Music

Tenet Vocal Artists marked the 450th anniversary of the German Baroque composer Michael Praetorius’s birth, and the 400th of his death.The German hymn commonly known as “Lo, how a rose, e’er blooming” has long been a beloved Christmas carol. It’s sung by church choirs and high school choruses. Versions have been recorded by Linda Ronstadt and Sting.But we have the early German Baroque composer Michael Praetorius to thank for the original single, so to speak: “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” The text and hymn melody were first printed together in 1599. But in 1609, Praetorius wrote a tender, four-part setting that plumbed the melody for all its harmonic possibilities, and became the equivalent in its day of a hit tune.On Saturday, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan, the splendid ensemble Tenet Vocal Artists performed, with 14 exquisite singers and 11 vibrant players of period instruments, a ravishing account of the beautifully direct yet intricate Praetorius version, part of a generous 75-minute concert of this composer’s works.The program — while Jolle Greenleaf is Tenet’s artistic director, this one was led by Jeffrey Grossman, who played organ — honored the fact that this year marks both the 400th anniversary of Praetorius’s death and the 450th anniversary of his birth. (An on-demand video of the concert will be available for a month starting Tuesday at tenet.nyc.)Praetorius was a leading figure of the German Lutheran chorale tradition — the practice of using hymn tunes as components of pieces that often unfold with striking complexity, as in the wondrous “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” which Tenet performed compellingly. On one level this music comes across as a multi-section, chorale-like setting of an alluring melody. But just below the surface the music teems with inner details: flourishes of offbeat counterpoint for the voices, squiggling riffs for the instruments.In the later phase of his career, Praetorius was increasingly influenced by new styles coming out of Italy, including the technique known as “cori spezzati,” in which groups of singers and players were divided into smaller ensembles so that phrases could be bounced back and forth.In this regard Praetorius was indebted to a younger German contemporary, Heinrich Schütz, whom he got to know when they both worked in Dresden. Schütz had studied in Venice for three years with a progenitor of the technique: Giovanni Gabrieli, the composer and organist at St. Mark’s Basilica. In a nod to Schütz’s influence, Tenet began the program with his “Jauchzet dem Herren,” in which mini-phrases are boldly echoed.That Praetorius brought his own take to the technique was amply demonstrated with a performance of four fleet dances for instruments from his collection “Terpsichore,” his only surviving secular music. The interplay went beyond echo effects; sometimes a flourish was tossed from one group to another with an open invitation to elaborate on it. In several of the large-scale choral works, the Tenet singers enhanced the dramatic impact of the cori spezzati passages by positioning themselves well apart from one another in the church.The revelation, for me, was a performance of the lengthy “Vater unser im Himmelreich,” from Praetorius’s 1619 collection “Polyhymnia Caduceatrix” — magnificent music, laid out in multiple sections, with sublime stretches of overlapping counterpoint and plush harmonies that cadence into radiant consonance. Historians point to this score as the German Baroque counterpart to Monteverdi’s seminal Vespers of 1610.Yet some of the more modest fare was just as rewarding, like the setting of what’s familiar today as the carol “Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine.” How often do you get to hear Praetorius’s subtly ingenious and glowing version?Tenet Vocal ArtistsPerformed on Saturday at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Manhattan. More

A beloved Mexican singer, Mr. Fernández was known for his powerful operatic range and marathon performances, delivered in a signature charro outfit and intricately embroidered sombrero.Vicente Fernández, the powerful tenor whose songs of love, loss and patriotism inspired by life in rural Mexico endeared him to generations of fans as “El Rey,” the king of traditional ranchera music, died on Sunday morning. He was 81.His death was announced in a post on his official Instagram account, which did not give a cause or say where he died. He had been hospitalized for months after a spinal injury he sustained in August, according to previous posts from the account.Accompanied by his mariachi band, Mr. Fernández brought ranchera music, which emerged from the ranches of Mexico in the 19th century, to the rest of Latin America and beyond. In his signature charro outfit and intricately embroidered sombrero, a celebration of the genre’s countryside origins, he performed at some of the largest venues in the world.He recorded dozens of albums and hundreds of songs over a career that spanned six decades. His enduring popularity was reflected in a series of industry accolades, including a place in the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Grammy Awards and eight Latin Grammy Awards. He sold tens of millions of copies of his albums and starred in dozens of movies.He was known for giving epic, hourslong concerts, communing directly with his fans and taking swigs from bottles of alcohol that were offered to him. Known fondly as “Chente,” he would tell his audiences that “as long as you keep applauding, your ‘Chente’ won’t stop singing.”Reviewing a 1995 performance at Radio City Music Hall for The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote that Mr. Fernández “sang with operatic power and melodrama,” flexing his “ardent tenor” to “prodigious crescendos and a vibrato that could register on the Richter scale.”He continued to give marathon performances well into his 70s. At a 2008 concert at Madison Square Garden, Mr. Fernández held court for three hours. A lingering note, delivered in his “lively, if slightly weathered tenor,” could render the audience silent, Jon Caramanica wrote in his review in The Times.Vicente Fernández was born on Feb. 17, 1940, in Huentitán El Alto, in the state of Jalisco in western central Mexico. His father, Ramón Fernández, was a rancher and his mother, Paula Gómez de Fernández, stayed at home to raise their son.He grew up watching matinee movies featuring the Mexican ranchera singer Pedro Infante, an early influence. When he was 8, he received his first guitar and began studying folk music. He left school in the fifth grade and later moved with his family to Tijuana after their cattle business collapsed. He told The Los Angeles Times in 1999 that he took whatever work he could, laying bricks and shining shoes, and even washing dishes.“I’ve always said I got to where I am not by being a great singer, but by being stubborn, by being tenacious, by being pigheaded,” Mr. Fernández said. He gravitated to a public square in Guadalajara called Mariachi Plaza, where he performed for tips, he told The Los Angeles Times. His career took off after he won a competition called La Calandria Musical when he was 19, he said in a 2010 interview with KENS 5 of San Antonio. He moved to Mexico City where he sang at a restaurant and at weddings, and unsuccessfully pitched himself to local record labels.The labels came calling soon after the death in 1966 of Javier Solís, one of the most popular Mexican singers who specialized in bolero and ranchera music. Mr. Fernández then recorded his first albums, including hits like “Volver, Volver,” which elevated him to a level of fame that he had never envisioned, he told KENS 5. Other hits, including “El Rey” and “Lástima que seas ajena,” would follow.“When I started my career, I always had the confidence that I would one day make it, but I never imagined that I would reach the heights at which the public has placed me,” Mr. Fernández said.His public statements occasionally got him into trouble in his later years, such as when he said in a 2019 interview that he had refused a liver transplant because he feared that the donated organ might have come from a gay person or a drug addict. Earlier this year, he apologized after he was seen in a video touching a female fan’s breast without her consent while they posed for a photo.Mr. Fernández married María del Refugio Abarca Villaseñor in 1963. She survives him, as do the couple’s children, Vicente, Gerardo, Alejandra and Alejandro, a Grammy-nominated ranchera performer.Asked if a routine or exercise was a key to his longevity as a performer, Mr. Fernández told KENS that he walked every day for an hour and rode horses when he was home on his ranch. But when he was on tour, he said, “I don’t leave the hotels.”“Still, that keeps me healthy,” he said. “My voice is well rested. When I hear the public’s applause, I don’t know where the voice comes from, but it does for three hours. You’ll have to ask God to find out how he blesses me every time.” More

Now in its eighth year, Claire Chase’s multidecade project to create a modern repertory for her instrument shows no signs of slowing.It was a familiar, comforting sight: the flutist Claire Chase, standing atop a scaffold and softly lit, a warmly glowing star in the expansive darkness of the Kitchen’s performance space.Since 2013, a scene like this has greeted every audience to witness an installment of “Density 2036,” Chase’s multidecade initiative to commission a new program of flute music each year, leading up to the centennial of Edgard Varèse’s brief but influential 1936 solo “Density 21.5,” a work that, she once wrote, “unfurled genre-dissolving possibilities for the instrument.”These programs — theatrical as well as musical, vocal as well as instrumental — have taken on the reliability of holiday gatherings. And, like many such gatherings, Chase’s was jeopardized by the pandemic: The seventh installment, Liza Lim’s “Sex Magic,” premiered online last December.What a relief it was, then, to be back at the Kitchen on Friday for Part VIII of “Density” — one of the great musical undertakings of our time, a singular project by a singular artist on the messily ambitious scale of Wagner’s “Ring” and Stockhausen’s “Licht.” The climax will be a 24-hour marathon concert, but until then, “Density” is unfolding incrementally, with Chase as the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe.This latest performance — dedicated to the composer Alvin Lucier, whose “Almost New York” was featured in Part I, and who died recently at 90 — opened with Lim’s “Sex Magic,” in the form of the excerpt “Throat Song,” for ocarina and voice, blending and blurring the two in gentle polyphony.Lim’s piece was a reminder that, while “Density” is, on paper, a mission to develop a modern solo flute repertory, it has in practice been much broader. Chase and her cohort of composers have made an encyclopedic embrace of the flute family — especially in Marcos Balter’s “Pan,” which constituted Part V — and remained open to the ways in which the human body can produce sound, such as in Pauline Oliveros’s monodrama-like “Intensity 20.15: Grace Chase,” from Part III. Some works haven’t even been solos. (And some, it should be said, have been easier to respect than love.)The concerts are anything but straightforward. Friday’s came with a host of additional credits, including for Levy Lorenzo’s sound, Nicholas Houfek’s lighting and production design, Monica Duncan’s projections and Kelly Levy’s stage management. The reason was clear the moment Chase began to play Wang Lu’s “Aftertouch,” which complements three types of flute with street noise, a club-worthy beat and videos, by Polly Apfelbaum, of spinning singing bowls. It seems like a lot, but the elements wove together naturally: the city’s restlessness; the dizzying video; Chase’s arpeggios, amplified and, through electronics, feeding one another in waves of sound that transformed into clashing ripples.If “Aftertouch” courted dance, the low frequency of its beat rattling the rafters, then Ann Cleare’s “anfa,” which followed, invited something like the opposite. Its title, according to the program notes, comes from the Irish word for “a disturbance in the elements,” and its baseline is deceptive stasis. Chase stood with her towering contrabass flute against the backdrop of a projected film landscape, by Ailbhe Ni Bhriain, of an Irish bog — a site, Cleare says, of rich industrial and geological history.The video has the look of a still image, but Cleare’s score reveals that there is always more to a landscape than meets the eye. Accompanied by electronics, Chase sounded both of the earth and beyond it, shifting textures with tectonic patience and warping time. Quietly, but alarmingly, the image changes to another in which inky plumes erupt with increasing frequency; by the end, their slowly spreading tendrils begin to overtake the bog.Matana Roberts’s “Auricular Hearsay” countered Cleare’s muted intensity with piercingly loud extroversion. Written for flute, video and the option of collaborators, it uses a mixed-media framework that Roberts calls “Endless Score,” and is, the composer writes, “a visual and sonic exploration of the brains of the neurodiverse,” inspired by how they “operate in starts, stops, spurts.” Improvising from a set of instructions, Chase played no fewer than a half-dozen instruments, including slide whistles, percussion and panpipe, alongside Senem Pirler’s scene-stealing live electronics and against blazing projections.It’s a marvel that, after this rush of premieres, Varèse’s original “Density 21.5” had the freshness of a new discovery. But its inclusion also put a lot of pressure on the pieces that preceded it: Will they still have such an eager audience in 2136?And what about artists able to take them up? So much of “Density 2036” has been written specifically for Chase, tailored to her nimble technique, vocal prowess and charismatic presence. Although each addition has been a gift, it will be even more impressive if these works break the trend — all too common in new music — of coming and going like the burst of breath that makes a flute sing.Density 2036, Part VIIIPerformed Thursday through Saturday at the Kitchen, Manhattan. More

The singer’s first album in six years became the first release to reach that milestone since Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” a year ago. But in 2015, Adele’s “25” sold 3.4 million its first week.Adele holds the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for a third time this week with “30,” with no major new releases to challenge it.Her first album in six years, “30” had the equivalent of 193,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That included 58 million streams and 149,000 copies sold as a complete package. “30” has now sold more than one million copies as a full album, the first release to do so since Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” a little over a year ago — though Adele’s last LP, “25,” sold nearly 3.4 million in its first week out in 2015, when Adele withheld the complete album from streaming services.Also this week, Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” holds at No. 2. Polo G’s “Hall of Fame,” which opened at No. 1 back in June, jumped 66 spots to No. 3 thanks to a new version with extra tracks. Michael Bublé’s “Christmas,” a seasonal hit each year since its release a decade ago, is No. 4, and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 5.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which had a 10-week run at No. 1 at the start of the year and has never dipped further than No. 9 on the chart, holds in sixth place. More

A winning cast opened the company’s holiday season with a trimmed, English-language version of Mozart’s classic.It’s always heartening to see lots of eager children in the audience when the Metropolitan Opera presents its family-friendly version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” during the holidays.But when the company reopened in September, their return was uncertain. The Met, which since the start of its season has required all who enter to be vaccinated, de facto banned children under 12, who were not eligible for vaccines.When eligibility expanded at the end of October, though, the door was open for kids to come back. And they did on Friday, to Julie Taymor’s fantastical production — trimmed to just under two intermissionless hours and performed in J.D. McClatchy’s snappy English adaptation.The tenor Rolando Villazón as Papageno, a role usually sung by baritones, and the soprano Hera Hyesang Park as Pamina.Karen Almond/Metropolitan OperaThe performance boasted a winning cast and glowing playing from the orchestra, led with elegance and insight by Jane Glover. I’ve long been in the minority in finding Taymor’s stylized, puppet-filled staging overly busy — too inventive for its own good. But the audience applauded each scenic touch and stage trick, including some children near me, though there seemed not that many of them in attendance overall. (The company is also offering an abridged, English-language version of Massenet’s “Cinderella,” which opens on Friday.)From the melting love aria that Prince Tamino sings early on, the tenor Matthew Polenzani — who sang the role at this staging’s premiere in 2004 — was in warm, ardent voice. When the questing Tamino exchanges questions with the Speaker (the robust bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi), who oversees the entrance to a temple of wisdom, Polenzani’s heated earnestness lent the scene dark intensity. And his English diction was a model of clarity.Pamina, with whom Tamino falls in love, was sung beautifully by the plush-voiced soprano Hera Hyesang Park. Pamina’s mother, the Queen of the Night, was the soprano Kathryn Lewek, who dispatched her florid leaps and super-high notes with fearless brilliance. The powerful bass Morris Robinson made an imposing yet trustworthy Sarastro, the spiritual leader of the temple.In a bold move, the tenor Rolando Villazón sang Papageno, the hapless bird catcher — traditionally a baritone role. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Villazón, a star since the early 2000s, was candid about the vocal troubles and mental setbacks that almost led him to retire in recent years. He said in the interview that he believed his voice was mended. But on Friday, his low range was weak and patchy, and even his higher notes had trouble carrying in the house.Still, he sang honestly and energetically, and brought a charming blend of comedic antics and wistful yearning to his portrayal of this bumptious character who yearns for love — and finds it, eventually, with Papagena, here the sunny soprano Ashley Emerson.On the podium, Glover balanced warmth and brightness, breadth and high spirits, and rightly received an enthusiastic ovation. When she made her Met debut in 2013 in this holiday “Magic Flute,” she was just the third woman to conduct at the company. This current run is her first time back.Glover has worked with the Royal Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival in England, the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Danish Opera and other major houses. Isn’t it time for the Met to utilize her full capabilities?The Magic FluteThrough Jan. 5 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

The long-lost outfits of the Beatles sound man have made him an unwitting fashion favorite, five decades later.“It’s just cringe-making,” said Glyn Johns, the recording engineer and producer who plays a prominent role in “The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s marathon documentary series about the fateful Beatles sessions in 1969 that culminated in the “Let It Be” album.Mr. Johns was not talking about the nearly eight-hour series, which critics and fans have embraced as a watershed television event, but of the Austin Powers-esque outfits his 26-year-old self wears throughout it. “I look like a bloody clown,” he added.His yeti-like goatskin coat. His dandyish Oscar Wilde jackets. His Capri-ready neck scarves and Janis Joplin sunglasses.It is not easy to stand out in a documentary featuring four of the 20th century’s most famous people. But with his flair for accessories and slinky-pants-cool, Mr. Johns has found a new round of appreciators a half century after the fact.“Glyn Johns is the late ’60s fashion icon I didn’t know I needed,” tweeted Katie Irish, a costume designer who worked on “The Americans.”“Glyn Johns in the fluffy jacket is my look for the rest of winter,” said Emma Swift, an Australian singer and songwriter, on Twitter. Others have noted his uncanny resemblance to Liam Gallagher of Oasis; Cillian Murphy, the star of “Peaky Blinders;” and Ronnie (Z-Man) Barzell, the debauched rock impresario in the 1970 camp classic, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”“The coolest thing I think I wore in the film was the crocodile Levi jacket, which in fact had been given to me by Keith Richards,” Mr. Johns said. Disney+For Mr. Johns, 79, the experience has been amusing — to a point.“I’m fed up with it now, I’ll tell you,” he said with a laugh in a telephone call from his home in Chichester, England. “I have 9,000 emails and texts from people from my past, all taking the Mickey unmercifully.”“Some people are saying, ‘Oh, the jacket you wore on X day was fantastic,’ or ‘Where did you get the goatskin coat?’ But in general, they’re laughing at how ridiculous I looked, which of course is true.”Mr. Johns was hardly the only peacock during those fateful weeks, as the Beatles labored to get over their differences and get back to their roots with a no-nonsense rock n’ roll album, accompanied, in theory, by a concert television special.What to Know About ‘The Beatles: Get Back’Peter Jackson’s seven-plus hour documentary series, which explores the most contested period in the band’s history, is available on Disney Plus.Re-examining How the Beatles Ended: Think you know what happened? Jackson may change your mind.Yoko Ono’s Omnipresence: The performance artist is everywhere in the film. At first it’s unnerving, then dazzling.6 Big Moments: Don’t have time to watch the full documentary? Here’s a guide to its eye-opening scenes.While John Lennon and Paul McCartney generally seemed to be dressed for comfort, befitting long hours toiling in the studio, Ringo Starr showed up to one session in a lime-green pinstriped suit with a forest green musketeer shirt. George Harrison, wore a similar ensemble in pink and purple. (Fashion sites including W and Marie Claire have offered guides on how to shop the looks in “Get Back.”)In such company, it is a little surprising that Mr. Johns has garnered so much attention. He was already an industry heavyweight, who would later become the go-to sound man for The Who, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and many others. But at that point, Mr. Johns was anything but a Beatles insider. He was associated with the Rolling Stones, whom he had worked with since the early days. In fact, when the Beatles first reached out to him, he was dubious.“I was at home on a very rare night off and the phone rang, and the person on the other end announced themselves in a Liverpudlian accent as being Paul McCartney,” he said. Mr. Johns thought it was Mick Jagger pulling a practical joke, so he told him to get lost, albeit in saltier language..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“And of course there was silence on the other end of the phone,” Mr. Johns added. “He started all over again, and I thought, ‘Oh, it is Paul McCartney, Jesus Christ!”The Stones’ fashion influence on Mr. Johns is undeniable. “I remember Brian Jones taking me to a store in Carnaby Street once, and we bought stuff,” he said. “I remember Mick gave me a fabulous shirt.”“The coolest thing I think I wore in the film was the crocodile Levi jacket, which in fact had been given to me by Keith Richards,” he added. “We were in Paris, and Keith had this jacket made for him in France, and it had been delivered to the hotel. He took it out of the packaging, put it on and said, ‘Here you have it, I don’t want it.’ I have no idea what happened to it. Maybe I gave it away.”Nor can he remember where he got the goatskin coat that viewers are obsessed with, although he does remember how it smelled after a rainstorm.“I distinctly remember queuing for an airplane wearing that coat, and the people in front and behind me moved away from me because it actually stank,” Mr. Johns said. “And of course in those days, if you had long hair you were suspect anyway.”Fans rightly laud Mr. Johns’s looks in the film as the epitome of ’60s British rocker cool, and the costume-like whimsy he (and various Beatles at various times) display in “Get Back” has all the color and exuberance of the peak-psychedelia moment.Mr. Johns, left, would become the go-to sound man for The Who, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and many others.Disney+By 1969, however, rock was taking a harder, darker turn, as evidenced by the Rolling Stones’ “Let it Bleed” and Led Zeppelin’s eponymous first album (both of which Mr. Johns worked on), not to mention Beatles songs like, yes, “Get Back.”The Beatles’ public image was starting to reflect that. For the cover shot of “Abbey Road,” taken on Aug. 8 of that year (coincidentally, the same day four members of the Manson family set out for Sharon Tate’s house in Los Angeles.) Mr. McCartney and Mr. Starr opted for somber navy and black, Mr. Lennon blank-slate white and Mr. Harrison, “gravedigger” denim — at least according to the viral Paul-is-dead conspiracy theory of the day.Nor did the Beatles seem to gussy themselves up much for their last public appearance on a London rooftop — the climax of “Get Back.”Gone were the Technicolor satins. Mr. McCartney was basically dressed for the office in a somber black three-piece suit and open-collar shirt. Mr. Lennon, in sneakers, and Mr. Starr went minimalist black-on-black, although the former wore a fur coat borrowed from Yoko Ono and the latter, his wife Maureen’s bright red raincoat, presumably to gird themselves against the winter chill. George Harrison looked somewhat festive, if a little thrift-store chic, in bright green pants and a grizzly-like Mongolian lamb-fur coat. And then of course there was the ever-present Ms. Ono herself, in her ever-present black.A traditional analysis was that the Beatles had stopped putting on showbiz airs by then because they were bickering over money and management, and were headed toward a breakup. That view became canonical after the release of “Let It Be,” the downbeat 1970 documentary by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who plays a prominent role in “Get Back,” and captured the hours of unseen footage that appears in the series.To Mr. Johns and many others, “Let It Be” has all the joy of a divorce proceeding.“It’s awful, terrible,” Mr. Johns said of the earlier film. “My memory was that we actually had a really good time and everybody got on great. The fact that George left the band for 24 hours is no different from any other band I ever worked with, or anyone who works in an office. People who work together for years on end, they fall out, and they patch it up at the end. It’s normal.”He would never have guessed the Beatles were heading toward a split.“The four of them had gone through this mammoth experience, from when they were unknown, to being four of the most famous people in the world,” he said. “There was this massive bond between them. They were like family, really.”He recalls a lot less about what he was wearing, and why.“Listen, mate, it was 50 years ago, how can I remember?” Mr. Johns said with a laugh. “Everyone has a style of their own, I suppose. But I was busy working.” More

Hear tracks by Alice Glass, Jean Dawson and Mac DeMarco, Girlpool and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Tame Impala, ‘No Choice’“No Choice” sums up the stasis of the pandemic: limited mobility, boredom, yearning, questioning, resignation. To be released as part of the expanded version of Tame Impala’s 2020 album, “The Slow Rush,” it’s one of Kevin Parker’s era-straddling solo productions: disco drums and percussion, prog-rock phasing on his voice, a guitar solo that sounds like Ernie Isley in the 1970s and lyrics that wonder, “What are we living for?” JON PARELESAlice Glass, ‘Fair Game’A listener doesn’t have to be aware of Alice Glass’s own story to recognize the crescendo of psychological manipulation — humiliation disguised as sympathy — in “Fair Game.” “I’m just trying to help you,” Glass deadpans in a little-girl coo alongside assessments like “You screw up everything” and “I’m so embarrassed for us.” A deep industrial thump, Gothic choir harmonies and a screamed backup refrain — “Where would you be without me?” — make clear that it’s actually a hellscape. PARELESJean Dawson and Mac DeMarco, ‘Menthol’The pop-punk revival of 2021 is alive in the melodic, middle-finger yelps of Jean Dawson, the genre crusher behind “Menthol” who was raised on the border between the United States and Mexico. This is gritted-teeth pop-punk, music for cheap cigs and driving with too many friends in the car. There is angsty precocity here, sure, but signs of versatility, too: Halfway through the track, Dawson takes a pause from screaming into the mic and melds his voice into a lonely R&B melody. The sun-dappled guitar tones of Mac DeMarco arrive, curling out of the track’s heavier, chugging riffs. And before it’s over, the sagacious DeMarco drops off a fatherly piece of advice for his host: “You should take it easy on yourself. Enjoy what you’re doing. And if you stop enjoying it at some point, no problem. Don’t do it anymore.” ISABELIA HERRERARuel, ‘Growing Up Is _____’Understatement of the year: “Growing up is weird.” The Australian songwriter Ruel admits but doesn’t quite take blame for his relationship misdeeds in this song, thumping along as he hops between tenor and falsetto, trying to justify himself. Even though he knows he failed, he tries to assign himself, “No regrets, no mistakes.” PARELESMitski, ‘Heat Lightning’How much did U2 change the landscape of rock? Mitski’s “Heat Lightning” is the kind of echoey and allegorical march that U2 forged decades ago, underpinned by a Velvet Underground drone. As its guitars and strings swell, the song surges forward steadfastly: “I’ve held on to feel the storm approaching,” Mitski sings, and then, “I give it up to you — I surrender.” PARELESLittle Dragon, ‘Drifting Out’“Drifting Out” has Yuri Nagano singing about precisely that feeling — “Deep sleep, crashing waves, heavy tide/Mmm, ooh love carry me down” — on an EP with three versions of the song: one with piano, one with cellos, one mixing all the sources with electronics. The cello version is the keeper; brawny arpeggios and rhythmic chords delivered by a pair of cellists including none other than Yo-Yo Ma. PARELESFlores, ‘Fools Gold’Some relationship send-offs surrender to despair; others are tokens of personal fortitude, reminders that there will always be a way forward. Flores’s “Fools Gold” is about an estrangement from a partner, but the Texas singer-songwriter is the one who comes out sure of herself. With the smokiness of a ’90s R&B icon, she oozes coldhearted pity for her ex over a funky bass line and operatic strings. “I got all your things to the left of me/You won’t be the death of me,” she sings. “Let me get one good look at you/Ain’t that a shame.” Ouch. HERRERAGirlpool, ‘Faultline’A country guitar twang, Harmony Tividad’s breathy coos and a sense of impressionistic abandon conjure a cinematic intensity on “Faultline.” But Girlpool doesn’t stop there — instead, it returns with the same propensity for piercing, bleeding-heart lyricism that has defined its work since “Before the World Was Big” in 2015. When Tividad sings, “I loved you so traumatically that I/Can barely lift the world you left for me,” there is little left to do than pull the covers over your head, turn off your alarm and let yourself decay under the sheets. HERRERAJeff Parker, ‘Ugly Beauty’There’s an almost alluring feeling of remove, of darkened vision but not necessarily a darkened attitude, in the sound of Jeff Parker’s guitar playing. When he’s unaccompanied, that feeling doubles. A collaborator with Meshell Ndegeocello and Makaya McCraven, among plenty others, he’s an expert at shooting friction into the groove of a group, one jagged single-note line at a time. But in solo-guitar moments, there’s nothing to disrupt but himself. Parker gets halfway into covering Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty,” from his new solo-guitar LP “Forfolks,” before he starts toying around with a sustain effect, giving his rich chords an electrified, ghostly power. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOCarmen Villain with Arve Henriksen, ‘Gestures’This meditative but constantly changing instrumental begins with the assembly of a steady-state percussion pattern on bells and hand drums. It’s joined by the trumpeter Arve Henriken, improvising a solo that’s backed by loops and washes of his harmonized, electronically warped trumpet. It’s a clear homage to the continuing influence of the trumpeter and “fourth world music” innovator Jon Hassell, who died in June. PARELES More

“Voices of the Immaculate,” a new cantata by Kati Agocs performed on Thursday by Lucy Dhegrae, was entirely, word for word, lucid.It can be hard to understand people when they sing. Melodies are often complex; accompaniments are dense; vocalists favor the musical line over crisp diction. Millions, after all, have thought the Beatles wrote the lyric “The girl with colitis goes by.”Proponents of performing opera in English translation — in English-speaking countries, of course — say that intelligibility is their goal. But the results are often no clearer to the audience than German or Italian would have been.So it was no small feat that the text in “Voices of the Immaculate” — a simmering new cantata by Kati Agocs, given a resolute premiere performance by Lucy Dhegrae at the Miller Theater at Columbia University on Thursday — was entirely, word for word, lucid. What a relief not to be reaching for the program every other sentence to find out what was being sung.Indeed, “Voices,” scored for singer and quintet, was conceived, as Agocs said in an onstage discussion, with transparency as a first principle. Her text — an alternation of fragments from the Book of Revelation with lines from the testimony of survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy — demands to be heard, and is. In Dhegrae’s calm, purposeful delivery, there was no escaping what she and Agocs were saying in this seven-section, 30-minute piece.Not that their story isn’t ambiguous. Revelation is quoted here not, as usual, for its apocalyptic fervor, but in a mood of utopian sweetness. Is this meant to be an ironic counterpoint to the accounts of the abused? If so, the irony is held very close to the vest, with music that feels quietly, unremittingly sincere.Dhegrae, while not embodying a character per se, presented a beautifully underplayed childlike persona.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesMoving solemnly around the stage, Dhegrae, while not embodying a character per se, presented a beautifully underplayed childlike persona. A passage of scat turned into something eerily like baby talk, and a section of testimony with the refrain “I believe God should have been there with me” was delivered with plain, luminous simplicity.It isn’t Sprechstimme, but the vocal line has the naturalness of speech; direct without being tuneful, it recalled at moments the mid-20th-century American art song style of a Samuel Barber. This heavy material could have been milked for mawkish portentousness; Agocs and Dhegrae realized that restraint would be more powerful.In the accompaniment, from the quintet Third Sound (Sooyun Kim, flute; Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet; Karen Kim, violin; Michael Nicolas, cello; Mika Sasaki, piano), slight jittery motifs yielded to arid expanses. In one section, Sasaki switched to celesta, for a chilling melding of ominousness and guilelessness.All isn’t near-silence. A moment of aggressive winds illustrates the fires of Revelation, and the piece is filled out with spacious — if still understated — postludes after the vocal sections. But Agocs usually paints with a light brush: a faint drone in the strings, say, with a dark rumble in the piano underneath.This was the resumption of the Miller’s signature Composer Portraits series, and Third Sound opened the concert with Agocs’s intimate “Immutable Dreams,” from 2007. Its first movement is a gradually intensifying assemblage of feathery, glassy wisps; the second, dominated by a piano solo that harkens to Romantic heft; the third, an earnest elegy with tangy harmonies and an effusive cello line.Thursday also marked the return of in-person performances at the Miller. (Composer Portraits devoted to Luca Francesconi, Felipe Lara, Matana Roberts and Thomas Meadowcroft fill out the season.) To be back in a space that presents new music so warmly and, in the best sense, casually was a gift.Composer Portraits: Kati AgocsPerformed on Thursday at the Miller Theater, Manhattan. More