Double Exposure

The favorite refuge of a critic confronted with a new piece of modern music is to plead that it demands a second hearing. Last week Conductor Leonard Bernstein obliged. He led the New York Philharmonic through a performance of Lukas Foss's Time Cycle for Soprano and Orchestra, an atonal work based on poems by Auden, Housman, Kafka and Nietzsche, all of them having to do with the flow of time, clocks or bells. With Adele Addison expertly taking the vocal part, the work proved to be one of Foss's strongest--a mosaiclike structure full of wispily haunting sonorities. After playing the rest of the program, Bernstein invited listeners who had been puzzled by Cycle to remain for a second hearing. About 400 accepted. "I'm delighted." said Lenny to the Discriminating 400. "I compliment you."

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