In a steely and stressful time, geopolitically speaking, it is curiously refreshing to step aside for an evening or several, and contemplate the course of musical beauty from the 14th Century forward.
Composer Leonard Rosenman's cathedral-ceilinged living room has a grand piano flanked by a pair of hi-fi speakers capable of raising the dead. There is on one side of the room an open stairway and an open mezzanine. Both, toward 8 o'clock of a Wednesday evening, are well-populated, like the living room itself.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday October 10, 1990 Home Edition Calendar Part F Page 9 Column 1 Entertainment Desk 1 inches; 18 words Type of Material: Correction
Wrong name: The name of Leonard Rosenman's wife was incorrectly given in Tuesday's column by Charles Champlin. It is Judie Gregg.
Rosenman takes a last sip of red wine, commands his three-dozen attendees to silence, and begins to talk about Richard Wagner. For 45 minutes, Rosenman talks eloquently about Wagner's departures from the musical past. He plays themes on the piano, plays the prelude to "Das Rheingold" at full volume so that it is both felt and heard. He reads reviews (scathing) of Wagner's work. (So much for critics.)
The crowd adjourns to the kitchen for coffee and cookies and then Rosenman talks again for 45 minutes, fielding questions and steering discussions about Wagner, about all music, about the impact of the Industrial Revolution and other external forces on composers and audiences, about the growing personal and emotive content of music.
The sessions began more than a year ago when Rosenman lived in Malibu and was newly remarried, to producer Judy Campbell. She knew more about her husband than about his music and considered taking a course in music history at UCLA. A friend of hers wondered if Rosenman couldn't do it himself just as well. He has taught theory and composition at USC and elsewhere and he thought he could.
"I started with 14th-Century chants," Rosenman said before a recent session. "Now we're into the 20th Century and I'm going to invite some of my composer friends to join us. That should be lively."
The group, which started with only half a dozen of his wife's friends in attendance, has grown by word of mouth and now attracts as many as four-dozen listeners, friends of friends of friends. The regulars include an eye surgeon who also plays concert-quality piano, an ad agency owner, actors (the Leonard Nimoys, the Arte Johnsons) and actresses (Joan Chen of "Twin Peaks" and "The Last Emperor"), models, producers and other professionals.
"No cost (except to me; my wine bill has gone up considerably), no credit, no attendance-taking, no homework, just pleasure and maybe a new way of listening to music," Rosenman says.
