GOING TO BAT FOR BARTOK
What were the outstanding orchestral works reacting with eloquence to tragedy or major losses of life in the 20thcentury? Berkeley composer John Adams cited several of them in writing for New Yorker magazine (dated Dec. 11), pieces written by Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Britten and Richard Strauss, in reaction to massive losses of life in world wars. He also emphasized his own turning down a commission to write a 9/11 piece, saying it was too immediate for New York City itself, with…