The Scottosphere

I had to buy some­thing at Yup­pie Mall yesterday—you know, the one that counts Neiman Mar­cus as an anchor ten­ant. I try to avoid malls at this time of year, not so much as a rejec­tion of the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Christ­mas, but mostly on account of my extreme dis­dain for saxophone-based Christ­mas med­leys. You know, those “jazzy,” Kenny G-style impro­vi­sa­tions on “Sil­ver Bells” issu­ing from hid­den speak­ers so numer­ous that the rever­ber­at­ing sounds have no locat­able source other than inside your head? The kind of tunes that make you want to go on a mur­der­ous ram­page? Right.

Well, as I was leav­ing Yup­pie Mall, to my incred­i­ble sur­prise, my favorite Christ­mas carol ever came on the PA: John Gardner’s adap­ta­tion of Tomor­row Shall Be My Danc­ing Day. I stopped in my tracks. Since when did shop­ping mall PA pro­gram­mers develop such good taste? (And an appre­ci­a­tion for com­pletely indis­cern­able time signatures?)

Could this be a come­back for choral music? Last month, I was a lit­tle star­tled to hear the open­ing mea­sures of Vivaldi’s Glo­ria in the bath­room at Hong Kong Inter­na­tional Airport.