ABSTRACT
Lukas Foss was composing by the age of seven, wrote two operas in his early teens, and by the time he came to America at the age of fifteen had a virtuoso command of classical European techniques. The catalyst that fused the American and the German elements in Foss's music proved to be the Old Testament and—as musical synonym for it—Jewish cantillation. A Parable of Death led Foss inevitably to the Time-Cycle for soprano and orchestra with improvising chamber ensemble: a work which he regards as the beginning of a new phase in his music. A younger composer, Mel Powell, started from a compromise between Hindemith's chromaticized tonality and Schoenberg's serialism, as people may see from his Divertimento for wind instruments which consists of serial studies that are given tonal centres. Since Powell is a composer of musicality people may hope that he may find humanity again as, and if, he discovers his own identity.
