We live in a very silly world. We’ve watched Republican primary candidates quote from the Pokémon movie, a former Poet Laureate get beaten by police while protesting the excesses of our greediest fat cats, and an eleven year old get touted as Opera’s Next Big Star (before damaging her vocal cords, of course). Reality TV shows now feature  psychological disorders (“Hoarders”) and taxidermists (I can’t make this up – it’s called “American Stuffers”), and even the History Channel has succumbed to airing programs about ancient aliens. In a world like this, sometimes it seems that the only thing anyone can do is laugh. And — contrary to conventional wisdom — even the greatest composers of the most breathtaking, serious works could not suppress their musical giggles.

Perhaps the most famous musical punch line comes from Joseph Haydn, father of the symphony as we know it. There is a famous story that recounts the German Haydn’s frustration at his British audiences’ tendencies to fall asleep during the slow movements of his symphonies. As a bit of revenge, Haydn wrote the second movement of his Symphony no. 94 with the express design to lull the audience off before awakening them with a crash. This is Janos Ferencsik and the Hungarian State Orchestra playing the ‘Surprise’ movement, though if you have the chance to listen to Marc Minkowski’s 2010 recording, do so immediately. He adds several surprises that add to the joyful, slightly devilish mood that Haydn so perfectly created.

The ‘Surprise’ Symphony proved to be such a hit that Haydn was able to make another joke out of it, this time in his oratorio The Seasons. Right at the beginning of the piece, a countryman is heard singing along to the Surprise Symphony’s melody — quite a bit of mileage for a piece designed as a prank.

Composers did not limit their musical tittering to audiences, of course: the nineteenth-century master Claude Debussy, with demented glee, took a bit of a pot-shot at Richard Wagner in his piano piece “Golliwog’s Cakewalk.” Wagner, whatever else he may have been, was a musical genius, and the harmonies he used in his compositions were absolutely groundbreaking. However, he also had a rather high view of his own importance in the grand scheme of things, and Debussy couldn’t resist putting in a small joke at the composer’s expense. At 1:10 in this video (performed by Scott Price), the theme from the opening of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde can be heard, followed by what can only be described as a piano chuckling.

My favorite, however, is a piece that does not use laughter to poke fun at anything; instead, the laughter is a reaction to being filled with joy. George Frideric Handel, a composer I truly believe has no equal when it comes to writing joyful music, wrote an English-language oratorio, L’Allegro, il penseroso e il moderato in 1740. In the air with chorus “Haste, thee nymph,” both the soloist and chorus are overcome with laughter. The result is what may be the most delightful piece of music I have ever heard (performed by John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists):

In a world where things seem to be getting more and more ridiculous by the day, sometimes it’s best to just sit back and laugh at everything. From practical jokes to jabs in the side to pure, unbridled glee, laughter has been central to music for hundreds of years, and I sincerely hope that is not forgotten in the years to come.

Since that time, Costello has gone from strength to strength, winning the prestigious Richard Tucker Award in 2009, and performing in many high-profile productions, including Verdi’s Otello with Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg Festival (available on DVD) and creating the role of Greenhorn (Ishmael) in the Dallas Opera’s acclaimed world-premiere production of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Moby Dick. Among the highlights for his current season are his company role debut as Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Rodolfo – with his wife, soprano Ailyn Pérez, as Mimì – in the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Puccini’s La bohème.

Described by Opera News as “A first-class talent,” and by the Associated Press as, “A prodigiously gifted singer whose voice makes an immediate impact,” Costello also has a passion for movies, a love affair with his native city, and a fear of bees. His responses to our 20 Questions below include, for the first time in our series, some video commentaries as well.

1. A few works of classical music that you adore:

I really love Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, the “New World” Symphony. I remember hearing it for the first time in high school as a trumpet player, when I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra perform it. It was amazing. I remember how I felt when the fourth movement came: just listening to the first few measures with the strings getting more furious leading to that huge brass down beat made me so excited – I was blown away. I listened to the Karajan recording with the Berlin Philharmonic over and over again. I also love Verdi’s Otello – it is just incredible!

2. Classical music recordings that you treasure:

Jussi Björling and Bidu Sayão singing Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, a live recording from the Metropolitan Opera. It’s my favorite opera to sing and that was the first recording I listened to after learning the score. Fritz Wunderlich’s recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe is also a favorite.

3. Favorite non-classical musicians and/or recordings:

Miles Davis’s Kinda Blue is an essential jazz recording. I have to say that I do enjoying listening to Eminem, Dave Matthews Band and Counting Crows. Also anything by Ella Fitgerald Louis Armstrong, or Frank Sinatra. I am also a big fan of Broadway musicals.

4. Music that makes you cry – any genre:

5. Definitely underrated work(s) or composer (s):

I’ll have to get back to you on this one.

6. Possibly overrated work(s) or composer (s):

Pachelbel’s Canon drives me crazy. The first time you hear it you think, “This is beautiful.” Then, after the 100th time, you start to go mental.

7. Live music performance (s) you attended – any genre – that you’ll never forget:

8. A few relatively recent films you love:

The Social Network. I have become a big fan of Jesse Eisenberg.

9. A few films you consider classics:

I love anything with Jimmy Stewart: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is one of my favorite movies; Destry Rides Again is a great film; also Harvey. My wife and I watched Harvey over and over the Christmas we were stuck in Valencia. Of course I have to mention my mob fascination. I love the Godfather I and II, Goodfellas, Scarface. However I cannot leave out Tom Hanks, whom I believe is the Jimmy Stewart of our day: Forrest Gump, Philadelphia and Big are all classics. So basically if it has either Jimmy Stewart or Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro, or Tom Hanks, I have either seen it or will see it in the future.

10. A book (or two) that is important to you (and why):

Melville’s Moby Dick. I had to read it in preparation for Jake Heggie and Gene Sheer’s opera Moby Dick. It was the world premiere so I had to do a character study on Ismael, the character I was playing. I will never forget how long it took me to finish it, but the payoff was amazing. Working on that show was one of the great experiences of my life. I had a chance to make great music with a great composer, librettist and artists. I also made the most incredible friends.

11. Thing(s) about yourself that you’re most proud of:

12. Thing(s) about yourself that you’re embarrassed by:

I have these indentations on both of my ears. My cousin Brian used to make fun of me all the time about them. I was born with them. When people ask me I tell them I was bitten by a dog, and then they stop asking.

13. Three things you can’t live without:

Pizza, Music, Sex. I don’t think there is any explanation needed. Yeah, probably said too much already.

14. “When I want to get away from it all I…”

Go to the movies. There is something about going to the movie theater to watch a film that clears my mind. Sometimes I will even go to the theater and see five films in one day.

15. “People are surprised to find out that I…”

16. “My favorite cities are…”

First on the list is Philadelphia. It is the greatest city in the world. It is where I went to school, where my close friends live, where I met my wife, where we got married, and where my family lives. Not to mention the home of the cheesesteak. The next city would have to be a tie between San Francisco and Chicago.

17. “I have a secret crush on…”

Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be a secret.

18. “My most obvious guilty pleasure is…”

Annoying my nephew Sean. There is something about getting him angry that is funny. I mean don’t get me wrong, he gives it right back, but it makes me laugh. If anyone is around when we are together it is obvious.

19. “I’d really love to meet – or to have met…”

I would love to meet Tom Hanks. He is such a great actor and seems like a really nice guy. I will be in Los Angeles this season [May 2012 at Los Angeles Opera], so if you’re reading this, Tom Hanks, let’s hang out.

20. “I never understood why…”

Men take steroids. I mean ok, it makes you big and buff, but it shrinks your penis. I mean ok, the muscles attract the women, but at the end of the night, aren’t they embarrassed? But seriously, I do not understand why people don’t know how to turn off their phone at the theater. I can understand when cell phones first came on the scene and they were new and no one knew how they worked. Well that was fifteen years ago. I think there should be a device under people’s chairs so that if the phone goes off in the middle of the show they get zapped. I think people will eventually remember to turn them off.

BONUS QUESTION:

21. Question you wish someone would ask you (and the answer to that question):

Q: Is it hotter kissing Anna Netrebko or your wife, Ailyn Perez?

A: My wife, of course, but why choose?

Among the events is a special free concert by conductor Alan Gilbert (a client of my company) and the New York Philharmonic of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, which bears the subtitle “Resurrection.” Alan and the orchestra will perform this iconic symphony at Avery Fisher Hall on Saturday, September 10; it will also be simulcast onto a big screen on the Lincoln Center Plaza and broadcast on radio and television that night and on the evening of Sunday, September 11. Information about obtaining tickets for the concert is available here.

Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony was first performed in 1895. The inspiration for the work came from music that Mahler heard at the funeral of Hans von Bülow, a conductor he revered. It’s a massive and utterly awe-inspiring work, which begins with an often-terrifying funeral march and ends, more than 80 minutes later, with a blazing choral hymn celebrating the ultimate rebirth of the spirit. The adjective “life-changing” is overused to describe many things, but Mahler’s Second genuinely has that kind of transformative power. Some fans of the symphony have a religious, almost cultish devotion to it. For many orchestras and conductors, it is a musical Everest, a benchmark, and a go-to piece for momentous occasions. It is simply one of the greatest works of art ever created, and it is exactly the music that we need to listen to right now.

A decade of war, and now more than two years of extreme economic hardship — much of it caused by wanton greed — has left America with a profound hope deficit. Approaching 50 years old now, I look back and realize that a full decade of my life has been lived deep in the shadow of 9/11. My memories of that terrible day are still painfully vivid, but my desire for the country to move beyond fear and sadness, and fully into the light of hope and renewed possibility, is very real and very intense. Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony can help us.

For all its titanic reach, dramatic force and visceral power, Mahler’s “Resurrection” has some unforgettable moments of repose that provide great salve for the ravaged soul. My favorite is the fourth movement, “Urlicht” (“Primeval Light”) — a tender song of innocence sung by the mezzo-soprano. Here’s one of the greats, Janet Baker, singing it with Leonard Bernstein conducting the London Symphony Orchestra:

You don’t need to be a religious person to be overtaken by the sincerity and sweetness of this music. “Man lies in greatest need! Man lies in greatest pain!” she sings at the beginning. Look around us: that’s the world we live in, partly because of our inherent frailty as mortals, but also because so many of us have acquiesced to the pain and need around us, victims, as we often are, of our own self-absorption. But Mahler’s “Urlicht” takes us beyond all of this, beyond blame and worry, and squarely onto the road of redemption. “I am from God and shall return to God!” she sings. And, for me, these simple words are cause for enduring hope.

The New York Philharmonic has called its September 10 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony, “A Concert for New York for the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 — In Remembrance and Renewal.” Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony suits this occasion perfectly, and I hope that the work’s message of rebirth and transcendence will resonate long after the occasion for which it has been programmed.

This post originally appeared at Huffington Post.

What I saw from then on is perfectly etched in my memory from a strange mix of real-time viewing off our fire escape and what was being broadcast live on television.   I watched the first tower go down with my own eyes, the second one on television.    It was the most horrific day for the city of New York in history and a tragedy that was felt profoundly around the world.

As a music lover, I always turn to music for inspiration about life events of every form and magnitude.   I believe that music can wash away the petty dramas of life so that we can get a better glimpse and understanding of the grand drama.

The evocation of human emotion through music plays an enormous part of this experience.  Personally, I have found the music of Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich to be incredibly accurate in the depiction of emotions.  So much so that I often feel that I am actually feeling the emotions they felt when they were composing the music.   I also find that the great American composer John Adams follows in this line.  The more I listen to his large-scale works (such as Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic—both the opera and the symphony, etc.), the more I am amazed by his ability to convey feelings of very complex emotion.

And so this morning, thinking about 9/11, I chose to revisit the work that Adams was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to write to commemorate the one-year anniversary of 9/11:   On the Transmigration of Souls.

I will not even attempt to describe this work, a grand mix of orchestral, choral and taped sound and voice, but will admit that after listening to it I feel much more at ease with my emotional memory of the tragedy.

With  mournful trumpet solos, Adams makes reference to Charles Ives’s iconic work The Unanswered Question.   There are many unanswered questions in regard to the 9/11 tragedy.  But while listening to On the Transmigration of Souls, I felt the one that Adams asks in this work is:  how in a world so suffused with love, could something like this happen at all?

“This program, which was planned months ago, was designed to be spectacular and colorful, but tonight we are very mindful of people in Japan and New Zealand and Australia who are experiencing the consequences of terrible natural disasters.  Perhaps music’s most important role is to offer people solace in times like this.   The spirituality and peacefulness of music is perhaps the quality that we musicians treasure the most.   It’s what sticks with us long after the performances are over.  It can bring us to tears because the beauty of music can seem too fragile to last, so each time we play it we recreate it.   We are so grateful to be preserving it and sharing it with you.”

The tragedy of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, literally a world away, is unfathomable except for what is brought to us through television and print reports.   The sadness and empathy we feel, perhaps most of all the ‘mindfulness’ that MTT sighted, is the most beneficial result of modern media, that is, if it spurs action and not depression!

Some of the best quick-response fundraising for tragedy happens in our schools.  I was very happy to see that my children’s school immediately set the kids in motion on a “Donations for Japan” campaign.   It prompted our discussion of Japan, the culture, the food that is possibly the kids’ favorite cuisine and the great Japanese anime films.  Most recently–well before the tsunami–we watched Ponyo, an anime movie about disturbed spirits and fantastic creatures in a sea that floods a coastal village.

Water plays such a large part in the cultural imagination of Japan.  I was reminded of how much of the music of the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) makes reference to water and the sea.  Many of these works such as Takemitsu’s “Waterways” and “I Hear the Water Dreaming” are willowy and contemplative, taking in the view of a placid sea, communicating the calm that one feels in the presence of peaceful water.

Another piece, “Waves,” (for clarirent, french horn, trombone and bass drum) presents a different sense of water–more mysterious, unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

An early experimental work from 1960 by Takemitsu, which demonstrates his fascination with water was broad and lifelong, was his Musique concrete work, Water Music.

The composition that put Toru Takemitsu on the musical map for many was his Requiem, written in 1957 in homage to his fellow composer Fumio Hayasaka.    Fittingly, the New York Philharmonic under the direction of their Japanese-American Music Director Alan Gilbert has made a recording of this beautiful work, available for download (more information here: http://nyphil.org/concertsticks/japan.cfm).   The proceeds will go to the people of Japan.

The most widely renowned music of revolutionary spirit has to be the music of Beethoven. It is said that Beethoven planned to dedicate his Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” to Napoleon Bonaparte for his part in the success of the French Revolution, but then retracted the dedication because of Napoleon’s autocratic turn. This historical note may help justify our labeling the symphony ‘revolutionary,’ but it really doesn’t matter because when you hear the music, you actually can feel the spirit of revolution, the surge of positivity and hope is palpable.

This spirit pervades much of Beethoven’s symphonic output and can power many a personal and historic revolution.

But most revolutions are not immediately triumphant. There are the setbacks, there is the bloodshed both real and figurative that may spell defeat or fuel the flame of future attempts. No composer has captured these “realities” of revolution better than Dmitri Shostakovich. His Symphony No. 11 was written to commemorate the failed Russian revolution of 1905. Shostakovich wrote this symphony in 1957 (not coincidentally, a year after the Hungarian uprising had been brutally crushed), which meant there was much time to digest and consider the reality of that historic event. The symphony starts somberly, obviously aware of the outcome as if a camera is panning a scene of ruin. The entire symphony is a meditation on revolution: the vagaries of change, the fear, uncertainty, the frantic search for the unknown. The final movement returns to quiet and with a beautiful English Horn solo captures the heartfelt sadness of the lapse back into oppression, until the drum signals the spirit, which stirs again to rise for another go.

Because The People United Will Never Be Defeated. The American iconoclastic composer Frederic Rzewski is no stranger to the theme of revolution in his music and his set of 36 variations on the Chilean revolutionary song ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! Is a blatant summoning of the uprising spirit.

Rzewski’s use of variations is ingenious, because of course during the course of revolution, the spirit travels through all the possible emotions, reaching zenith and nadir perhaps many times, until in this case, its forceful and beautiful triumph.

When speaking with these art-passionates the conversation often turns to my interest in classical and contemporary music and not once have I met someone at Art Basel who was hip to the contemporary music scene. This disconnect between contemporary art and music was recently detailed with typical brilliance by Alex Ross in the Guardian (UK) – http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/28/alex-ross-modern-classical-music?CMP=twt_gu

I find that most of the people I speak with are genuinely interested in the idea of discovering new music, but they just don’t where to begin to listen. So I spend a lot of time scribbling down recommendations for these music hungry folks on bar napkins and random sheets of paper. Typically, I’ll ask a few questions about their general music taste and prescribe some works. Though in general, I have found myself often recommending the following as great ‘generic’ ear openers for those who get most of their cultural pleasures through their eyes:

Ingram Marshall writes music that is perfect for the art set because many of his works just feel like art ‘sound pieces’. His beautiful eerie, ethereal work, Fog Tropes, was recently employed in the soundtrack to the film Shutter Island:

If folks are up for a major, large-scale work I point them to John Adams’ Harmonliehre, because every musically-inquisitive person should at least be aware of this 20th-century American masterpiece. A more obvious introductory piece by Adams is his blistering Short Ride in a Fast Machine, but for the contemporary art lover I am more inclined to recommend his mournful and provocative work for strings and taped voice, Christian Zeal and Activity.

Beyond recommending works, I often like to point to the recordings of trailblazing new music ensembles: groups such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, eighth blackbird and Brooklyn Rider, to name a few at the top of the list.

Lastly, a great relatively new resource for a curated introduction to contemporary music is Q2, the new music streaming outlet from WQXR.org When I don’t have a napkin on which to write down recommendations, I just say “go online and listen to Q2,” the perfect soundtrack for any contemporary art lover.

One piece that didn’t make the playlist then was Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, but arriving at our place in Upstate New York this past Friday night immediately brought this work to mind. The house had been idle for a couple of weeks so the temperature inside was in the high forties. Outside, under a brilliantly bright moon, the temperature hovered at zero. The moonlight bouncing off the snow lit up the countryside in luminous silver. Looking out from the living room windows, Prokofiev’s score began to play subconsciously in my mind, and in no time at all I was perched in front of a fire, sipping scotch and listening to “Nevksky” at a rather high volume.

Prokofiev wrote the score to the classic 1938 film of the same name by Sergei Eisenstein (if you haven’t ever seen it, rent it immediately), and later re-arranged the music as a concert cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra. It’s a scintillating score in either version. At times it is dark, ominous and brooding; at others times it is as thrilling, action-packed and uplifting as any music ever written.

Briefly told, Alexander Nevsky is a historical epic that brings to life the exploits of a great 13th-century leader who turned back the enemy hordes and protected mother Russia from certain annihilation. Though Stalin and Hitler began World War II on the same side of the fight, Nazi Germany soon invaded Soviet Russia and, after fighting that was disastrous for both sides, Germany was repulsed — a major turning point in the war. The patriotic allegory presented by Eisenstein’s film wasn’t lost on the Soviets, and in 1941 Eisenstein and his collaborators on the film were awarded the Stalin Prize.

The wintry associations of Alexander Nevsky — the film and the music — are many, beginning with the biting, desolate-sounding chords that open the score. In general, Prokofiev’s acerbic harmonies can hit the ears like bitter air searing the inside of your nostrils, and none more so than in this score. The second section of the cantata, “Song of Alexander Nevsky,” quietly introduces the glorious hymn that will appear and reappear at key moments through the action, and with shattering impact in the great finale.

Perhaps the most famous section of “Nevsky” is the “Battle on the ice,” and here Prokofiev whips up maximum excitement and raw physical power. The chorus wails, the brasses snarl, the percussion explodes — it’s terrifying here, exhilarating there.

The lament that follows in the next section, “The field of the dead,” is heart-breaking. Here, a mezzo-soprano sings in hushed, haunting tones about the bloody devastation that soaks the snowy expanse: “Here lies one hacked by swords,/here lies one pierced by an arrow./Their red blood has watered/the beloved land, our Russian land.”

The final section, “Alexander’s entry into Pskov,” begins with a grandly-scored and lustily sung reprisal of the main hymn theme. The celebration reaches dizzying heights of exultation as the chorus and orchestra head to the final climax: “Rejoice, sing, mother Russia!”

There are so many fine recordings of “Nevsky” that you almost can’t go wrong buying it. My long-time favorite has been Claudio Abbado’s classic recording with the London Symphony (DG), but others led by Neeme Järvi (Chandos), Valery Gergiev (Philips) and André Previn (Telarc) should please all the same.

Several years ago, I heard the Boston Symphony play the score to a showing of the film at Avery Fisher Hall. It was one of the most exciting concert experiences I’ve ever had, and I hope someone will repeat the enterprise here in NYC in the not too distant future.

The original movie is available in its entirety thanks to OpenFlix on YouTube. Enjoy!

Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (“Songs on the Death of Children,” in English) feature texts by the poet Friedrich Rückert that try to transform the incomprehensible horror of losing a child into some kind of meaningful and endurable experience. The first song “Now The Sun Will Rise as Brightly” notes that an individual’s grief does not darken the entire world and that the sun — symbolizing life — rises again even after our most grievous losses.

In the second song, “Now I See Well, with Such Dark Flames,” the parents are asked to understand that fate draws the child away towards a reunion with the cosmos: “These which now are just eyes to you, In nights to come will be but stars to you.”

The third song, “When Your Dear Mother,” is most like the story in Rabbit Hole. Here, the father can’t believe that the child is no longer beside the mother when she comes through the door. A major tension in the film arises from the respective parents trying to understand how and when to preserve the memories of the child: do you clean out his room, or preserve it as it was for as long as you own the house? There are no answers.

The fourth song, “I Often Think They’ve Only Gone Out,” is about willful denial of a reality too painful to confront. “It’s a lovely day, oh don’t be anxious, They’re only out taking a long walk.” But even here, Rückert tries to find a way out of the cycle of grief: “They’ve only gone off ahead of us…We’ll catch up with them on yonder heights.”

The final, song “In This Weather, In this Tumult,” is storm-driven, with nature lashing out in terrifying fashion as a symbol of its power over the human condition. Repeatedly, the parent wonders why any child is put into harm’s way, only to realize that no parental love is strong enough to keep a child entirely safe. After four stanzas featuring the parent lamenting fiercely over his/her powerlessness, the storm subsides, revealing, it seems, a tranquil, star-filled night. Here the parent lets go of his particular grief and finds comfort in the eternal and universal: “In this weather, in this storm, in this tumult, they are resting, as if at home in their mother’s house, Not frightened by any storms, Sheltered by God’s hand.” After all of the anguish that has preceded it, the song somehow ends in quietly radiant calm.

Unlike the children in Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, or the child in Rabbit Hole, the people who died — including a 9-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green — or were gravely injured in the shooting in Arizona were harmed deliberately by another human being, adding a level of pain and anger to the senseless loss that none who haven’t experienced it could possibly imagine.

Late Saturday night, after spending hours watching the coverage on CNN, I turned off the TV and played Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings on the stereo and dedicated it in my mind to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the rest of the victims of the Arizona shootings. I don’t know the role music will play in helping to heal the souls of those immediately affected by what has happened in Arizona. But for now, the rest of us can only be grateful to have the genius of Mahler and Barber and countless other composers and artists who have heroically transformed senseless human suffering into food to nourish our world-weary souls.

(This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post, published on January 10, 2011)