FOZZY FODJIAN HAD TAKEN IN and reviewed umpteen concerts in the past three weeks. Another out-of-shake viola quintet, another symphony-and-bassoonist attempt avant-crap. And worse, trying to muster up intriguing insights around concerts that weren't bad, weren't good, weren't anything. They just didn't exist. There was no sound. Just classics from the ages dutifully rendered by ageless deputies. Most were like that, with an occassional bright gleam from some budding soloist with eyes toppling with passion and hope.

Tonight's air supported a careful mist weaving through the pillars outside of Tommerson Hall. This could be one of those evenings of sweet exception. One of those dauntingly pleasurable experiences that always seem to emanate from a patron's reluctance and pessimism. You just know it's going to happen, though your body and brain want to go home to bed.

Fozzy felt that way as he watched the deepening blue of sky outline gaps between dark sport jackets and delicately ruffled dresses. He was tired, but the notes of distant strings approaching pitch seemed to be more relaxed tonight, more inviting. This was the ambiguous sort of to-do that may have elicited sighs of pride from Tommerson'sarchitects sometime last century.

"Have you heard the works of Dsezis before?" squeaked the mouth from beneath the high brows of a short woman to the towering ears of a stately giraffe. This eavesdrop broke Fozzy Fodjian's peace and in swelled the agitation of remembering a big blockade - he had never heard of the composer before. He had checked the "TillyWilly Guide to the Classics" and other sources with thorough, updated expositions on all known composers. There wasn't even an allusion. A few brief phonings yielded no reference. He was jumping in cold here, and he assumed his authoritative visage anyway.

No one else noticed, but just ten minutes before inletting, a desk lamp was flicked on inside one of Tommerson's grandiose windows. A female viola player, it seems, had escaped the din to run some last-minute lines of the Dsezis. The scales weren't exactly common, but one-off. A note would ring, perhaps every five, that seemed to be of alien origin, maybe from an ancient Turkish tuning long forgotten. The whole line had an exotic sense of lift to it, and it coiled out from behind her black metal music stand and towards the window, and as she wound the line upwards, it also danced outwards, through panes of glass and, just tickling the neck of the nearest bystander, Fozzy Fodjian. And then the notes fell back down, and while withdrawing in volume, stretched further in length, long enough to gently wrap around Fodjian's neck and hypnotically strangle him.

As people cleared a circle and blurry men with stretchers motioned towards him, Fozzy had a final dream. It was a quiet morning, he guessed the following, and he was comfortable on his goldish Chippendale couch reading tomorrow's newspaper. A review of the concert began on page 17 segueing to some thoughts on music in general, which peaked and then collapsed into standard closure on page 18.

"Dsezis was done more than justice at Tommerson last night, but not much more. The young Deborah Woah shined in her youthful tone of promise as first viola, but otherwise it was standard fare, yet another Dsezis concerto performed de facto for today's cocktail ready Ivy League."