Steve Schwartz wrote:

>I admit to slight disappointment at my first hearing of Adams's clarinet
>concerto, Gnarly Buttons, but mainly because I read Adams's liner notes
>first, which invoked the name of Benny Goodman.  The first movement engages
>the mind.  The second movement takes over the body.  The third movement, a
>slow song, moves the heart.  It begins very tenderly, becomes increasingly
>"gnarled and crabbed," in the word of the composer, as if the singer becomes
>confused and frustrated at the confusion, and goes out lovingly again.

I have just sat through performance by the Cambridge University Music
Society (CUMS) choir and orchestra of Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and
Orff's Carmina Burana.  Guess what came between them.  Yes - an absolutely
enthralling performance of Adams - Gnarly Buttons.  This was the first time
I had ever heard the piece.  Steve has somewhat pre-empted my question
which was - does any know of a recording of it.  My friends had mixed
feelings about it but to me this was the knockout piece of the evening -
well worth a CD.  By the way a sound effect in the second movement was that
of a cow used was a cow (simulated on one of the keyboards I hasten to add)
- does anyone know if Adams actually put this in the score?

Ray Stamford - Cambridge, UK