Music

The Wagnerian machinations behind the Bayreuth Opera Festival became even more complex Wednesday with the death of Gudrun Wagner, 63, wife of festival director Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson. Gudrun had long been the designated successor to Wolfgang, 88, but the couple had recently announced that their 29-year-old daughter, Katharina, would take over.

Meanwhile, Luciana Pavarotti's widow is suing two of the late tenor's former friends for $44 million, claiming they'd been spreading nasty rumors about the couple's relationship. And Opera Chic passes on the news that film director Gabriele Muccino has bought the rights to a Pavarotti biography published shortly after his death.

Chances are that a certain small percentage of this readership remains faithful to the audio fidelity of reel-to-reel tape. Such "tape heads" celebrate the superiority of analog to digital recordings and seek a listening experience as rich and unadulterated as that enjoyed by recording engineers. The Tape Project caters to this diminishing yet adamant constituency with a slowly growing catalog of reel-to-reel editions of such classic jazz albums as Sonny Rollins's "Saxophone Colossus," Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby," and Mose Allison's "Creek Bank"; blues guitarist Robert Cray's "False Accusations"; and classical works by the London Symphony Orchestra.

They aren't cheap, either. Each tape costs $200 via one of their subscription plans, or $329 retail. So why do they do it? As they explain in their FAQ:

Most people have not had the experience of hearing studio master tapes. Many formats have been introduced with the promise of bringing master tape sound into the home listening room.

Yeah, right.

We don't expect that this tape project will replace any of your other favorite formats, so we see no need to dwell on the drawbacks of any other format. Suffice it to say that we don't offer an 'analog-like' listening experience. We are offering a chance to have in your own listening room an actual analog listening experience as close to the original master tape as practical.

Wine consultant Clark Smith claims that an imbiber's musical environment can drastically alter a wine's taste. "I think everybody recognizes that music has moods," Smith told NPR recently. "Quite simply, I think that wines carry mood also—and so the wine is acting like another musical instrument in the orchestra. If it's playing in the wrong thematic mode, it clashes with the rest of the musicians."

An NPR taste test suggests that the Doors' "dark, angry" song, "People Are Strange," enhanced the taste of a 2003 cabernet, yet clashed with a white zinfandel. And an oaky 2006 chardonnay that went well with Ella Fitzgerald's "St. Louis Blues" lost its allure when sipped to something cheery by Mozart.

Century-old classical-recordings company Deutsche Grammophon opened its online store, the DG Web Shop, yesterday, with some 2,500 albums in its inventory. The site's music has been encoded at an audiophile-delighting bitrate of 320 kilobits per second (compare to iTunes's 128 kilobits-per-second encoding). Pricing is flexible, and, unlike iTunes, encourages the purchase of entire albums. The CD featuring Hélène Grimaud's "Emperor" piano concerto, for example, costs $11.99 in its entirety (including a booklet file), with separate movements ranging from $1.99 for the eight-minute Adagio to $4.69 for the 20-minute Allegro. And Anne-Sophie Mutter's "Simply Anne-Sophie" costs nearly twice as much when purchased as individual tracks rather than as a single $11.99 album (with a booklet). Be careful when signing up for the site's newsletter, though. The checkout process ate my voucher and ended up charging me for the free track I was promised in exchange for my e-mail address.

Almost everything in Oxford American magazine's annual music issue is better than almost anything else you will read about music this year. Better still, most of this particular issue of the self-described "Southern magazine of good writing" consists of some very good writing about the 26 performers whose tracks appear on the wonderful mix CD that accompanies the issue. Which means you not only can not only read entertaining and thoughtful pieces on everyone from Thelonious Monk and Percy Mayfield to Van Dyke Parks and Iris Dement, but you can also listen to them at the same time. You will perhaps have not heard the music of Eldridge Holmes, Sandy Posey, or the Rev. Charles Jackson. But after you read about their lives and hear their music, you will be inclined to further research.

Some samples:

The worst marketing firm in the world put Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks together by committee—that's the only possible explanation for a San Francisco band in 1968 taking their inspiration from Glenn Miller's vocal group, the Modernaires: 'You know what the kids want today? Big-band group harmonies and cowboy songs! No drummer, though, and no electric instruments. We'll sell a million!'—"Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks," by David Smay

Fewer than twelve hours later, everybody was back in the studio to start in on what Dylan called 'Like a Woman.' The lyrics, once again, needed work: on several early takes, Dylan sang disconnected lines and semi-gibberish. He was unsure about what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting 'shakes,' 'wakes,' and 'makes mistakes.'—"Mystic Nights: The Making of 'Blonde on Blonde' in Nashville, Tennessee," by Sean Wilentz

I don't get it. Who doesn't love a good yodel? For one thing, there's the spelling challenge.—"American Yawp: Doddley Dew Dee Dowm Woddle-y Dee D'doodle Yo Day Eedel-y Doo Doo," by Roy Blount, Jr.

Fred Neil was prickly. Fred Neil, like a lot of human beings, wanted to be left alone. His career had no ecstatic heights and no hysterical blowouts. Well, one time he broke a guitar string and walked offstage; and sometimes he didn't show up for gigs. That's about it.—"Fred Neil," by Mike Powell

Donald Fagen "Nightfly Trilogy" (Reprise)
Donald Fagen, the adenoidal vocalist and keyboard-playing half of radio-pop sophisticates Steely Dan, has quietly accrued a trio of terrific solo albums now being released collectively. Soul meets science fiction on 1982's "Nightfly," 1993's futuristic "Kamakiriad," and last year's utterly delightful "Morph the Cat." Each volume is delivered in both CD and surround-sound DVD formats, with bonus interviews and videos, and a fourth CD contains 10 extra tracks.

Kitka, "The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between Two Worlds" (Diaphonica)
The nine-woman Bay Area vocal ensemble Kitka's new album is inspired by the unsettled spirits known to Slavic folklore as Rusalki, the souls of women whose unjust deaths are lamented annually in the Ukraine. Assisted by Ukrainian singer Mariana Sadovska, Kitka's moving theatrical song cycle strongly resembles Bulgarian folk music in its close, keening a cappella harmonies. This music, however, has taken on additional weight from the Chernobyl disaster, which has added environmental import to Rusalka rituals.

Youssou N'Dour, "Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take)" (Nonesuch)
Listening to Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour's band rip through their electrifying versions of West African tribal sounds makes most Western pop sound rhythmically anemic in comparison. Then there's Youssou's voice, a magnificent sort of virtuosic chirping that dips, dodges, and swerves in between his band's thrilling syncopations. This is dance music as high art.

Kenny Vance and the Planotones, "Countdown to Love" (Collectables)
Who knew that serious doo-wop was alive and well in the suburbs of Long Island? Jay and the Americans founding member Kenny Vance stays true to the style's roots without yielding to corny nostalgia on an album that mixes mostly unplugged doo-wop standards, such as "You Cheated" and "Girl in My Dreams," with innovative doo-wop versions of rock ("Louie Louie") and pop ("Anyone Who Had a Heart") classics, not to mention his wonderful new title track.

A selection of seasonal recordings deposited down our chimney:

"The Holiday Tribute to AC/DC"
"Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album" (CD and DVD)
"A Christmas Celtic Sojourn" (CD and DVD)
"Christmas with the Chipmunks"
"Christmas with the Rat Pack"
"Country Christmas"
"Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas"
"The Holiday Tribute to Green Day"
Josh Groban, "Noel"
Merle Haggard, "Hag's Christmas"
Amy Hanaiali'I, "A Hawaiian Christmas"
"Home for Christmas: Voices From the Heartland"
The Isley Brothers, "I'll Be Home for Christmas"
Kidz Bop Kids, "The Coolest Kidz Bop Christmas Ever"
Dave Koz, "Memories of a Winter's Night"
Patti LaBelle, "Miss Patti's Christmas"
Larry the Cable Guy, "Christmastime in Larryland"
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra, "Very Ping Pong Christmas: Funky Treats From Santa's Bag"
Raul Malo, "Marshmallow World & Other Holiday Favorites"
"And Christmas for All! The Holiday Tribute to Metallica"
"Monster Ballads Xmas"
NRBQ, "Christmas Wish" (Deluxe Edition)
"Oh Santa! New and Used Holiday Classics From Yep Roc Records"
"A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra"
"Slack Key Christmas"
"Slow Jams for Christmas"
Mindy Smith, "My Holiday"
The Staple Singers, "The 25th Day of December"
Keith Sweat, "A Christmas of Love"
"Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Favorite Selections, Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra"
"Ultra Lounge Presents: Best of Christmas Cocktails"
Dionne Warwick, "My Favorite Time of the Year"
Yo Yo Yo Kids, "Yo, It's Christmas"

The closest American equivalent to the 65-year-old Brazilian music legend Caetano Veloso would probably be Paul Simon, who's 66. Like Simon, Veloso is a celebrity equally at home in folk, rock, and various international styles, whose career took off in the late sixties and early seventies before blossoming in various interesting directions thereafter. (Unlike Veloso, however, Simon has never been imprisoned by a military dictatorship, as Veloso was in 1968.)

You could even imagine Simon tossing his comfortable band aside in favor of a tight young rock trio, which happens to be what the immensely more prolific Veloso has opted for on his recent album, "Cê," and in his current tour, which came to Manhattan's Nokia Theatre Monday night.

Veloso's earlier appearances have usually been elaborate, almost theatrical presentations, with the singer indulging his cheerful flamboyance amid string sections, samba drummers, and horns—all under the musical direction of his longtime arranger, Jacques Morelenbaum (whom Veloso referred to at the Nokia as "the man who made me unafraid of music"). That's all missing this tour, however. Veloso bopped around the stage with only a slightly ironic twinkle in his eye, waved to friends in the VIP section and slapped every palm extended upward from the floor when he wasn't playing electric guitar. He performed virtually all of "Cê," an album containing songs about spiky relationships and the occasional regret: "I only envy longevity and multiple orgasms," he sings in "Homem" (Man). Veloso couldn't avoid playing a couple of crowd-pleasing ballads on acoustic guitar, and it was also great to hear the trio, which consists of musical associates of Caetano's son, Moreno, play stripped-down versions of Veloso classics such as "London London" and "Desde Que Sampa é Samba." Jagger and McCartney had better watch their backs.

Catch Veloso if you can Nov. 23 in Tampa, Fla., or Nov. 24 in Miami.

Tony Bennett, "Tony Bennett Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 1" (RPM/Columbia/Legacy)
This not overly generous 46-minute anthology takes its place alongside "The Essential Tony Bennett," "The Ultimate Tony Bennett," "Fifty Years—The Artistry of Tony Bennett," and at least half a dozen other Bennett best-ofs released since the singer was "rediscovered" by the MTV generation several years ago. Yet Bennett's consistency may be his greatest asset. His 1997 "The Way You Look Tonight" sounds no less solid than "The Very Thought of You" from 1966 that precedes it and the 1958 "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodnight" that follows.

Paul McCartney, "The McCartney Years" (Rhino DVD)
Who knew that the cute, silly-love-song-writing Beatle had accrued two DVDs' worth of videos? Nostalgia is the name of McCartney's game. Whether acting out songs in faux WWII music halls, portraying rock stars from Buddy Holly to his Fab Four self, or acting out an elaborate Old West snake-oil scenario with Michael Jackson, McCartney nearly always keeps a foot in some idealized past. Much of the rest resembles one elaborate home movie after another, all adding up to an extended tribute to the late Linda McCartney. Or at least Paul's doleful commentary suggests as much. The box's third disc contains Wings onstage in 1976, four "Unplugged" songs from 1991, and a 2004 rock-festival performance.

Phish, "Vegas 96" (JEMP)
This may not have been the best show ever played by the most consistently creative American rock band of the past couple of decades, but it may well have been their most fun. Guitarist-songwriter Trey Anastasio took full advantage of the locale and topped off the band's show with a 40-minute encore that integrated guest yodelers, a quartet of Elvis impersonators, and members of the band Primus into a shaggy-dog rock opera (think Frank Zappa meets Pete Townshend) about a boy and his pet cat. Elsewhere on this three-CD set you'll find a slick cover of Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia" and long stretches of improvised rock to rival The Who's "Live at Leeds."

Friday's Wall Street Journal had a nice roundup of the many Roma Gypsy and Gypsy-influenced bands and films infiltrating the artistic mainstream. Previously marginalized, the new Gypsy mystique extends from indie rock groups such as Beirut to the Bastille Opera's production of "Time of the Gypsies" in Paris this summer. And the excellent film "When the Road Bends...Tales of a Gypsy Caravan" documented the American tour of a wide range of Gypsy styles.

Although the Romani people's origins are in India, today their music is usually associated with Roma's Balkan beats. But all Romani seem to have a knack for adapting themselves to local styles. As Nicolae Ionita, a percussionist in Romania's Fanfare Ciocarlia, explains, "I'm sure that Western artists who want to work with us do so because they love Gypsy music....I don't have the impression from our experience that something gets lost in translation. In the worst case, something new and different from both Western and Eastern styles is created. That's the most interesting thing."

Indeed, New York group Gogol Bordello's recent album "Super Taranta!" should be popping up on many a critic's year-end best-of list. Gogol Bordello plays a boisterous mixture of punk rock, Jamaican dub, klezmer, techno, flamenco, hip-hop, and Gypsy folk music from the Carpathian Mountains, all led by towering Kiev-born lead singer Eugene Hutz. The album is a history lesson, political seminar, and wild dance party rolled into one. If you buy no other Gypsy-influenced album this year...

Los Angeles writer-archivist-DJ Roger Steffens has been one of the most assiduous champions of reggae music for at least three decades. Indeed, Carlos Santana refers to him as St. Peter to Bob Marley's Jesus Christ on the back cover of "Reggae Scrapbook," Steffens's fabulous new coffee-table collaboration with photographer Peter Simon. Over the years, Steffens has known and interviewed everyone who's anyone in Jamaican music, and his scrapbook boasts touching, funny, and illuminating encounters with the likes of Jimmy Cliff, Toots Hibbert, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown, and, of course, Bob Marley.

Moreover, "Reggae Scrapbook" almost literally bursts at the seams with memorabilia from Roger's deep reggae archive. In addition to Simon's stunning photography and countless collaged posters, autographed album covers, and other ephemera, the memory book overflows with autographed photos tipped onto pages, perfect facsimiles of "yard party" announcements tucked into pockets, envelopes containing postcards of all things Rastafarian, clever reproductions of autographed singles, and lots more. And the enclosed DVD containing highlights of Steffens's Los Angeles cable-television interviews with Tosh, Judy Mowatt, Luciano, and the Wailers Band alone is probably worth the price. "Reggae Scrapbook" is a rich and colorful testament to one of the more rewarding, strange, and influential eras in the history of popular music.

An alternate jazz universe has long been bubbling along nicely in Amsterdam, as chronicled in Kevin Whitehead's "New Dutch Swing." Among that scene's stars is the Willem Breuker Kollektief, formed in 1974 by clarinet and saxophone player Breuker, who also writes most of the group's music. The ten-member Kollektief (consisting of three saxophones, four horns, and rhythm section) finished its short American tour Monday with a show at Joe's Pub in Manhattan. There were a couple of disappointments from the get-go. Unfortunately, the band wasn't performing Breuker's new music for F. W. Murnau's 1926 silent film, "Faust," as they had been elsewhere on the tour, and Breuker himself was absent due to illness.

Breuker's absence toned down the onstage zaniness and physical high jinks that have long characterized the group. Like Frank Zappa, Breuker is a strong advocate of humorous music, and, again like Zappa, his writing is a rapid-fire collage of styles, keys, time signatures, and free improvisation. Rather than being based on African-American blues, however, Breuker's roots lie in European classical music, cabaret songs, and music-hall rhythms. The highlights of the somewhat subdued tentet's show at Joe's Pub included pianist Henk de Jonge's long, wild piano solo blending Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" with Dave Brubeck's "Take Five"; Hermine Deurloo's harmonica and alto-sax solos (unlike the rest of the band, she is both female and relatively young); and a gorgeous fugue. They came, they swung, and they headed home. Get well, Willem.

"City of Dreams: A Collection of New Orleans Music" (Rounder)
No single box set could possibly contain the cornucopia of styles and personalities that distinguish New Orleans music. "City of Dreams," however, provides a rock-solid introduction to the scene on four CDs representing the Crescent City's R&B voices, Mardi Gras street sounds, funky fundamentals, and unique piano stylists, respectively—from Al Johnson's "Carnival Time" to Tuts Washington's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"

Nat King Cole, "Welcome to the Club/Tell Me All About Yourself," "Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" (Collectors' Choice)
Nat King Cole recorded almost exclusively for Capitol Records, and Collectors' Choice is reissuing nearly all his 18 albums as a series of nine twofers. These two packages focus on the often-neglected jazz side of Cole's quintessentially cool artistic persona. Cole meets the Count Basie Big Band on "Welcome to the Club," with arrangements by Capitol's in-house jazz czar Dave Cavanaugh, who also shepherds him through "Tell Me All About Yourself." "Penthouse Serenade" and "The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" focus on Cole's underrated jazz instrumentals, which could be as richly romantic as his vocals.

"The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8: 1968" (Motown)
Sixty-eight was as tumultuous a year for Motown Records as for the rest of the country. But even the departure of the legendary writing team of Brian and Edward Holland and Lamont Dozier couldn't keep this hit machine down, as demonstrated by the 144 titles on these six smoking CDs. The five tracks by the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations, which half-filled Billboard magazine's year-end Top-10, were just the icing on the cake.

Josh Roseman, "New Constellations" (Accurate)
Brooklyn trombonist Josh Roseman taps into his Jamaican roots on a live album that brilliantly channels and updates ska greats the Skatalites' own 'bone man, Don Drummond (1932-69). Roseman mixes originals with two Drummond tunes, a couple of reggae classics, and the Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" on an album that demonstrates that avant-garde jazz and sheer entertainment need not be mutually exclusive categories.

I watched neither the 41st annual "Country Music Association Awards" show Wednesday night nor the eighth annual Latin Grammys Thursday night. Fortunately, others did!

Chet Flippo at CMT.com thinks the Writers Guild of America strike may have had the unintended consequence of highlighting the 20 live performances at the CMA Awards. Flippo praises performances by Miranda Lambert, Alison Krauss, Jennifer Nettles, and Little Big Town. The evening's winners included Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, and Taylor Swift. However, Flippo notes a dearth of tradition in the proceedings: "I saw a belated fly-by salute to Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Vince Gill, Mel Tillis and Ralph Emery. Dwight Yoakam, in what I wonder was done by his insistence, gave a fitting tribute to the late Hall of Famer Porter Wagoner. But there was no mention at all of another Hall of Famer who had died the day before, the great Hank Thompson."

For a more irreverent take on the show, check out Idolator's real-time version of the event:

8:05 p.m. Miranda Lambert singing "Gunpowder and Lead," one of my favorite songs of the past year, and looking kind of like she just flew in from a Cheryl Tiegs convention. Like, on the wing of whatever plane she was traveling on.

8:07 p.m. Yay, Miranda. Your album deserves to sell more!

Alas, no one seemed to be live-blogging the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas, where Dominican star Juan Luis Guerra walked away with five trophies for album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, best merengue album, and best tropical track. Pick up Guerra's "La Llave de Mi Corazon" if you're curious about what all the fuss is about.

The best part of director Todd Haynes's upcoming head-scratcher of a Bob Dylan biopic, "I'm Not There," is My Morning Jacket-singer Jim James's freaky-yet-faithful version of "Goin' to Acapulco" (stream it here). Dylan recorded the song with The Band during their informal 1967 sessions in the basement of the Big Pink house in Upstate New York; Calexico, an Arizona group that effortlessly evoked The Band's shambling gait, accompanies James in the film. James and Calexico's "Acapulco" was also among the highlights of Wednesday night's "'I'm Not There': In Concert—A Celebration of the Film By Todd Haynes" at Manhattan's Beacon Theater. (The show benefited 826 National.)

The conceit of "I'm Not There" is that a half-dozen different actors, including Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett, portray the elusive songwriter at different points in his career. The film's soundtrack strives to be equally unpredictable, with Dylan songs covered by both his contemporaries (such as Richie Havens and Willie Nelson) and by performers a generation younger (like Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and Yo La Tengo). Al Kooper, Joe Henry, Dan Hicks, and other non-sound tracked Dylan fans showed up as well.

I left the Beacon glad to have caught Tift Merritt's impassioned "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," My Morning Jacket's burning "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," and Terry Adams's "Rainy Day Women # 12 and 35." The evening's real showstopper, though, was the Roots, who reprised the 10-minute tuba-meets-Hendrix version of "Masters of War" (stream it here) they debuted at an earlier Dylan-athon. Apart from ongoing sound problems and lyrics challenges (shouldn't memorization be required of tribute acts?), the concert was undoubtedly the place to be for hardcore Dylan fans, even if the recipient of all this adoration himself was elsewhere and, as singer-actor John Doe noted, probably playing a gig. [streams via Hidden Track]

On the heels of last month's wonderful "Rare & Unreleased Recordings From the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul" and next week's "Jewels in the Crown: All-Star Duets With the Queen of Soul," Aretha Franklin will enter a new phase of her roller-coaster career next year with "Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love," the debut release of her new label, Aretha Records. "Jewels in the Crown" will fulfill her obligation to Clive Davis's J Records and Arista labels with a collection of collaborations from over the years with singers such as Frank Sinatra, George Michael, and John Legend. And the singer explains that "A Woman Falling Out of Love" was so titled "because it happens to be true. ...It was based on a relationship that I had, and it just didn't happen for a number of reasons." Franklin is also working on a film version of her 1999 autobiography, "Aretha: From These Roots." And here she is in all her 1970 glory.

Old wine in new bottles indeed. The Grateful Dead is discontinuing their long-running Dick's Picks series of warts-and-all complete-show releases in favor of a new archival series, Road Trips. Volume 1 will consist of musical gems from the band's fall 1979 East Coast tour, which introduced keyboardist Brent Mydland to the hordes, on two CDs (and, for a while, a limited-edition bonus disc). In addition to the usual beautifully designed packages containing an essay and hitherto unseen photographs, each release will spin off a Web site with enough articles and reviews from the tour to make Ken Burns proud. The band promises "killer versions of 'Dancing in the Street' > 'Franklin's Tower,' long exploratory jams on 'Playing in the Band' and 'Terrapin,' a rattle-your-brain 'Shakedown,' and lots more, all pulled from the master tapes in the vault and expertly mastered in HDCD for maximum power and clarity by Jeffrey Norman."

The Beatles, "Help!" (Capitol/Apple DVD)
The Beatles' second movie with director Richard Lester was a colorful contrast to the black-and-white revelation of "A Hard Day's Night." With their increasing clout, the Beatles could shift the focus off their private lives (at least on film) and compel Lester to shoot this 1965 James Bond takeoff in the Bahamas and the Alps, while inventing the modern rock video along the way. It's great, lightweight fun all the same, the newly restored print looks terrific, and the band's seven songs are more than adequate.

Carla Bley, "The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu" (ECM)
Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu joins pianist Carla Bley and her sterling quintet for an album focusing on Bley's six-part (!) "Banana Quintet." Bley writes and performs with the cool lucidity of a perfect dry martini, even when the music drifts briefly into rock territory. Compositions such as "Death of Superman/Dream Sequence #1—Flying," inspired by the life and death of Christopher Reeve, epitomize Bley's inspiring autumnal intelligence and jazz cool in general.

Gram Parsons, "Archive Volume One" (Amoeba/Fontana)
In April 1969, alternative-country pioneers Gram Parsons (1946-73) and the Flying Burrito Brothers opened a couple of San Francisco shows for the Grateful Dead, in whose vaults the music languished. Parsons sings Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, and Hank Williams on this double-CD album consisting of two nearly identical shows, as well as self-described "cosmic country" originals, such as "Sin City," "Hot Burrito #1," and "Thousand Dollar Wedding." Parsons is a compelling, if emotionally limited singer, and pedal-steel guitarist Sneaky Pete Kleinow is his secret weapon.

"Rock and roll is dead," art-folk revivalist Sufjan Stevens declared to New York magazine recently, adding for good measure: "There are great rock bands today, but you're watching the History Channel when you go to these clubs. They're just reenacting an old sentiment." This weekend at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Stevens offered some bracing new sentiments in "The BQE," a new work commissioned as part of BAM's annual Next Wave festival.

Raised in Michigan and living in Brooklyn, Stevens is known best for his semi-serious long-term goal to memorialize each of the fifty states on an album, with richly detailed tributes to Michigan and Illinois already released. Following Thursday evening's performance, Stevens described his latest geographically specific work as a "bizarre and beautiful ode to one of the world's ugliest expressways" (the BQE, or Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, is 11 and a half miles of bad roadway connecting two boroughs). Stevens functioned as both director and composer for the work, which combined a cinematic triptych projected above a 36-piece ensemble with a quintet of both off- and on-screen hula hoopers, whose spinning tubes offered a childlike visual parallel to the barreling vehicles onscreen. "The BQE" began with the sounds of electronic shrieks and ended with a triumphant explosion of fireworks over Coney Island. Inbetween, the work's several sections explored arrangements that evoked classical music, musical theater, and even rock music. You could hear echoes of "Over the Rainbow" early on and, later, the small-town hurly-burly of Charles Ives's marching bands. Among his many talents, Sufjan Stevens makes you feel at least a little proud to be an American.

For the even more entertaining second half of the evening, Stevens performed some of his more popular earlier works. Songs such as the yearning "Seven Swans," "Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head," "Chicago," and the shockingly sensitive "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." sounded majestic in their orchestral arrangements. Anyone not yet convinced that Sufjan Stevens was on to something that justified his anti-rockist sentiments would have had a hard time remaining a nonbeliever.

It's a rather long piece divided into 24 pages (click on "print" to get it all at once), but you'll want to slow down and savor all 12,000 words of "The Musical Mystique," Richard Taruskin's defense of classical music against its advocates, in The New Republic. The University of Southern California-Berkeley professor and author of "The Oxford History of Western Music" feels that three recent books—such as Julian Johnson's "Who Needs Classical Music? Cultural Choice and Musical Value," Joshua Fineberg's "Classical Music, Why Bother? Hearing the World of Contemporary Culture Through a Composer's Ears," and Lawrence Kramer's "Why Classical Music Still Matters"—overstate the alleged crisis in classical music; he writes:

As with rising gorge I consumed these books, the question that throbbed and pounded in my head was whether it was still possible to defend my beloved repertoire without recourse to pious tommyrot, double standards, false dichotomies, smug nostalgia, utopian delusions, social snobbery, tautology, hypocrisy, trivialization, pretense, innuendo, reactionary invective, or imperial haberdashery.

As a team of Texas researchers have recently announced, there are exactly 237 known reasons why people have sex. There are at least as many reasons why they listen to classical music, of which to sit in solemn silence on a dull dark dock is only one. There will always be social reasons as well as purely aesthetic ones, and thank God for that. There will always be people who make money from it—and why not?—as well as those who starve for the love of it. Classical music is not dying; it is changing. (My favorite example right now is Gabriel Prokofiev, the British-born grandson of the Russian composer, who studied electronic music in school, has headed a successful disco-punk band, and is now writing string quartets.) Change can be opposed, and it can be slowed down, but it cannot be stopped. All three of our authors seem reluctant to acknowledge this ineluctable fact. But change is not always loss, and realizing this should not threaten but console.