Once Upon a Time in America

By Michael Walsh

Who says modern music has to be unpleasant? As the 20th century winds down, the joyous, freewheeling eclecticism that has long marked American music is flourishing more strongly than ever. Some challenging releases prove the point:

PETER GORDON: Innocent (CBS). JOHN ZORN: The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone (Nonesuch/Icon). Not for the squeamish -- or at least not for those who think serious music is something best carried on quietly by consenting adults in the privacy of a concert hall. Gordon, 35, and Zorn, 33, are both members of Manhattan's explosive avant-garde art-rock scene, reveling in hot-wired Farfisas, electric guitars, saxophones and synthesizers. But, as David Byrne says, this ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around. Gordon's Innocent, a collection of ten tracks, has the electrified, hypnotic, postminimalist drive familiar to mainstream audiences from the Talking Heads, but with a rougher, anarchic bite. Indeed, the album is a Who's Who of the downtown crowd: one song, The Day the Devil Comes to Getcha, has words by Laurie Anderson, and supporting musicians include Percussionist David Van Tieghem. Innocent is a walk on the wild Lower East Side, a long way from Lincoln Center.

Zorn's Big Gundown strolls even farther afield for inspiration, to the spaghetti-western Italy of Composer Ennio Morricone and beyond. Zorn and his ensemble build up huge soundscapes of wailing guitars (a Morricone trademark in his scores for Director Sergio Leone) and screaming saxes, vamping freestyle on the thinnest of musical motives from such films as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Burglars. Not for every taste, to be sure. Call it The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but check it out.

THE KRONOS QUARTET (Nonesuch). The San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet (Violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, Violist Hank Dutt and Cellist Joan Jeanrenaud) looks like a new-wave band and plays like an iconoclast's image-busting dream come to fiddling life. This disk offers the Balinese- influenced String Quartet No. 8 by the idiosyncratic Australian Peter Sculthorpe, the introspective Quartet No. 3 by conservative Finnish Composer Aulis Sallinen, Philip Glass's somber, eight-minute Company, the rarely heard 1942 String Quartet by expatriate American Conlon Nancarrow and, as an encore, an arrangement of Rock Guitarist Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. Talk about eclectic.

Punk attire aside, the Kronos can really play. Somewhat surprisingly, the highlight is the Nancarrow, a straightforward, approachable, quasi- Bar-tokian work in three movements. It predates Nancarrow's dense, mind-boggling, rhythmic experiments in his Mexico City studio with the player piano, which later became his chosen medium of expression. Emotionally stirring, the piece deserves wider currency. And the swooping, sliding, fuzz-toned Purple Haze must be as close as a string quartet is likely to come to playing acid rock at the Fillmore. Jimi was never like this. Can Janis be far behind?

ELLEN TAAFFE ZWILICH: Symphony No. 1; Celebration; Prologue and Variations. Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Nelson. (New World). JOHN HARBISON: Ulysses' Bow; Samuel Chapter. Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn; Soprano Susan Larson, with Collage conducted by Harbison. (Nonesuch). There is nothing far-out about either Zwilich, the 1983 Pulitzer prizewinner, or Harbison, currently composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Both are solid craftsmen whose music is informed by an eloquent melodic voice, and each is especially adept at writing for the symphony orchestra. Zwilich's First Symphony is a big, bold, brassy work, propelled by insistent, driving rhythms, while her Celebration is a rattling shout reminiscent at times of Shostakovich. Harbison's dark, looming Ulysses' Bow is the second section of a two-part Homeric ballet and displays well its composer's skill at orchestration. Although the ballet has yet to be staged, Ulysses' Bow, at least, can stand on its own as a vivid showpiece, a ten- movement suite of rare power and dramatic immediacy.

VICTOR HERBERT: The American Girl. Soprano Teresa Ringholz, with Donald Hunsberger conducting the Eastman-Dryden Orchestra (Arabesque). KURT WEILL: Stratas Sings Weill. Soprano Teresa Stratas, with Gerard Schwarz conducting the Y Chamber Symphony (Nonesuch). Americans seem to have show music in their blood, even when they were immigrants like Weill (Germany) and Herbert (Ireland). Herbert, a cello virtuoso and conductor who directed the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1898 to 1904, wanted to be taken seriously -- as did, similarly, Sir Arthur Sullivan -- but it was his 40-odd operettas (Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta) that won him lasting fame. Hunsberger leads crisp, snappy performances of several rousing marches and show tunes. The disk also includes selections from Herbert's forgotten 1911 grand opera Natoma: light Wagner set in Southern California with an Indian maiden for a heroine, if such a thing can be imagined.

Unlike the songs on Stratas' earlier album, The Unknown Kurt Weill, these are among the composer's most familiar. The soprano's increasingly raw voice is not entirely suitable to the works of the American period, like the wistful waltz Foolish Heart, from One Touch of Venus. But it is just right for the angry desperation of the Brecht-Berlin years; the harsh, bitter edge to the smoky Surabaya-Johnny proclaims there will be no happy end here.

BERNSTEIN: Candide Overture; Facsimile Ballet; Fancy Free Ballet; On the Town (Three Dance Episodes). Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (Angel). Far cheerier is this disk of Bernstein excerpts. Whatever one thinks about the musical-comedy-turned -opera itself, the raucous overture to Candide remains one of its composer's most vibrant creations. The gotta- dance high spirits of the one-act ballet Fancy Free, later transformed and expanded into the Broadway show On the Town, are just as irresistible. Was this perhaps Bernstein's true calling? Lenny conducts Lenny, and both are at their best.