By Kurdisha Estaminetz
Here are sample reviews culled from recent issues of such august European musical journals as The Elliptical Ear (Belgrade), Das Nebbische Musiko-Fürschlünginger (Frankfurt), Cabinetto Caligari (Padua) and Journal of Semiotic Ratamacues (Lucerne):

Karl-Heinz Kedzupp, Sonata for Bassoon and Cyborg (Op. 2, 1997).
This conglomeration of honking, farting and belching noises followed by ultra-high register bat squeaks is set in three classical movements (allegro con onions, adagietto español and tempo di bucket) but otherwise exhibits nothing but ultramodern contempt for the listener. At one point the cyborgist is required by the score to remove his or her clothing and to run screaming from the stage.  It was the only moment to evoke applause from the stolid audience in Turin, where the piece debuted.  It lasts 73 minutes and seems like a complete tour of duty in the Inferno.  A giant sneer to Herr Kedzupp!

Roweena Lockineer, Der Bonfeuer unzer der Stuckinuppische (opera in three parts, 2006)
An adaptation of the failed novel by white-suited super-conservative Tom Thumm (Ashtray of the Vain, 1989), this almighty goulash of musical styles and forms sprawled all over the stage of  the vast Wagner Colosseum in Bayrite for three unrelenting performances.  The composer’s profoundly misguided attempt to create drama from the turgid tract and its huge cast of caricatures resulted in something resembling Bellini warmed over in a defective pressure cooker.  Beginning as a ponderous 12-tone oratorio, it metamorphosed into a seamy operetta of the Brecht-Weill ilk, as if scored by Spike Jones and sung by Florence Foster Jenkins.  The beast lurched on to become an austere late-period Stravinsky dirge, rendered a la Guy Lombardo.  The opening night audience deserted in platoons, leaving only a claque of disconsolate reviewers to weather the conclusion in the style of Fiorenz Boiardo.  Conductor Zev Rossolini escaped in a disguise.

Musgrave T. Waddle. Concerto for Piano and Random Ensemble (Op. 1E, 1991)
This 3-minute piece was designed for a heavily prepared piano and a group of 6 to 16 performers, drawn by lot one minute before performance. On this night at the Teatrico Bolonese, the hopeless band consisted of two mandolins, marine trumpet, piano-accordion, viola, jeweler’s loupe, three castanets and trompe l’oeil.  The brief outburst of uncoordinated noise was literally indescribable.  The piano, stuffed with sofa cushions, a floor lamp, oak planks and yards of corduroy, was wholly muted, thank God!

Sir Arnolt Quackenbush, CDC, QED, MP3, Cruel Britannia Overture (Op. 179, 1908)
This neglected pre-modernist masterwork was the product of Sir Arnolt’s extreme old age (b. 1814, d. 1911).  It is rarely played, owing to its demands for weird, archaic and annoying instruments (beagle, mellophone, forceps, cajon, brake drum, ear trumpet, etc.) and its savagely repetitive nature (just 4 notes in the middle of the staff). Sir Arnolt’s biographer Quincy Sage believes the ancient composer had lost both his hearing and his mind by the date of composition.  Musicologists are divided on this issue, depending on whether or not they can hear music.  The recent performance by Claudio Abbadwon and the Netherlandische Quiniapac Consortium lasted just a shade over three hours and emptied the Geschwandhaus Auditorische in way less than half that time.