combat (The Great Battle)'' and ``Repos dans le malheur (Rest in the Midst of Misfortune).''

The first and third sections are gentle. The middle, which describes a struggle between two men watched by a crowd, is more aggressive and is told through nonsense words similar to Lewis Carroll's ``Jabberwocky'' (``Twas brillig and the slithy toves'') in ``Through the Looking-Glass.''

At that point, the choir will be "chanting and speaking and shouting," Retallack says. Yet, in other spots, she says, the music is "very gentle. There's a certain sound to certain sections. A lot of the choral parts may have the same notes, but they are not in the same order or speed of performing. It gives you this impression of tones. I think they go together quite beautifully. They're not clashing and annoying or abrasive. Close your eyes and be transported somewhere."

Written for the Zagreb Biennale, "Three Poems" was first performed by the orchestra and choir of Radio Zagreb, conducted by Lutoslawski and Slavko Ziatic, on May 9, 1963.

For the Nov. 16-17 concerts, Ashens will conduct the orchestra and Retallack will conduct her Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble. That's right. Both conductors will be on stage leading their musical forces at the same time.

Says Ashens, "The only time I did anything like this was when I was in high school, when we were on a football field with 20 other bands. We did `Fanfare for the Common Man,' team-conducted.''

Retallack sees the Lutoslawski work as highly improvisatory.

"The conductors at some points coordinate with each other," she says, "and at other points one conductor goes off with his ensemble, then coordinates again on certain notes."

Lutoslawski made the work especially daunting by inventing not only new sounds but also a new way of notating music.

"I thought I knew how to read music until I looked at this," says Ashens, referring to his conductor's score. "It's a real road map. He's given us extensive directions in Polish, French, German, Italian and English. These directions give things in terms of timing: You play a certain chord cluster for one second and during that time instruments will come in, voices will come in."

Exactly how they come in is something Ashens will discover during this week's rehearsals. His conductor's score accounts for only the orchestra, while Retallack's score covers only the choir.

Ashens, who will mount the Oregon Mozart Players' podium just two weeks after conducting his own Eugene Opera orchestra in "Pagliacci," says he has "had to borrow her copy so I could see what the chorus was doing."

Unlike the usual four-part choir, Lutoslawski spreads the voices over 20 parts. To cover that, Retallack has expanded her Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble from 24 to 43 voices by bringing in members of her Eugene Concert Choir.

"Three Poems" is, she says, "the most difficult" piece her choir has done. Ashens, too, is finding it a challenge.

"You don't look at the notes as symbols any more. You look at them as traffic directions," he says.

The program also includes three pieces by two classical composers, Franz Schubert (Mass No. 2 in G Major) and Wolfgang Mozart (Te Deum and Serenata Nutturna).

"The serenade is something quiet, easy and reflective, as counterpoint against the Lutoslawski, which is a wild piece," Ashens says.

The concert will open with Te Deum, an orchestral-choral work that Retallack calls "lyrical, spirited, exuberant. It concludes with a marvelous fugue. It's just a lovely and gorgeous choral piece."

The Schubert Mass will feature three Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble soloists: soprano Carol Welch, tenor Guy Aydelott and bass Stephen Vorhes..

"It is a well known miniature treasure that is absolutely exquisite and gorgeous in its tunefulness," Retallack says.

Then will come the Lutoslawski workout.

"Even if this isn't their particular cup of tea, I would hope audience members would appreciate the complexity of it - just the ability of fine musicians to put this all together," Retallack says. "It'll be quite entertaining."

Arts reporter Fred Crafts can be reached by phone at 338-2575 and by e-mail at [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

"I thought I knew how to read music until I looked at this," conductor Robert Ashens says of Witold Lutoslawski's ``Three Poems of Henri Michaux.'' Eugene Opera Company