Soundcheck

Revisionist History

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Before "crossover" became a controversial marketing term in classical music, Alec Wilder was a composer who managed to bridge the worlds of serious and popular music, jazz and classical, the concert hall and the dance hall, without losing credibility in any of those areas. Since his death in 1980, he's had few modern-day champions but that appears to be changing. The New York-based chamber ensemble, the Four Bags, has developed some intriguing and idiosyncratic interpretations of Wilder's music, as we hear on today's show. We're also visited by music writer and Time Out New York contributor Marion Lignana Rosenberg, who reviews some important new reissues of the coveted and controversial recordings of the soprano Maria Callas.

• Listen to the whole show