I recently received a CD in the mail from Karl Miller as a reward for
my reasonable guess at his trivia question "what composer wrote a piece
for rapper and orchestra?", which I posited was Walton, the piece being
Facade.  As it turns out the correct answer was Morton Gould: The Jogger
and the Dinosaur, and Karl sent me a CD, apparently home made, of this
and other pieces by Gould (for which many thanks).

It is interesting to note that while the Jogger and the Dinosaur is not
dated in the label, it clearly comes from the late 1980's, both from the
style of the rap used, and from how it expresses uncertainty about how
the dinosaurs met their fate, a question which was resolved around 1990
(something like a comet or last asteroid).  In passing I would note I
feel Walton makes a much better rapper than Gould.  =P

All of the music was unfamiliar to me.  I found the real gem to be a
piece called "Two Pianos", performed here by Hecht and Shapiro.  I'm
absolutely enthralled with this piece and have listened to it dozens
of times this week.  Anyone else familiar with it?  It is harmonically
quite complex but essentially tonal, quite tuneful when it wants to be,
and thoroughly exciting overall.  More or less in five seamless sections,
fast-slow-fast-slow-fast, roughly Allegro-Andante-Scherzo/Waltz-Adagio-Presto,
about 14 minutes long.  I guess it has what I really like to hear from
modern music: intelligent use of atonality, as a device for expression
(and therefore mixed with tonality), rather than a medium all its own.

It's a live performance, and in the recording I think I can hear a
page turning, and some occasional issues with synchronization lead me
to wonder if it was performed barely after it was finished.  I think
I'd like to hear what I would think of as a more "romantic" rather than
"modern" interpretation.  Technically it sounds very challenging for
both pianists.  I'd really like to perform this piece or hear it performed
again.

This pleasant surprise has opened up a source of frustration for me:
How do I sort through modern music and find these gems, which are every
bit as worthy of public attention as Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky?
The radio helps, occasionally I hear something extraordinary that is
entirely new to me.  But so much of it is like, say, Elliott Carter's
piano sonata, which, while intellectually interesting, is much like a
math lecture, except that math can contain beauty and revelations, and
Carter's music can not and does not.  (A bold statement, I know.) Perhaps
other listers who have similar tastes can help guide me.

Michael Cooper