Folks: This might interest you.  It is from a post I receive daily from
the New York Times.

   July 14, 2000

   MUSIC REVIEW / LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL
   Beyond 'Electronic,' a Range of Brash, Rich and Raucous Compositions
   By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

   For many people the term "electronic music" still conjures images of
   passive audiences in darkened concert halls listening to tape-recorded
   collages of electronically altered sounds played through loudspeakers.
   One aim of the Lincoln Center Festival's "Electronic Evolution: A
   Five-Part Series" is to show that the range of compositions involving
   electronic techniques and, in recent years, computer software is so
   wide, rich and jumbled that the generic term "electronic music" may
   have outlived its usefulness.  The impressive performers for the
   exciting concert that opened the series on Wednesday night were the
   Asko and Schonberg Ensembles from the Netherlands, conducted by
   Reinbert de Leeuw.  Interestingly, for a series examining the evolution
   of a genre, the three works were performed in reverse chronological
   order.  To suggest what electronic music has become, the evening
   began with the United States premiere of Ron Ford's "Salome Fast,"
   from 1996.  Next came a seminal work by Edgard Varese, "Deserts,"
   composed in 1954.  The program ended with Olivier Messiaen's 1944
   masterpiece "Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine."

   Mr. Ford, an American born in 1959, has an interesting background.
   After studying composition and piano at Duke University, he moved in
   1983 to Amsterdam, where he completed his musical education.  "Salome
   Fast," written for the Asko Ensemble, combines qualities of European
   elegance and American irreverence.  The 15-minute work, a dense,
   compressed and exhilarating telling of the Salome story, is brilliantly
   scored for 15 musicians playing traditional instruments and a speaker
   reciting the biblical text in Aramaic, the language of the time.  The
   only electronic element of the piece is the narrator's amplified voice,
   which is processed electronically.

   The music is brash, raucous and riveting.  In what seems a
   mischievous upending of expectations, the acoustic instruments imitate
   sound effects associated with electronic techniques: bleeps, slides,
   every-which-way splatterings of fast notes.  A recurring motif of
   lush descending parallel chords keeps calming down the music when it
   becomes frenetic.  In the piece's most violent stretch, a thick tonal
   chord keeps slicing through the chaos.  Seldom has a consonant harmony
   sounded so menacing.

   There was an exotic (for American listeners) yet authentic quality
   to the Aramaic text, compellingly spoken by Naurez Atto.  As the work
   approaches its conclusion the text becomes increasingly distorted
   and raspy, and the sounds echo upon themselves from opposite speakers.
   The effect created is as if the narrator cannot bear to relate the
   outcome of this horrific story.

   Curiously, coming after Mr. Ford's work, Varese's "Deserts," though
   a historic score, was somewhat disappointing.  Sections of music
   played by a large ensemble of boisterous wind and percussion instruments
   alternate with interludes of tape-recorded sounds: the composer's
   electronically altered montages of instrumental sounds and factory
   noises.  In 1954 the recorded segments must have been shocking.  On
   this occasion they seemed dated.

   The Messiaen was a triumph.  "Three Short Liturgies of the Divine
   Presence," the title in English translation, is scored for female
   chorus, strings, piano, percussion and the ondes-martenot, an electronic
   instrument from the 1920's that produces oscillating pitches by
   operating a wire across a keyboard.  The work is rapturous, a devout
   Roman Catholic composer's deeply personal conception of what celestial
   music must truly sound like.  The work is alive with jerky rhythmic
   riffs, exuberant bird calls, astringent harmonies, pulsating chords
   and hauntingly angelic melodies for women's voices.

   The ondes-martenot, played by Valerie Hartmann-Claverie, gives the
   work just a touch of sci-fi-flick playfulness, which prevents the
   overt spirituality from seeming too precious.  Under Mr. de Leeuw,
   the Asko and Schonberg Ensembles (who are also performing the opera
   "Writing to Vermeer" during the festival) played incomparably.  The
   women of the Vox Vocal Ensemble (George Steel, conductor) sang with
   enchanting sweetness.  And the pianist Peter Serkin played the
   stunningly difficult piano part with command, unflagging energy,
   imagination and, where called for, great delicacy.

   In the last sublime moments of the work, when the pianist does not
   play, Mr. Serkin sat upright, eyes closed, listening with Buddha-like
   contemplation.

   When the piece was over it almost seemed intrusive to disturb Mr.
   Serkin's meditation and break the general spell.  But applause, cheers
   and a prolonged standing ovation soon broke out.

   The series continues tonight in the Low Library Rotunda at Columbia
   University and tomorrow night at the Society for Ethical Culture (2
   West 64th Street, Manhattan).  On Tuesday night at Avery Fisher Hall,
   Mr. Serkin, Mr. de Leeuw and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
   Center present Messiaen's "From the Canyons to the Stars," a repeat
   of their acclaimed performance last spring.  It should not be missed.

Cheers,

Ron Chaplin