Rhapsody

In the 1920s, Harlem on New York's Upper West Side was the "Negro Capital of the World." The migration of hundreds of thousands of Southern rural blacks to Northern cities in the first decades of the century had made Harlem the largest black community in the nation.In the Roaring '20s it was the scene of an incredible outpouring of artistic, literary and musical creativity that would be remembered as the Harlem Renaissance.Black writers such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen produced plays, poems and novels celebrating the "New Negro" who was emerging in the city - urbane, politically aware and relentlessly modern.

The biggest ovations at yesterday's concert by the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and its music director, Anne Harrigan, were reserved for and deserved by the evening's soloists.The first of the soloists was cellist Gita Roche, the principal cellist of the Chamber Orchestra and a member of the Baltimore Symphony. Roche is among Baltimore's most popular musicians. But that was not the primary reason for the warm applause for her performance of Schumann's Concerto in A minor.Some cellists regard the Schumann as the the greatest concerto for their instrument.

All I expect to remember about Friday's program in Meyerhoff Hall by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is the way Terrence Wilson played Rachmaninov's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."To judge from this performance, Wilson, 19, is one of this country's most gifted young pianists. He has a sound that is beautiful at all dynamic levels, near-infallible fingers and the sort of personal projection that can captivate almost any audience.What was most impressive about Wilson was his lyrical gift.

"Miami Rhapsody" is the best movie Woody Allen never made.Tart, loose, fast, piquant and vivid, it's the story of a young woman teetering on the brink of wedlock, whose image of the institution of marriage has been seriously compromised by the adultery-o-rama transpiring all about her. Mama has her boyfriend, papa has his mistress, little sister has her boyfriend, brother has his mistress. There's a good deal of sex in the movie, none of it conjugal.The rhapsody of the title, then, is the game of perpetual musical beds.

Never ask the conductor, always ask the pianist.That's the conventional wisdom among orchestra players when questions come up about the score of a piano concerto. This is partly because the pianist has performed the piece many more times than the conductor. But it's also a result of the nature of the instrument. Unlike the violin or the cello, the piano is an instrument capable of playing harmony as well as melody.Moreover, the comprehensive knowledge of a concerto most pianists have is inculcated by the nature of the solo recital.

Summertime is a celebration of the blues. Many cities showcase their home-grown talent while others import players from all over the country. These blues festivals occur from late spring to early fall, and provide perhaps the best way to learn and deepen an appreciation of the music.Each year the blues seems to make ever-greater inroads into American popular culture. Television commercials, movie scores, even sitcom soundtracks routinely -- if unconsciously -- clone the piercing slide guitar chords and haunting harmonica lines that have long been the fiery substance of traditional blues music.

A Silver Spring computer analyst accepted a plea agreement yesterday that could mean he'll spend the rest of his life in prison for raping two western Howard County women in 1992.William Kirk Evans, 52, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of first-degree rape in Howard Circuit Court. He withdrew an initial plea of not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.Evans was accused of breaking into the homes of the two women, forcing them to leave with him at gunpoint and taking them to his Rhapsody Lane home, where he forced them to have intercourse.

Cal Ripken Jr. is featured on the cover of May's GQ, and fans will love the photo of him in a $267 periwinkle blue Paul Stewart sweater that perfectly matches his eyes."

"Rhapsody in August," which plays for one day only at the Charles, is unlikely to add much luster to the legend of the great Akira Kurosawa, but it's a surprisingly gentle, affecting movie.It's very much the movie of a man haunted by history -- or rather, a particular moment in history, 11:15 a.m., Aug. 9, 1945, when an American B-29 dropped a nuke on Nagasaki, Japan. If you ask, I'll defend the bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, on the grounds that it probably saved a million American and Japanese lives.

TC Menswear has the blues. Colorwise, that is.Granted, nautical themes surface every spring in men's sportswear, but this year blue moves far beyond conventional navy. From azure to zaffer, blue hues for 1992 surface everywhere from raincoats to neckties.Conservative businessmen and sailing jocks are not to worry; there still is plenty of navy to go around.Attracting the most attention right now, though, are royal blue, aqua and teal -- pigments with more personality. "In suits, the big word is 'petrol,' which is a brighter mid-blue.