Music: Hautboys and Candles

Williamsburg, capital of colonial Virginia, was one of the gayest musical spots in unmusical 18th-Century America. Musical centre of this musical spot was the colonial governor's palace. In its spacious salons, between sessions of the Virginia Legislature, such distinguished amateurs as Thomas Jefferson gathered to make sweet music on viols, flutes, harpsichords. Now Williamsburg, restored by the Rockefellers, looks much as it did 200 years ago. But for Colonial Williamsburg Inc., looks were not enough. It wanted to restore the sweet sounds too.

Last year, on the advice of Carleton Sprague Smith, affable Manhattan librarian and expert on early U. S. music, a harpsichord was obtained for the governor's palace, and U. S. Harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick was hired to put on a festival of 18th-Century music. So successful was Williamsburg's first music festival that in the autumn another was given.

Last week Williamsburg's third festival opened in the palace's candlelit ballroom. Guests were escorted from their carriages by pantalooned footmen carrying candle lanterns. Eight evenings of 18th-Century music for "Harpsichord, Hautboy, Violins and Violoncello" were scheduled. At week's end 20th-Century visitors were unconsciously bowing and reaching for their snuffboxes.