MUSIC

Zemlinsky is a perfect page-turner for the last century: He was taught by Brahms, then became Schoenberg's teacher and brother-in-law. Haselböck's rich, expressive voice fit Zemlinsky's songs beautifully, from the slight "The Slender Waterlily" to the darker "I Beheld My Own Face," the bright and cheery "Darling Swallow" and the intense "I Go by Night."

Schreker's nature songs tend to be superficial: "A Rose Petal," "Roses' Greeting," "Death of a Rose." But his settings of Mia Holm's poems about the death of her child are emotionally devastating: the very intense "Do You Know the Storm," the anguish of "O Bell, O Baleful Bell" and especially the heartbreaking "Through the Window."

Berg's early, conventional songs bear little resemblance to his operas "Wozzeck" and "Lulu," except for a few awkward intervals. The evocative and mysterious "Distant Songs" was the most effective.

The evening's lightest offerings were three encores -- Zemlinsky again -- ending with the portentous silliness of "Herr Bombadil." Further lieder recitals, each with a different focus, are planned through May 24.

-- Mark J. Estren

The Brian Irvine Ensemble

The Brian Irvine Ensemble isn't an orchestra, really. It's more of a traveling explosion -- a kinetic, freewheeling circus where the musicians dance, blow bubbles, cluck at one another like chickens, fall over "drunk" and watch imaginary notes float through the air, all while making some of the most exhilarating and imaginative music you'll ever hope to hear.

The force behind this engaging madness is Irvine himself, a free-spirited composer from Northern Ireland who brought his 12-man ensemble to the Library of Congress on Friday night. Irvine is a serious musician (he won the British Composer Award last year) but fortunately he hasn't let that cramp his style. His music draws on anything that crosses his ears -- free jazz, punk, the stately icons of the classical repertoire -- and reinvents it all with cheerful abandon. A Dixieland blues will morph into a firestorm of hard bop, then melt into a delicate Satie-esque piano melody while snatches of absurdist dialogue are passed back and forth among the musicians.

Anarchic? Not to these ears. The music is tightly written and superbly paced, and it moves like a piece of theater (which it largely is). Tedious clowning? Not at all. Irvine may leap around comically in his ill-fitting suit, conducting with fingers and elbows, and the musicians may be bursting out in smiles the entire time -- but it all comes across as musical play in the highest sense: exuberant, spontaneous and irresistibly alive.

-- Stephen Brookes