Early Music

"Grace of my Heart" is a rudderless drift down the surging current of American popular music from the late '50s through the late '70s.It stops for the longest time at the Brill Building in the early '60s, that font of musical inventiveness at 1619 Broadway where some of the great songs of the culture were written. Unfortunately, it cannot re-create them; more unfortunately, that harms the film, particularly when versions of such greats as "Leader of the Pack" arrive in approximated form. If you've been to Smokey Joe's Cafe on Broadway, and heard Lieber and Stoller's real stuff, hot and heavy and delivered with soul and passion, "Grace of My Heart's" take tastes like it's been stored in Tupperware too long.

Joseph Iadone, 89, an early-music specialist and recording artist who was among the first in postwar America to popularize the lute, died March 23 in New Haven, Conn. Largely self-taught, Mr. Iadone was a master on the lute, the delicate ancestor of the guitar that was common in Europe into the 18th century but had become obscure by the 20th century.

Concert Pianist Sachs performs For something completely dif ferent, check out veteran pia nist Joel Sachs, who will explore the early keyboard music of ultimate pathfinder John Cage, including the Suite for Toy Pi ano. At 8 tonight at Fine Arts Recital Hall, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle. Admission is free. Information: 410-455-2787.

Yo-Yo Ma does not believe in making things easy on himself.It was not enough for him that his sold-out concerts this week with David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra would feature him in three concertos. The great cellist, perhaps the most popular string player in the world, is scheduled to play Bloch's "Schelomo," the late Stephen Albert's Cello Concerto and Bela Bartok's Concerto for Viola in a transcription for cello.But when Ma walks on stage at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to play the Bartok, a lot of people are going to gape.

Shakespeare's Songbook, by Ross W. Duffin. Norton, 496 pages with an audio CD, $39.95. Duffin, a distinguished professor of music at Case Western Reserve University, spent much of eight years researching Elizabethan music sources for the texts and tunes of songs that turn up, directly or even in tiny snippets, in the plays of Shakespeare. The result is this book of lyrics and melodies of more than 160 songs, commentary on the songs, plus a recording of more than half of them by established early-music performers.

Way up near the top of the most inspired and profound works of classical music you'll find the suites for solo cello by Bach. With one instrument, he created whole worlds of sonic poetry. To kick off its 31st season of presenting early music on original instruments, Pro Musica Rara presents its artistic director, cellist Allen Whear, in a program containing two of Bach's cello suites, along with works by Gabrielli and Telemann. The program is 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Marikle Chapel, College of Notre Dame, 4701 N. Charles St. Tickets are $25, $20 for seniors and $10 for students.

For nearly 30 years, he has been one of the best known, most instantly recognizable composers of our time, his music performed throughout the world to an unusually wide public. THE BSO / / Thursday at Music Center at Strathmore / / Friday through Feb. 25 at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall / / 410-783-8000 or baltimoresymphony.org Philip Glass Born: Baltimore, Jan. 31, 1937 Current home: New York City Early music studies: Entered Peabody Institute at age 8, studied flute High school: City College Higher education: Admitted to University of Chicago at age 15, majored in math and philosophy, also studied piano; entered Juilliard School in New York at 19 Musical landmark: Premiere of Einstein on the Beach at Metropolitan Opera, 1976 Film scores: The Thin Blue Line, Kundun, The Truman Show (Golden Globe winner)

Ray DeVollProminent tenorBOSTON -- Ray DeVoll, 66, a tenor who specialized in early music and chamber works, died after a heart attack Tuesday at a gymnasium. He was a frequent performer with the New York Pro Musica, singing everything from Elizabethan madrigals to music by Monteverdi and the role of the Archangel in a 13th-century Easter drama, "The Play of the Risen Christ." He also appeared in "The Play of Daniel" at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and "The Play of Herod" at the Cloisters.

Baroque treats Looks like a very good weekend to hear music from long ago performed on the kinds of instruments heard long ago. On Saturday, the French Baroque Music Series, presented by the French Embassy, French American Cultural Foundation and An Die Musik, offers a program by Le Concert Spirituel, one of France's leading early-music ensembles. Founder Herve Niquet will lead the concert, which includes works by Antoine Morel, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier and Jean-Marie Leclair. There will be room, too, for something decidedly non-French - a bit of Giacchino Rossini's comic opera Il signor Bruschino.

J. S. Bach's first harpsichord concerto in D Minor (BWV 1052), the largest and most imposing of his concertos for that instrument, inaugurated the genre of the keyboard concerto. The work served as the focal point of an attractive concert by Pro Musica Rara, Baltimore's early music ensemble, yesterday afternoon at the Cathedral of the Incarnation.Bach made each of his harpsichord concertos as part of performances with the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, which he directed during most of his final years in that city.