The world begins in the first book of the Torah with the second Hebrew letter, beit: Breishit, "in the beginning." I don't think the Torah says so explicitly, but in the beginning there was music. Or maybe in the beginning there wasn't music, but it's one of the wonderful things we humans make as we continue the work of creation.

As I write, the world is going mad. Terrorists are blowing up trains; senseless violence is being perpetrated on all sides in the Middle East; my fellow citizens of the United States continue to acquiesce to a brazenly rapacious, thuggish, and illegitimate regime; that regime is waging an utterly unjustifiable war in Iraq; and "clashes of culture" are being fomented all over the globe. I can't step outside my door without feeling the gash in my city's skyline and soul left by the September 11 atrocities. We needn't look to Africa for avoidable misery: Many days, a child here in New York dies for want of a $7 asthma inhaler while $1,000 face cream is wait-listed at our leading emporia. And that's just for starters.

Music gives me some of the courage to go on, and I write about music because I love sharing its beauty, meaning, and wonder with others. The musicians to whom I gratefully pay tribute all perform tikkun olam, and may they be blessed for it!

Verdi

L'incontournable. The Alpha and Omega. The Aleph and Tav!

Rufus Wainwright (another musician I'm wild about) recently told the New York Times that Verdi is his hero. "This is a bust of him. He's my favorite composer. I'd like to follow the examples he set in his career, writing opera that was at the same time very popular and deep and very moralistic and righteous. And he wrote his best work when he was in his 70's. There was this steady climb. And in the opera world, you have to call him Papa Verdi." By the way, Mr. Wainwright and I own the very same bust of Verdi. (Select the link and dig the prose.)

If you are a sad wretch who doesn't get Verdi, I recommend the sublime recordings of Simon Boccanegra and Macbeth conducted by Claudio Abbado; Ernani, Nabucco, and Falstaff under Riccardo Muti; James Levine's marvelous Otello; the "live" 1957 Un ballo in maschera under Gianandrea Gavazzeni; and the Messa da Requiem led by either Carlo Maria Giulini or John Eliot Gardiner. The Ernani (quite possibly the prize of the lot) is hard to come by, but the others are readily available chez Amazon or Barnes & Noble. (Oh, and the Quattro Pezzi Sacri conducted by Muti, also hard to find. And Aida led by Muti or Herbert von Karajan, and Don Carlo under Giulini, and…)

Gianmaria Testa

I first became acquainted with singer-songwriter Gianmaria Testa about ten years ago when I saw an article about him in a French magazine. It caught my eye because Gianmaria has the same last name as the man I loved at the time (and whom, in some ways, I still love). So I bought one of Gianmaria's discs in Paris, and it was the start of a love affair that has been longer and happier (and way more chaste) than the one that inspired me to seek out his music.

Gianmaria is my favorite musician in the world. Yes, he ranks ahead of
Juan Diego Flórez, who is sublime but doesn't write his own material (for now).

Gianmaria has a deep, gravelly voice infused with nicotine and Barolo and the hard, dark earth of Piemonte (land of my ancestors). His seductive growls and whispers make even the most jaded listeners go weak in the knees, but it's the poetry that keeps you coming back. Poetry, as in: He reads poems out loud, between sets, at many of his concerts. (Now that's a mensch.) And poetry, as in those gorgeous songs that come from a sweet, fanciful, and tender place where so few people seem to go these days.

Many people compare Gianmaria to Paolo Conte, who is also piemontese and raspy-voiced. (He'll get his own tribute soon.) But the resemblance is superficial. There's no one like Gianmaria.

Check out the sound files at www.produzionifuorivia.it and www.gianmariatesta.com (go to "discographie" and select any of the CD covers). I recommend in particular "Città lunga," "Come un'America," "Lampo," and "Nient'altro che fiori." (You can hear a bunch of Gianmaria's new songs on a recent installment of David Garland's "Spinning on Air.")

Gianmaria's albums Montgolfières, La valse d'un jour (with poems), and Altre latitudini are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For Extra-muros and Lampo, try FNAC. Yes, you need all his discs.

Françoise Hardy

One dark night in the mid-90's, WNYC's David Garland (him again) up and started playing Françoise Hardy songs in the middle of a classical music program. (At least that's how I remember it.) It was his birthday tribute to her, and a gift that has brought me immense joy over the years.

Love at first hearing that grows more passionate with time: How does it happen? Well, it requires a voice like Mme Hardy's: warm and downy-soft like a bed that you just don't want to leave. Neither girlish nor womanly, but something tantalizingly in between. A voice that melts away all your cares until you dissolve into your own private puddle of bliss. It helps, too, that Mme Hardy sings in the kind of insanely beautiful Parisian French that even Parisians don't speak anymore.

I have no idea where to find her music on the Web. (I stumble upon these things quite by chance.) Her own site, www.francoise-hardy.com, offers little content relative to all the bells and whistles. Her four-disc Intégrale des disques Vogue is sometimes available at www.othermusic.com. Favorite cuts: "Il est des choses" (careful—it's missing from many compilations), "Il se fait tard," "Pas gentille," "On se quitte toujours," and her tubes, "Dans le monde entier" and "Et même." Vive la France, et vive Françoise Hardy !

Mark Mulcahy

John Habich, my Newsday editor, has brought many blessings into my life, but few as great as this wounded-healer genius of a singer-songwriter. (John assigned me an article on the wondrous opera by Mr. Mulcahy and Ben Katchor, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, which got a fab-o review in the Village Voice.)

Imagine a lover's tongue licking honey off your skin: that's how soft and sinuous and raunchy this guy's voice is. Plus, his songs offer honest-to-goodness melodies, delightfully twisted lyrics, and spare but beautiful arrangements. On stage, in Slug Bearers, Mr. Mulcahy channeled the different characters he portrayed like a shaman.

Mr. Mulcahy's website is www.mezzotint.com, and I commend to everyone the video of "You're the one Lee" (right side) and the audio of "Hey self defeater" and "We're not in Charleston anymore." Elsewhere, you can listen to (and watch a lovely video of) "The way that she really is," a darkly sexy song.

Smilesunset and Fathering (available chez mezzotint) are both gorgeous albums that reveal new riches with each hearing.