For me, no hypotheticals about a great work premiered this year!  Following
is an excerpt of a review I wrote on Rouse's "Kabir Padavali":

The first four Festival concerts were not attended by the reviewer, but a
tape audition of the Christopher Rouse's new song cycle, marvelously sung
by soprano Valdine Anderson as part of the first two concerts, was provided
by the press office.  The work is of such significance it must be reported
in detail.

Kabir Padavali was composed for Dawn Upshaw, who gave the world premiere
only a month earlier in Minneapolis.  The padavali (songbook) is based on
the Sanskrit poetry of Kabir (c.1398-1448), but is set to transliterations
in Hindi by Linda Hess and Douglas Brooks of English translations of the
Sanskrit by Hess, Robert Bly, and Tagore.  The poems are wide-ranging,
from Krishna pan-naturalist,

Take your delight in love!
Rains pour down without water
and the rivers are streams of light.
Our love it is that pervades the whole world

to Vonnegut ironic:

The Hindu says Ram is the Beloved,
the Turk says Rahim.
Then they kill each other.
No one knows the secret.

The music is just as wide-ranging, from flashes of "typical Rouse"
rhythmics to planes of expression hitherto unexplored.  Along with
brilliantly balanced treatment of voice and orchestra are many examples
of magical invention--in one passage, Rouse has trombonists say the same
words through their mouthpieces that have been sung by the soloist; in
several others, vocal effects worthy of Crumb heighten an ethereal effects.
Despite the exoticism, however, the work remains fully, perhaps proudly,
in the Western tradition.

In its evidence of expanded mastery and growing maturity, in its
electrifying solutions to the challenges of setting the poetry, Kabir
Padavali stands as Rouse's most profound contribution thus far.  May it
receive a wide hearing!

Perhaps I should throw my two bits in with other composers on the List:
my setting of "Ozymandias" will receive its revised-version premiere on
May 9th in Merkin Hall, NYC.

Jeff Dunn
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