Greg Stepanich

Review: New World Symphony

The Schubert Ninth Symphony has never been on the top of my list of favorite pieces, but I might have to rethink that position.

The convincer for me was a performance of the work this week by the New World Symphony, which left its Miami Beach home Monday night and stopped in at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale. The Schubert came at the end of all-Austrian (really, all-Viennese) program that also featured works by Webern (the Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6) and Mahler (Kindertotenlieder).

Surely, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas chose this piece as an illuminator and patriarch of the very different music that came before. In the New World's gorgeous reading of the Schubert, you could hear the future voices of Dvorak and Bruckner as well as Mahler, and even hear the remnants of those structures and sound combinations in the compressed sonic world of Webern.

But there was more here than music education. Every bar of the symphony simply glowed with life and power, from the slow tempo and beautifully liquid phrasing Thomas chose for the opening, to the huge energy he and his band demonstrated in the scherzo. Every instrument — aided by the Broward Center's warm acoustic — sounded wide open and alive, and you got a sense of shared discovery from Thomas and his musicians.

I think the thing that made this Schubert so wonderful was the orchestra's sense of this music's kinship to folk and dance styles, and not incidentally to the sheer joy of creating indelible melodies. A typical reading of the processional-like opening theme, for instance, is usually a call for sobriety and purity of line, but here, while the lines were clear as they could be, there was a sense of playfulness and high spirits that made the theme sound newly composed, and newly composed by a writer who was very proud of his creation and wanted to show it off.

That spirit prevailed throughout the performance, from the jauntiness of the oboe theme in the slow movement to Thomas' refusal to hold back on big climaxes (perhaps not very 1828, but certainly Schubert wouldn't care). It was, in sum, a big-hearted reading of this symphony in every way; it benefited immeasurably from being performed by young people to whom this piece is brand-new, and being conducted by a man whose musicianship remains in a perpetual state of willingness to be overtaken by delight.

The Finnish mezzo-soprano Lilli Paasikivi was the soloist for the Kindertotenlieder, a cycle of melancholy songs for which Paasikivi's dark, mature voice is well-suited. It also blended well with Mahler's masterful orchestration, which makes shrewd use of instrumental tone color and beautifully couches the songs in somber shades.

Here again, the young musicians of the New World were heard to excellent effect, and Thomas demonstrated his ability to accompany with sensitivity. Paasikivi's most affecting singing came in the fifth and final song, In diesem Wetter, during the final stanza, which begins:

In diesem Wetter, in diesem Saus,
In diesem Braus,
Sie ruhn als wie der Mutter Haus . . .
(In this weather, in this storm
In this tumult,
they are resting, as if in their mother's house)

Paasikivi's voice took on a sense of radiance that communicated quite well the consoling vision of the dead children, now "sheltered by God's hand,� resting in peace and quiet and safety. It was a moving performance of a work we don't get to hear too often around here, and a good example of Mahler's ability to write exceptional songs.

The program opened with an even rarer visitor to local concert programs, the Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, of Anton Webern, in the composer's 1928 revision. Thomas preceded the playing with a discussion of how the music was originally written at a time of fierce intellectual tumult, with new ideas from Freud, Einstein and the Second Viennese School itself. He suggested that the spaces in the music could be compared to the pauses in a psychoanalytic session, which is an interesting way to think about it.

The beauty of Webern in general is the composer's ear for color and instrumental combinations. His work is concise and meticulously crafted; each note means something, and each chord or gesture is part of a precisely ordered whole.

In the performance Monday night, the Six Pieces each had their own special sound, such as the delicate celesta figure that haunted the third piece, or the bass drum and gong rumblings of the fourth piece. The New World's individual players were again in the spotlight, and each of them ably pulled off their various solos.

While the Mahler and Schubert were distinguished by a generous approach, the Webern was a well-realized opportunity for the orchestra and Thomas to present a carefully thought-out, intense exercise in exactitude, and that suits the music admirably.

The orchestra responded to a large ovation with an encore by another resident of Vienna, Johannes Brahms: the first Hungarian Dance, in G minor. Both orchestra and director made the most of this miniature's rich Romanticism, making a lovely ending to a concert full of insight, first-class playing and the pleasure of making music.

Creating the 'Lifestyle Language'

I don’t know whether there’s anything worth saying any more about something left over from the Olympics, but this has been bothering me for some time, and now I have a name for it:

Starbucks Italian.

This is what we will call the indiscriminate use of foreign languages in an inconsistent manner. At Starbucks, the name of the smallest coffee is in English — tall, while the next two sizes are in Italian — grande and venti. Since “venti� means 20, I guess it’s that the large is a 20-oz. coffee, and that coffee bars in Italy call it that. Don’t know, but if I could lay my hands on the Howard Schultz autobio I’ve got around here, I’d know.

That brings me back to the Olympics. The sports fest took place in the old Italian city of Turin, which is what we in the English-speaking world call it, For some reason, NBC decided to use the Italian name, Torino, which is also fine; that’s the real name of the city.

But you can’t call it Torino, and then do big feature pieces on other Italian cities such as Florence, Venice, Rome and Milan. If you’re going to call it Torino, you have to call the other cities Firenze, Venezia, Roma and Milano. One or the other. You can’t do both.

But under the rules of Starbucks Italian, perhaps you can. I suppose it’s just a cousin to the notion of dropping in foreign phrases whenever it suits you. One of the best things about Mike Leigh’s Gilbert and Sullivan film, Topsy-Turvy, a few years back was the way everyone in that film sprinkled French phrases in regular conversation. That was the way the educated Victorians did it, history tells us, and that made the film’s verisimilitude even more realistic.

And I guess it’s also something akin to the growth of dialects such as Spanglish, with many mix-ins from English creating something new. But that’s a response to conditions, not a lifestyle choice, which is what calling the city Torino while the others get their English names really is, and it’s what calling a large coffee at Starbucks a “venti� is.

If that’s what makes the company happy, and its patrons don’t mind, fine. It’s just that it may require a very nimble mind in the future to negotiate the minefield of Lifestyle Languages.

Here are some ideas for those:

a) Starbucks French. To be used in grading tests in school: Satisfactory, Formidable, and Magnifique.

b) Starbucks German: To be used in big-and-tall shirt sizes: Large, Sehr Gross and Riesenhaft.

c) Starbucks Spanish: To be used in assessing the heat of spices: Hot, Muy Caliente, and En Fuego.

Anybody else have any ideas for a Lifestyle Language? Post it below and we’ll have some linguistic laughs.

Recital good news for violin future

Look around you at the world of classical music these days and you'll find a big crop of talented violinists.

Some talents that have been discovered relatively recently are making nice careers for themselves, and there's little doubt that soon all those players will meet a crop of composers looking for someone to write for, and then things will really get interesting.

We're not quite there yet, but the violinists keep coming. On Sunday afternoon, I stopped by Lynn University for Sergiu Schwartz's annual studio recital (the 16th annual such event, Schwartz said), featuring his students in a variety of well-known pieces from the violin literature.

Eleven violinists, all of them impressive and accomplished, played everything from solo sonatas by Ysaÿe to miniatures by Kreisler, to an entire concerto (the Mendelssohn). It was an exciting afternoon, and one that gave me renewed faith in the future of classical music in general.

I'm not going to go into depth about every player on the program, but I will touch on some highlights:

First, there was a complete performance of the Mendelssohn concerto by the young Russian violinist Dmitri Pogorelov. He's appearing tonight in recital down at the Broward Center, and that might be worth catching if you want to hear a relatively unknown but fine player. His version of this classic concerto was beautifully done — he's got all the notes (and he played it from memory) down solid, and he knows what he wants to do with the piece.

His tempos are brisk but effective, and he brings the work plenty of verve and personality. I could have used a shade more poetry on the slow movement, but that's a minor thing. Here is a young violinist who gives a strong reading of this canonical work, and his could be a name to watch in the years ahead.

The same goes for his fellow Russian, Anastasia Agapova, a freshman at Lynn. Agapova tore through the Carmen Fantasie of the film composer Franz Waxman, a composition that seems to have replaced the Sarasate fantasy on violinist's programs I've seen recently. I don't find it as interesting musically as the Sarasate, personally, but it's hard to resist the blazing pyrotechnics of Waxman's piece, and Agapova simply nailed them.

She plays in the classic Russian style, with big, emotional vibrato, and every bar she essayed was full of power and personality. A very impressive performance; now I'd like to hear her play some of the real meat of the repertoire to hear what she can do with it.

Agapova already has made her concert debut at a recital in Boston; next month, she makes her orchestral debut in California, Schwartz said, with the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, directed by Lynn's dean, Jon Robertson, former dean of the music school at UCLA.

Gareth Johnson, a Wellington man who's been getting a lot of critical attention these days, gave a deeply passionate rendition of the Third Sonata (in D minor, subtitled "Ballade") by the Belgian violinist and composer Eugene Ysaÿe. These solo works are landmarks of the literature, and Johnson made much of the piece's tempestuous language.

This is a tricky piece partly because its compositional style is at once old-fashioned and modern (somewhat like Reger in that regard), and the intonation has to be dead on to bring it out. Johnson's intonation was a little shaky at first, but it got better fast, and overall he gave a most persuasive, powerful reading of the piece. Johnson is a commanding player; he compels you to listen.

Ysaÿe was also represented on Sunday's program by another of his solo sonatas (No. 6 in E), played by the Uzbek violinist Valentin Mansurov. Unlike Johnson and Agapova, both of whom play with a big, rich sound, Mansurov's tone is intense and cutting, but no less intriguing than the more Romantic style favored by the other two players. The Ysaÿe sonata held no terrors for Mansurov, who also offered a sparkling version of the Hora Staccato, a Heifetz standby by the Romanian violinist and composer Grigoras Dinicu.

Each of the other violinists on the program also was well worth hearing, and I don't say that just to be a nice guy. These are all good players, and I liked all of them.

I particularly enjoyed the fleet fingerwork and sheer joy in playing demonstrated by Brandie Phillips, a sophomore from Texas who played Kreisler's La Gitana and William Kroll's Banjo and Fiddle; the strong sound and musical intelligence demonstrated by Israel's Nelli Jabotinsky (the Rondino, Op. 32, of Vieuxtemps); and the bravura reading of Wieniawski's Scherzo Tarantelle by Sonia Shklarov of Canada.

Also worth noting: the lightness of touch brought by Miami's own Marcoantonio Real-D'Arbelles to Kreisler's Schön Rosmarin; the large, lovely sound of Floridian Marvette Henderson's playing of another Kreisler piece, the Tempo di Menuetto; the sweet tone offered by freshman Kaitlin Richardson to the Romanza movement of Wienawski's Second Concerto; and the disciplined, mature playing of Brazil's Edgar Montes Leite in music of Brahms (the Scherzo movement from the so-called F-A-E Sonata, a collaborative work from 1853 by Brahms, Robert Schumann and Albert Dietrich).

Schwartz picked up the violin himself for the finale, Sarasate's Navarra, which he played with Mansurov, Jabotinsky and Agapova (pianist Tao Lin accompanied, as he did for all the other violinists save Johnson).

It was a warm, charming way to end a fascinating program of young talent, venerable chestnuts of the violin repertoire, and glimpses into some musical futures that no doubt will be personally rewarding and musically important.

NY, LA orchestras set for downloads

A couple breaking-news things today from the world of technology (fitting, as I'm writing this off a wireless connection at an Offerdahl's).

According to this story from Reuters, Universal Classics is teaming up with the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics to offer four digital-only albums (and possibly one standard album) from their seasons of concerts. You should be able to get the Deutsche Grammophon releases starting next week through iTunes for $10, the story says.

The New York Phil bows first, releasing a recording of the three great 1788 symphonies (39-41) by Mozart on Tuesday. The LA Phil concerts (from its Minimalist Jukebox series) are being recorded even as I write (music by Reich, Pärt, Andriessen, Monk and Torke are on the programs), and will be turned around by Friday for download.

Here's a perfect example of the kind of thing that will keep classical music in the pink for many, many years to come. With this kind of distribution, and the total avoidance of the old genteel-culture trappings non-initiates think would be necessary to take it in at the concert hall, there's nothing to keep the listener from the music except — well, nothing, really, except choice. And I think there will be much more willingness to exercise a different choice (especially if individual movements are available) than there would be as things stand now.

I also like that Universal has recognized that there are many great concerts being done routinely by our orchestras that don't get put down in permanent fashion for everyone to enjoy. That this means that most people were missing a large part of the musical culture of our country was the original inspiration for NPR's successful Performance Today series. Now digital downloads will make all this music available, and this is wonderful news.

Also from the music and tech beat: Bloomberg News reports that the American Composers Orchestra is trying to raise money for its programs by offering original classical ringtones written expressly for cellphones by people such as Philip Glass and Danny Elfman. The ringtones will be sold at auction beginning April 10, according to the story.

The ringtones will be 20 to 30 seconds long, which means they fall into the fascinating and growing category of Writing Small. Not altogether modestly, I'll take that cue to point out that I've been writing very tiny works for the Post's Top Story Rewind podcasts, and it has been a good thing for my composing chops to have to write for an extremely limited time frame and small instrumental resources.

But what I've found is that if you approach it the right way, a 20-second piece can contain a lot of music. I don't know that a ringtone would be as satisfying because of the generally metallic sound you get, but if you write a catchy enough tune, it could work beautifully.

The ringtone compositions are a good idea, too, though it's too bad that the ACO is offering them as something of a premium; you have to make a winning bid to get the special tone written just for you. It might behoove them to sell other ringtones at their site and hope that bunches of folks download them (it's been my experience that people change their ringtones a good bit, so it can't hurt to have more rather than fewer).

Maybe some of the composers will write more than one ringtone, and those could be widely disseminated. It could work. Anything to get the word out, as I like to say.

Cleveland Orchestra residency

Next January, the new Miami Performing Arts Center will welcome the Cleveland Orchestra for the first concerts in its 10-year South Florida residency.

They sounded quite good on their recent visit to the Broward Center with violinist Janine Jansen, and I'll be happy to see them again down here, not least because my wife is from Cleveland — it's sort of like going to see the Indians in spring training at the old Memorial Stadium in West Palm Beach, like we used to do before they tore it down. For Sharon, the orchestra is a reminder of her hometown, and I know she'll want to catch all three of the concerts the band gives next year.

There's been a lot of critical comment about the Cleveland's residency, and some of it that argues it's too bad we couldn't support our own orchestra down here, or that it's a shame the Florida Philharmonic couldn't hang on until a brand-new hall opened and they could at last have a place they could call a permanent home.

Our area does have a decent amount of musical activity, not least the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, which will be sharing some of its activities with the Cleveland over the years. But I have to admit I'd be happy to see another big orchestra get started here, though the musicians I've talked to over the years say it really can't be done.

Even without taking into account the great deal of money it takes to keep a group like the Cleveland or one of our other major orchestras going, those in the know say this area won't support a big ensemble for the long run. The chamber orchestra path is they way to go, I'm told, and those groups who keep things smaller in South Florida will do the best.

That's likely true, from what I've seen for the past dozen years. Still, there's nothing like seeing a really big orchestra on stage, and knowing you're going to hear some epic music fill the hall for the next couple hours. We're missing something without a Truly Large Band to call our own, so for the meantime, we'll have to get our bigness fix from the Clevelanders and the other groups that pay us a visit.

Here are the three concerts the Cleveland's going to do:

Jan. 19-20: Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony, and the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. The Master Chorale of South Florida joins in with director Franz Welser-Möst and soloists Measha Brueggergosman, Kelly O'Connor, Frank Lopardo and René Pape. Nothing says "orchestra" like the Ninth, and the crowds for this will be big.

Jan. 26-27: Mahler's First Symphony, the Variaciones Concertantes of Argentina's Alberto Ginastera, and the Last Round of the contemporary Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. Welser-Möst conducts; the Ginastera is probably that composer's best-known work, and the Golijov will be the most progressive piece of the entire series.

March 16-17: Pianist Horacio Gutierrez joins conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya for the deathless Tchaikovsky First Concerto. Also on the program will be the same composer's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, and one of Manuel de Falla's most familiar pieces, the Suite from The Three-Cornered Hat. It will be hard for this one to miss, either. The Tchaikovsky concerto is one of those pieces that lots of folks who know no other classical work will flock to see.

I'm told tickets go on sale for this series April 3; details will be available here.

Review: Sergio Tiempo, pianist

Almost ever since it was written nearly 100 years ago, the Gaspard de la Nuit of Maurice Ravel has been one of the truest tests of a pianist's technique. Monumentally difficult and precisely ordered at the same time, the three-movement work is a landmark of French music as well as the world piano literature, and I've not heard many players who can really bring it off with the panache and accuracy it requires.

But now I've heard one more.

Sergio Tiempo, a 34-year-old Argentinian-Venezuelan pianist, gave about as ideal a performance of this work Sunday afternoon at the Kravis Center as I've ever listened to. In Tiempo's hands, Ravel's water sprites and demons shimmered, sparkled and fascinated, giving listeners a near-perfect realization of how the composer meant to flesh out Aloysius Bertrand's over-the-top poems.

Tiempo was no less impressive throughout the rest of his program, which featured major works by Chopin and Liszt, and for one dominating reason: His prodigious technique, which allows him to not only bring off the fireworks with ease and power, but to exhibit an enviable sense of control over his instrument and the pieces he was performing. In his playing, I heard no sense of struggle, no hint of being overmastered by the finger-twisting acrobatics the three composers had made him endure.

He simply sounded in complete command, and that's the kind of pianist you can listen to for a very long time.

In the opening Ondine movement of the Gaspard, for instance, the initial murmurs in the right hand set a scene but they also outline a very delicate harmonic sequence. It's important that the fluttering not sound like mud but exquisite machinery; here, Tiempo added each new color with a painter's touch, showing his listeners the depth of detail they would be hearing and also setting up a marvelous contrast with the soaring, sweeping music of much of the rest of the movement.

Ravel calls for no loud dynamics in the second movement, Le Gibet, and Tiempo responded with a hushed, lovely performance that nevertheless never lost its basic rhythmic pulse. In addition, the big minor-ninth chords in the left hand, which are so tempting to want to make rich and ominous, were wan, and yet etched exactly on the sonic canvas.

Scarbo, the closing movement, is the most difficult of the three movements, a wild and capricious composition that needs to be just about perfectly played to make its effect. Here was a Scarbo as Ravel must have had it mind — a dazzling whirl of darts and leaps, interrupted repeatedly by a short six-chord outburst that seemed snatched from the air and wrestled to the keys rather than played.

In short, this was a magnificent Gaspard, and the large audience at the Kravis appeared to agree.

Tiempo opened his program with music of Chopin: an early Nocturne (in B, Op. 9, No. 3), the Second Ballade (in F, Op. 38), and the Third Sonata (in B minor, Op. 58). The nocturne was distinguished by an introspective approach to the gently falling primary theme and a marvelously quiet and controlled left-hand accompaniment.

The Second Ballade, substituted from the stage for the Third Ballade that had been programmed, showed Tiempo's ability to go from a beautifully controlled pianissimo for the opening theme to all-out passion in the minor-key storminess that breaks the reverie and occupies most of the piece.

I missed the third movement of the B minor sonata, but the other three movements hinted at a highly attractive conservative approach to this last of Chopin's piano sonatas. The sober but powerful reading of the opening movement's first theme served as an admirable introduction to the fantasy-style drama that came next, while the second movement Scherzo was all lightness and bubbling gold.

Tiempo brought a different color to each repetition of the closing Rondo theme, slowing slightly on the successive returns, and on the final time, giving the tune a clangorous darkness that gave the music great strength.

The recital closed with two works by Liszt, the Consolation No. 3 (in D-flat) and the Mephisto Waltz No. 1. The Consolation demonstrated again Tiempo's ability to play incredibly softly and precisely, and he steered well clear of any overtly Romantic interpretation. The ornamentation sounded integral rather than tacked on, and the final third that closes this miniature seemed to evaporate rather than die out.

The familiar Mephisto Waltz is a gaudy, quirky piece full of mocking tunes and great technical bravura that Tiempo tossed off with brilliance. He makes an exemplary player of Liszt, a composer whose style of writing makes his pieces difficult to cohere unless, as in this case, the pianist's technique is up to the challenge.

Tiempo ended his recital with an encore, La Muerte de Angel, by the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. It's not a very good piece, but Tiempo had fun with the lounge-lizard middle section that came in such stark contrast to the folk dance swagger of the opening bars.

This was one of the best standard-repertoire piano recitals I've heard in a couple years, and area audiences who love the art of the instrument would be well-advised to save some time for Sergio Tiempo the next time he's in town.

Critic confessions: I went to Dreamland

Something embarrassing happened to me at the Kravis Center on Sunday afternoon.

I went to a concert by the young Argentine pianist Sergio Tiempo, who was most impressive, and so I thought I'd write a review, even though I'd planned originally just to hear the music.

But honesty compels me to admit that during one of the selections, the Chopin Sonata No. 3 in B minor, I apparently dozed off without hearing the slow movement. I took notes on the rest of the concert, and I have a very clear idea of how he played and why I think concertgoers interested in the art of the piano should keep Tiempo's name in mind.

But I did miss the slow movement of the Chopin, and as far as I can remember, that is the first time I have ever nodded off in a concert in at least 30 years (I can't vouch for my youngest days).

My apologies to Mr. Tiempo for missing his Largo (which I really wanted to hear because I think it's difficult movement to bring off well), but I was certainly wide awake for all of the rest of the concert, and I have something to say about it.

I'll post the review in an hour or so, but first, I'll use my mortifying experience to ask if anyone out there has ever inadvertently dozed off in a concert, and whether you've got a decent story to go with it.

Obviously, it happens all the time, but I'd love to hear someone else's tale of a sudden concert snooze. Post something below and share your stories with everyone else.

Emerson, Licitra, new American music

A quick entry about three concerts coming up in the next couple weeks:

First, Ernie Berlin's Treasure Coast Concert Association is presenting an impressive series of events up at Stuart's Lyric Theatre, a nice old hall in a nifty little city. Downtown Osceola Street up there reminds of me a smaller Las Olas Boulevard, but a little funkier and more human-scale.

Ernie is a retired American Express vice president who used to play the saxophone as a younger man, and who has for years been mounting classical music concerts in Martin County. He's been important in helping launch the careers of current rising stars such as The Five Browns and violinist Shunsuke Sato, and this year he's offered A-list stars such as Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell and Garrick Ohlsson.

He wrote last week to remind me about two of his upcoming concerts: the Emerson Quartet, which appears Thursday at the Lyric in a program of quartets by Mendelssohn (No. 3 in D, Op. 44, No. 1, one of my favorites) and Shostakovich (No. 8, his most well-known). Also, pianist Wu Han, who appeared here last month with her husband, David Finckel, the Emerson's cellist, will join the quartet for one of Dvorak's best chamber works, the A major Piano Quintet, Op. 81.

And on Saturday, April 1, the association presents one of the world's rising tenors, Salvatore Licitra. The program hasn't been announced yet, but Licitra is making a return appearance in Stuart. I heard him in the Met's broadcast of La Forza del Destino a couple weekends ago, and while I'm not certain he was singing at his best, it's an inviting, attractive voice, and I hope to catch the concert.

Also up this Thursday is another evening of contemporary music at Palm Beach Atlantic University. The husband-wife piano duo of Estibaliz Gastesi and Marcio Bezerra will be playing a series of new works by PBAU's Tim Thompson and Marlene Woodward-Cooper, as well as music by Justin Rubin and Thomas Wegren, who teach at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and Terry Winter Owens.

The duo is playing three works by Owens, a New York-based composer and pianist and devotee of work of the Armenian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff. You can hear some of her music here at her Web site.

The season is about to reach its peak, and here's a chance to hear some top stars in a lovely setting, and a rare opportunity to hear an evening devoted to contemporary American music, much of it new.

What's the American Songbook?

Two concerts in the coming days, one tomorrow night at the Kravis, and one Tuesday at PBCC in Palm Beach Gardens, are concerned with the songs of America — one is classical, the other Big Band.

Baritone Thomas Hampson appears Sunday night in a Library of Congress evening called "Song of America," while on Tuesday at the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach Community College, the school's Tuesday Nite Big Band and vocalist Lisanne Lyons mount a program called "The American Songbook."

All of which caused me to wonder: What is in the American songbook, anyway?

I've used the term American Songbook several times in print as it is often used these days, to refer to the corpus of popular songs dating from roughly the end of World War I to around 1960. This is the great period of the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Frederick Loewe, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, Cole Porter and a couple dozen other fine writers of popular song, and the appeal of the best of these songs looks to be permanent, as new generations discover so much to like about this brand of music.

And that's fine. But there are several other corpuses of American song that help define their era even as they continue to entertain. You could go through 20-year periods of American history and come up with a selection of songs for each, and doubtless some of them would have some staying power and some all-American characteristic that makes us smile inwardly and say, Yes, that's us.

I think it's fair to say that America's basic musical template is the song, and that may be true in other cultures as well. For us, there's something very straightforward and democratic about saying: Let me tell you how she broke my heart, and follow that by reaching down to a guitar, begin strumming a simple accompaniment, and then let the listener have it right between the eyes of the soul. It gets the message across in a hurry (we are such a busy people, after all), and it puts the weight of it on two simple elements — a melody and a story. If the melody is good enough, the message will be indelible even if it's not that coherent.

Which helps to explain why we respond most strongly to classical pieces that ape this format. If it doesn't have a song-style form that we can recognize right away, we get a little nervous. If it's plain as day, like Tchaikovsky, we can't get enough.

If you're going to put together a list of the most representative, durable American songs, you almost have to do it by reference to historical period. I'll try to list some examples, but as I do so, I realize I've set myself a monumental task. It might be better to list songs from our whole history that can't be left out of the songbook:

First, the great spirituals: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Jacob's Ladder; Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (I'm also enamored of Ezekiel Saw the Wheel and Mary Had a Baby).

The great hymn tunes: Chester (by William Billings); How Great Thou Art; Rock of Ages; Amazing Grace; Battle Hymn of the Republic (and our Christmas carols — O Little Town of Bethlehem; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; We Three Kings).

The great national songs: Yankee Doodle; America the Beautiful; Shenandoah; the Star-Spangled Banner.

Then there are the great songs of the minstrelsy tradition (repellent as it might be today): Dixie; Old Folks at Home; Golden Slippers; Carry Me Back to Old Virginny; Oh! Susanna; Camptown Races; My Old Kentucky Home.

Already, I've listed too much. But here's what I'm interested in considering now: What songs would we add to the American Songbook that have been written in what we might call the post-Beatles era; that is, over the past roughly 40 years? These would have to be American songs, most if not all would be commercial songs, and they would have to say something that says "America" to us. I've got some ideas, but I'd like to hear what you think.

I'd rather avoid blatantly patriotic songs, of which there have been a good number in recent years. I'm looking for songs that aren't about national causes, but that say something about us as a country nonetheless. Most of these songs are probably pop music of one kind or another, but they can be Broadway, jazz, or classical art songs.

I'll try to come back with a list of five in my next post, but if you've got five that occur to you, post them below. Or you can answer this question, if you'd like: What five songs, from any era, should be certain to have a place in the American Songbook?

Another debate about classical's future

There's something very interesting going on at ArtsJournal, one of my favorite sites; there, the critic and composer Greg Sandow is writing a book on his blog about the future of classical music.

He's not optimistic, judging not only from what he says, but also what he says in reply to his correspondents. Here's what he says in part of the second episode of the book:

Essentially, I think the game is over, by which I don’t mean that classical music will completely disappear — that nobody will compose classical pieces any more; that no one will go to music school to study the bassoon; that opera companies won’t be staging Rigoletto for the four thousandth time (no, wait, maybe they really will cut back on that); or that I won’t be able to go online and instantly download a recording of the first Brahms piano sonata, as I did the week I’m writing this, because I just couldn’t wait to hear it . . . But what will disappear, I think, is the classical music world as we know it today, with its loyal audience gathering in silence to hear musicians in formal dress play Brahms, while printed program notes offer scholarly disquisitions on his work.

Sandow's a fine, engaging writer, and it's always a pleasure to read him, even if I don't always agree with what he says. And drafting a book in progress like this online is a great idea — which I might very well steal.

If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at the site and check it out. He's buttressed his conclusion with data about funding and the aging of the audience, and it's interesting and worth reviewing.

Looked at one way, Sandow's point about the disappearance of the classical world as we know it today is easy to accept. There's no rule that a way of concertgoing that developed in the Victorian era, when going out on the town meant you dressed up, and in which quiet, respectful attention to events was expected, needs to be a viable model here in the first decade of the 21st century.

It's much more likely that this way of concertgoing will eventually fade away when there's no one to remember why we did it in the first place. (Just as an aside, I've seen several Handel Messiah performances in which at least half the audience had no knowledge of the tradition of standing during the Hallelujah chorus, and when that basic knowledge disappears, the custom is sure to follow.)

Certainly some informal concerts I've been to have been every bit as successful as the symphonic ones, and when interested people can gather for an hour or two to hear some good music in a good setting — be it a great rock club, an outdoor summer chamber music festival, or an intense night of the blues in the house of a friend — that's all that needs to happen for music to do what it does best.

The larger point here seems to be that something huge will change with the vanishing of the concert style as we know it today, but I don't think that's true. I've seen too much classical music activity these days to believe that the music itself will lose the relevance it has. Quite the contrary, I think: What we are seeing now is the breakdown of the old fussy stigma that went with the older way of concertgoing, and that has freed people to love the music, to seek it out, to download it, to make careers of it.

Those careers won't be what they were back then, or quite what they are now. They're going to be more eclectic — the classical players of the coming years are all going to be well-versed in all kinds of music, and the reason is not that someone told them they needed to do that to make money. It will be that way because today's younger musicians have so much choice of the music they listen to, and they are unafraid to like whatever they want.

It's technology that is saving classical music for a much healthier future. And I think the older way of concertgoing will never entirely disappear. Again, the reason is partly technological. The enormous access we have to all kinds of culture is happening at a time that will actually freeze some things that would have passed on and saving them as tradition. Some people will pursue older things such as ballroom dancing or ancient artisanal crafts and the like because so much information is available about these pursuits that it makes lovers of unfashionable things brave — brave about loving them.

And so there will be some concerts we will attend in the old way because our ancestors did, and because it's fun every once in a while to wear something fancy and read some program notes. But we'll have more classical music in our daily lives than they did, and that will secure the future of the music, because at bottom, it's music, and on that it will surely thrive, not fail.

Anyone out there have an opinion on the future of classical music? I'd like to hear what you have to say. Post a comment and let's discuss it.

Concert was nice, but tickets were steep

One of the perennial issues in classical music is money. There never seems to be enough of it to do the things everyone wants to do, for the simple reason that so much of it isn't a runaway commercial success.

I've written before about the success of today's classical musicians in finding money when they need it to get projects done, either by salting away money while working a bill-paying job, by writing the right kind of grant application, or working their freelance fingers to the bone. There's enough passion and enthusiasm out there to conquer a lot of fiscal difficulties, though no one would claim that most classical musicians — and really, musicians in general — have a cushy life without money worries.

So it's not surprising that classical music organizations always have to be on the prowl for cash. We all saw what happened to the Florida Philharmonic when it ran into money troubles and then slammed into South Florida's fiscal reality; we all saw what happened when the same thing happened to the International Cartoon Museum, both parts of area cultural life that I quite enjoyed.

The reality is this: There's plenty of cash down here, but nobody wants to part with it when it's needed. And so we had to bid farewell to two institutions that made living here a little bit more enjoyable. I'm oversimplifying in the interest of time and not writing too long an entry, but I think both entities could have been saved had the right wallets opened in time.

Because the money issue here is so contentious (I've yet to bring it up around artists or audience members before heated feelings get generated within moments), I don't begrudge any new group a big ticket price to cover expenses. It's expensive to operate an orchestra, or a ballet company, or an opera troupe, and without money from the public purse to cover the gaps, the customer has to pay most of the freight.

I don't consider myself a tightwad, and when it comes to spending a little more than I think it necessary on a cultural event, I usually spend it. I've been a struggling musician before (and I failed, too), and I know what it's like to be flat broke and depending on the next gig just to pay a phone bill. If I pay a little more, that's OK; it's money for the cause, and God bless the foundation.

But then again — 50 bucks?

On Saturday night I took in a concert by the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, which played the Mendelssohn Fourth and four overtures by Rossini. It was quite a good concert, overall. These are well-known local musicians (some of whom I know), and they acquitted themselves admirably.

Conductor Bruno Aprea (that's him above) was fun to watch, and he led a decent Mendelssohn, though I had a quibble or two, particularly with the trio of the scherzo, which suddenly lost the sense of pulse it needs to be an effective contrast to the scherzo. And the wind playing in the Rossini overtures, which is heavily exposed, was spotty, even though as a whole it was effective and charming.

Still, an enjoyable evening of canonical early Romantic music, and I'm glad I went.

But the ticket price was a shock. I suppose that's because the paper usually pays for critics' tickets; I pay myself for things we aren't covering in print (and we'd already done a review of the first PBO orchestra concert), but it's usually in the $25-$35 range. For a seat Saturday night in the "mezzanine" of the Maltz Theatre in Jupiter, it was $50, and frankly, that's a lot of money. I've paid that kind of fare before for big rock concerts years ago and for fully staged operas, but those were both different kinds of events.

This was a fine local orchestra of large chamber size, well-directed in a good program of guaranteed audience pleasers. That's great, but I don't see where that's a $50 concert (it was $55 for "orchestra" seats). I happen to like program notes, too, but there weren't any of those, either, just a simple page folded into four with the program selections and the personnel roster.

I suppose I've lived in South Florida too long, and now I'm just as cheap as everyone else. But surely the PBO Orchestra won't be able to charge half-a-hundred bucks in the future if it wants people outside the opera company's season-ticket holders to keep coming to the concerts. And yet, what are they supposed to do? If it costs lots of money to put on concerts like this (and it does), I guess the idea is to make the group popular first, then the outside money will come in, and the ticket prices can go down.

I've argued both sides of the state subsidy issue over the years. Some years, I think public money for the arts is a good thing, and in others, I think it's better without it, because there aren't any restrictions on what your art can be. These days, the state subsidy thing looks better to me.

Lacking that, we can only hope that the benefits the arts community is expecting ultimately from the Scripps Florida operation will come sooner rather than later.

Anybody else have something to say about classical concert ticket prices? Too high? Just right? Too low? Leave a post and we'll debate it.

The timeless joy of Rossini

Here's something from Stendhal:

"Again, it would be almost impossible to describe the enthusiasm and delirium of the Milanese audiences on first hearing this masterpiece. The pit, having clapped and cheered to the echo, having shouted for five whole minutes on end, having in fact created such an uproar and pandemonium that no conceivable stretch of the imagination can visualize it, found itself in the end utterly exhausted, too physically weak to cheer a moment longer . . . "

The object of their passion was the overture to La gazza ladra, and indeed today it is still one of Rossini's most cherished pieces. The Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, which bowed to good reviews last weekend, includes the overture, along with three others by Rossini and the Italian Symphony of Mendelssohn, on its programs tonight and Sunday afternoon in Jupiter.

It's a funny thing to say about Rossini, but even in this era of revivals that have seen a major resurgence in the staging of works by Handel (the Met, for instance, is doing Rodelinda this season), among others, it's still Il Barbiere that rules for Rossini, with Cenerentola coming in second. But the overtures still turn up all the time on orchestral programs, which is not surprising considering how wonderful they are: Beautifully written and scored in a way that highlights their composer's extravagant gift for melody and musical wit.

Putting the four Rossini overtures (the others were Cenerentola, Semiramide and L'Italiana in Algeri) on the bill with Mendelssohn's postcard from abroad gave audiences a chance to hear two musicians who are complete masters of their craft, writers who knew how to create maximum effect with a Mozart-size orchestra. In both cases, the music is as transparent, as clear, as can be, and there are no phalanxes of strings or platoons of brass players to hide behind. It takes enormous skill to write this way, but it's one of those skills that's deceptive because the music sounds so uncomplicated and unforced.

The overture as a form has been widely varied; early opera overtures played outside their theatrical context gave birth to the symphony, while the overtures for Broadway shows are usually compiled by the orchestrator or someone else. The overtures for Sir Arthur Sullivan's comic operas were usually assembled by others, but when Sullivan did have time to write his own, as he did in the case of Iolanthe (my personal favorite of the Savoy operas), the results were much better.

When the overtures are good (and Rossini reused several of his – Il Barbiere's overture was first used for Elisabetta, an opera about Queen Elizabeth I), they do yeoman work for the theater and the concert hall. I listened Saturday afternoon to the Met's broadcast of La forza del Destino, which has one of Verdi's most distinctive overtures, and which presents the major themes in sharp contrast, essentially giving us a compressed version of the opera's narrative arc.

Rossini's overtures don't do that, but they open the operas with a marvelously self-contained seven or eight minutes, and while you might not hear the melodies in them in the opera to follow, they invite you in to a world of tunefulness and energy. To resist them is to refuse to enter a sparkling party where the good life is abundantly on display and right within reach. What's your hurry? Come on in!

One other thing that Stendhal says about La gazza is interesting to those of us interested in American music. Writing in La vie de Rossini, Stendhal writes that when he hears the music of La gazza:

" . . . I am always struck by a note of rustic energy, by a strong flavor of the countryside, above all by a complete lack of urban sophistication . . . I like to think that, if there were music in Washington or Cincinnati — music which were genuinely national, and not merely imitative — it would betray the same characteristic absence of artificiality and sophistication.�

Stendhal was writing in 1824, but he was right about the kind of music that would come to define what a genuine American music was all about. It's unusual to think of Gioachino Rossini as one of the ancestors of the American cultural spirit, but maybe there's more to those overtures than at first appears.

SpongeBob goes classical

Have a Kids Meal, and learn about Mozart.

I haven't been to a Burger King lately, but one of my colleagues here at the paper has, and he brought back a SpongeBob SquarePants toy that the fast-food chain is hawking now as part of a 20-toy series featuring the environmentally conscious sponge on a time traveling expedition.

This particular one is Classical Composer SpongeBob, and it shows the little yellow guy in peruke and waistcoat, manuscript pages in his left hand. Here's a link to the Web site where you can see them all.

The tiny pamphlet that comes with the figure ties SpongeBob to the literal Classical period, defined here as 1750-1820. The copy mentions Ludwig "von" Beethoven (the composer wouldn't have minded) and Mozart, who had written an opera by the time he was 12 (that would be Bastien und Bastienne).

Now, I've only seen one SpongeBob cartoon; we got rid of cable TV as a cost-saving measure years ago in our house, and we haven't missed it. But the adventure I saw was funny and cute, and I really liked the environmental message. It wasn't heavy-handed, but it was there, and I hope it helps the kids who watch the show think about these things.

I'm delighted to see SpongeBob in his new role as a music educator, and I guess the Classical period would be the easiest for kids to relate to. SpongeBob Franz Liszt might be too wild (though I'd love to see him with that lanky hair) and SpongeBob Arnold Schoenberg would probably be too incomprehensible.

How about SpongeBob J.S. Bach, or Baroque Composer SpongeBob? They'd have been relatively unthreatening. But SpongeBob Charles Ives would present some interesting issues: It might be interesting for kids to read about a man who kept composing the way he wanted to no matter what, and whose music wasn't appreciated much at all while he was alive. Or how about some of the opera writers? SpongeBob Giacomo Puccini would look fairly dapper with a groomed mustache, a pearl stickpin. and a fancy homburg.

The other time traveler SpongeBobs are interesting, too: Ancient Athlete SpongeBob, Neanderthal SpongeBob and Don Quixote SpongeBob are among the ones that get me attention first, particularly the Don. I'm not sure that any of the educational messages of these toys are getting across to the kids, but I could be wrong.

I'm just happy to see 18th-century musicians included in the parade. It's a good sign when music that many see as esoteric is mainstreamed on top of a popular cartoon character. This is outreach with a goofy, friendly face.

This weekend: Lots of interesting music this weekend, including a rare performance of the Third Symphony of Ives, which I can't think has been done too often around these parts, nor has it been done that much at all anywhere since it was written in 1911, as far as I'm aware. It almost never turns up on programs, but here's a chance to hear the Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia play it at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at FAU's University Theatre. Works by Mozart and Prokofiev also are on the bill.

Also, I don't know what to expect Friday night from the new Boynton Regional Symphony Orchestra, but they're debuting with two Mozart works — the Impresario overture and the Third Horn Concerto — and the Second Symphony of Beethoven. An ambitious program; I won't be able to make it, but I invite anyone who did to post a mini-review below after the concert.

I'll probably catch the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra sometime this weekend, doing a repeat of its Rossini and Mendelssohn program at Jupiter's Maltz Theatre, and then there's a piano recital that Sunday by Yoko Sata Kothari, who's gotten good reviews in the past and whose programs look ambitious and interesting.

I am divo! Here's my contract rider

There's something really addictive about reading The Smoking Gun, the Web site that features mugshots, lawsuits and other legal documents associated with celebrities.

One of my favorite parts of the site is the contract riders, which are the lists of fussy demands big music stars have when they agree to play your town. All of these riders are interesting; Mary J. Blige's is the most recently featured one, but there are several others to look at here for a good inside view of the way the world works in the big leagues.

Working stiffs like me get a charge out of seeing how picky all the entertainers are about the kinds of water that have to be provided (John Mayer insists on three cases of Penta, for instance), the backstage eats, the security, the hotel arrangements. But if you look at it a different way, it's not as obnoxious as it might otherwise appear.

For instance, it takes a lot of self-abandonment to be a good entertainer. I did a lot of acting when I was in high school in college, but I was ultimately a failure at it because I couldn't quite get over that last wall of self-conciousness to truly become the character I was playing. I was always a little too aware that I was playing someone, and no doubt it showed.

Now, if you're going to go out there and give it your all, you need to not feel self-concious at all. You need to feel entirely that you're there to give those paying customers a couple hours of entertainment, and you can't have anything hold you back. So it makes sense that you'd want to feel encased in a protective pamper bubble that will help you float from the wings onto the stage, believing that you are the center of the universe at that moment if only in order to give the people the best show you can.

Given that, I thought I'd try to figure out exactly what my contract rider would call for. I'll imagine that I'm coming to Anytown, USA to attend rehearsals and two or three performances of my new trumpet concerto. I'm doing the receptions and going to the concerts, at which I'm expected to make remarks and then be available to sign CDs afterward. I'm also doing educational outreach, visiting some high school band practices and dropping in on a theory class at the university. Also, I'll be talking to several members of my former profession, the media.

So here's the world-famous composer, as Snoopy might have said, gracing the city far from his home with presence. What would I require on my rider? Here's a few ideas:

1. Paper and pencils. Venue will provide 100 sheets of high-quality manuscript paper, at least 24 lines, and staves on both sides of the paper. Also, a box (12 count) of Mirado Black Warrior No. 2 HB pencils, sharpened and sitting in an attractive ceramic vessel for composer's use. Venue also will provide two fresh erasers, plus an electric pencil sharpener (high-quality) and a good straight-edge. (I'm old-fashioned when it comes to writing down ideas, and I make no bones about it. And this is a lot cheaper than demanding a bunch of recording equipment for my mindless doodling at a keyboard hooked up to a computer with notation software.)

2. A clean, well-lighted place. That is, a desk. Venue will provide a writing surface, preferably a mission-style desk, at least 5 feet long by 3 feet wide. Desk will have ample overhead lighting (can be mounted on the side), with a 120-watt Reveal brand bulb preferred. Replacement bulbs also will be made available. If mission desk is not available, desk must have as few drawers as possible. The desk should be made of wood, but high-grade plastic will be accepted. No metal! (There's nothing that makes me feel more like working than a nice, wooden surface with fresh paper and pencils, under a big, generous light. I'm feeling good about this already.)

3. Coffee, tea and water service. Venue will provide first-rate coffee at all times during composer's stay. Gevalia brand is preferred, but Starbucks or Tully's also is acceptable. Beans must be arabica; robusta will not be tolerated. Fresh, cold bottled water will be available at all times to refresh the coffee; the coffee will be stored in an airtight carafe. Two boxes of green tea (Salada decaffeinated) and one box of black tea (PG Tips is preferred) will also be available. A high-grade brand of honey in individual packets also will be provided. Bottled water is essential; a case of Fiji brand, refrigerated, will be available at all times. (Need to be hydrated, need my caffeine from time to time, and it's got to be strong and taste good.)

4. Food service. Hot meals must be available at all times, 24 hours a day, during composer's stay. If hotel cannot provide this service on a round-the-clock basis, venue must provide list of at least three high-quality restaurants that can. "Comfort food� will be available at a moment's notice should composer hit a nasty writing block or encounter demanding fans and obstreperous members of the public who might not have heard of him. These items include: Macaroni and cheese (homemade, please); grilled cheese sandwiches; high-quality peanut butter and artisan-quality bread; pasta with a good marinara sauce or a fettucine Alfredo. (Nothing takes away the taste of failure faster than a good mac and cheese, I always say. It was Beethoven's favorite food, too, not that I'm drawing comparisons. Just noting I'm in good company.)

5. Reading material/brain amenities. The following newspapers will be provided each morning: The daily local paper (or closest nearby), The New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. In addition, venue will provide a list of good-quality bookstores and music stores within reasonable distance of his hotel, along with directions for reaching them. A driver will be available, but composer might prefer to take public transportation or walk if the weather's good. Also, a list of current cultural events will be provided, including theaters, concert halls, and museums, with recommendations for the best ones to visit. (I might not read all of the newspapers all the way through, but I'll look at each one. And I have to be able to visit bookstores and music stores, be they record stores or instrument sellers.)

Anybody else have some items for their contract riders? What would make you feel the love from the promoters? Blue M&M's only? Satellite TV? Post your demands below. And don't be like me, either: Ask for the moon!

Rene Touzet: From mambos to sonatas

Composers need their advocates, someone to champion their music to a world that hasn't yet inclined an ear.

Maria Letona, a Salvadoran-American pianist now teaching at Barry University in Miami Shores, has found that composer in Rene Touzet (1916-2003), a Cuban composer who spent much of his musical life leading mambo and cha-cha bands on the U.S. West Coast during the 1950s and 1960s.

Retiring to Little Havana in 1972, Touzet decided to devote his compositional energies to piano works, and wrote about 100 of them before his death. Letona met the composer in 1999 while doing doctoral work at the University of Miami. In her notes to a disc she released late last year of Touzet's music, she writes that she "immediately felt a fondness and understanding of his music� as she played through the manuscript of the Sonata Romántica, recorded here.

"In most of his piano works, Touzet successfully blends Cuban folk music and jazz with art or classical music. In that sense, he follows in the tradition of composers such as George Gershwin and Aaron Copland in the United States, Alberto Ginastera in Argentina, Heitor Villa-Lobos in Brazil and Enrique Granados and Isaac Albeniz in Spain . . . �

Letona believes so strongly in this music that she spent $5,000 of her own cash to record a Touzet disc and is distributing it herself (you can get it by going to www.renetouzet.com.)

Letona sent me the disc last year, but I didn't get a chance to listen carefully to it until recently. The record contains 14 pieces, most of them character or genre works such as eight of the composer's Danzas Cubanas, three caprichos and a nocturno. There's also that three-movement sonata I mentioned earlier and a Fantasia española.

On the whole, I found this to be an attractive and diverting recital. Touzet's background as a popular musician shows throughout: All of these pieces essentially are in song form. He has a gift for elegant, memorable melodies, and he is deft at marrying classical styles to commercial and folk dance rhythms. He tends to structure his pieces with the same dramatic arc, ending in big chords and plenty of romantic wash.

Sometimes, the effect is pure salon (Apasionada), but at others, all those elements — jazz, Latin dance, 19th-century pianism, popular song — coalesce into something else. The slow movement of the sonata, for instance, begins with a melody very close to Schumann, and he takes it through some tasteful territory after that. Had he written more music along these lines, he might have developed in some deeper directions.

As it is, the composer he most reminds me of is a jazzier Louis Moreau Gottschalk, although from a more authentic native vantage point than Gottschalk the tourist. He shares with his older contemporary a straightforwardness about presenting Latin American folk styles in a traditional piano format, and then decorating his tunes with Lisztian filigree.

But there is still plenty of fresh, interesting music here. Touzet wasn't aiming for the empyrean, but the modest landscape he did sketch is worth visiting. An ambitious pianist looking for some unusual repertoire to spice up a recital might want to explore some of the better pieces here for encore purposes: Cascabel, a charming evocation of carnival bells; La Trece, a clever little dance with a tricky left-hand part, interesting harmonies, and a very brief 1940s pop middle section (I think this is the piece we see in the background of the Web site home page); Siempre en Clave, with its ascending fifths and constant syncopations. And the Sonata Romantica has at some moments a restrained classicism that works very well with Touzet's songwriterly orientation.

Letona plays this music with power, passion and impressive technique. None of the dance rhythms hold any terrors for her, and she makes a persuasive argument for Touzet as a writer of tasty, sauve miniatures that enterprising players and listeners could do well to investigate.

Rorem's 'Our Town' getting good press

The reviews are coming in for Ned Rorem's operatic treatment of the Thornton Wilder classic Our Town, and so far they appear to be quite good. The work premiered last weekend at the Indiana University Opera Theater, and it's taking the stage in Bloomington again on Friday and Saturday.

I talked to Rorem last year about the opera (at that point, he was finished with the piece and in the middle of orchestrating), and I couldn't help but think at that time that Our Town could very well make an ideal American opera: It's a simple story from the point of view of narrative arc, but it has the kind of profound resonance that seems to come right out of Bible study. This is the way the world is, sad as it can be sometimes, and there's no understanding it, there's just enduring it.

The reviewers are praising Rorem's work for its melodic beauty and respect for the text (which is J.D. McClatchy's, adapted from Wilder's original), and pointing out that Rorem has scored the opera without percussion, which is an interesting choice. (Here's an interesting essay about the performance from a contributor to Sequenza21; the comments on his piece are worth reading, too).

For me, Rorem is a great choice for this play because he excels at the lapidary moment; in his best songs, he is able to perfectly encompass the mood of a short text and make it memorable and large. The song Early in the Morning, for example, written in 1958 to a poem by Robert Hillyer, is a lovely little valentine to the joy of being 20, in love and in Paris.

Another one of my favorite Rorem songs is What if some little pain . . ., about the consolations of death. Written in 1949, it's a beautiful evocation of a Renaissance lyric by Edmund Spenser. His Third Piano Sonata, which I enjoy hacking through at home, has the same well-wrought clarity and high sense of style that I find in the songs.

I think this composer's kind of talent is a good match for the gentle observations of the play, and I'm eager to hear it. It seems to me that if this opera is as good as the early notices seem to indicate (and even if it's something a little less), this is likely to be a piece that will be picked up all over the country.

Our Town has had a steady life on the stage for more than 60 years as a play; it could be that it will gain an entirely new life through the ministrations of Ned Rorem's music.

If anyone else out there has seen the show, or will soon, and you want to offer your insights on it, please go ahead and post them here. I'd be very interested to see what people have to say about a new major work from one of our country's most eminent composers.