Music

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the world-premiere recording of Kurt Weill’s opera Die Buergschaft—The Pledge (on EMI). It’s one of Weill’s most neglected works first performed in Berlin in 1932, and was revived last year during the Spoleto Festival USA.

World music critic Milo Miles reviews some funny rap music, “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome” (Nijatunes) by the Canadian DJ Eric San, MC Paul Barman’s “It’s Very Stimulating” (WordSound), and “Green Velvet” (F-111) by the DJ Green Velvet.

In this program we hear selections of his music performed by singers Vernel Bagneris and Terry Burrell, and pianist Dick Hyman. We also hear from Marva Carter who is writing a biography of Cook. She is the director of Graduate Studies at the School of Music at Georgia State University.

Performances continue and we hear from Tom Riis who compiled and edited a book containing the complete score of “In Dahomey.” Riis directs the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado and is the author of “Just Before Jazz.”

Our guest pianist tomorrow will be Dick Hyman. One of our guest singers will be Vernel Bagneris who has explored this period in his own musical revues. To give you a preview, we asked him to sing a sing that he's performed on stage, which was originated by Bert Williams. It's called "Somebody Lied."

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two new CDS from two Southern hip hop groups: "Tha G-Code" (Cash Money) by Juvenile and "World Party" (Arista) by Goodie Mob.

Actor John Cusack He stars in the new film “High Fidelity” based on the novel of the same name. He plays a 35 year-old used record store owner who keeps top-five lists for everything, and can’t keep a relationship. By the time Cusack was 22 he had a number of films to his credit: “The Sure Thing,” “Eight Men Out,” “Say Anything,” and “Fat Man and Little Boy.” Later he went on to make “The Grifters,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” “The Thin Red Line,” and “Grosse Pointe Blank” which he cowrote.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz profiles the work of Pierre Boulez (“pee-AIR boo-LEZZ”). Boulez recently played a four-concert series of 20th century music at Carnegie Hall. Lloyd, who attended the shows, says Boulez is not only a conductor, a composer and a theorist, but a cultural icon as well.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the performance of Elliott Carter’s new comic opera “What Next?” by Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony.

With the recent death of Israeli singer Ofra Haza to AIDS, World music critic Milo Miles reflects on the world musicians who have died of the disease, and the secrecy that surrounded their illnesses.