This evening in a blizzard (robins are freezing) Chuck and I trudged to John Corigliano's to hear a tape of his fabulous Flute Concerto. Fabulous is the word: it's all about the Pied Pipe, and in one anarchic scene wherein rats, trillions of them, are pyramided upon each other, John has concocted sonorities of such vigorous transparency that even as one shivers in horror one admires his métier.