Mr. Tan's work was more placid: the cello line elaborated on, and responded to, a melody sung on video by a young woman.

"The melody sings on top, middle voices are activated, and they have lots of space in between."

Most of the time, the soprano and the tenor sing the melody and the alto and bass sing the harmony.

Few pianists have his sense of balance or his ability to make a melody sing.

The melodies still sang without quotation marks.

Even so, she showed again, as in "Lulu" last year at the Met, how she can make Berg's wildest melodies sing.

But he sang the melody as Rruk had sung it to him, and the teacher wept.

And on mid-tempo ballads, his melodies sing with real passion, pushed on by his rhythmic grace.

He let Schubert's melodies sing freely, and gave a fleet, purely virtuosic account of the closing Allegro.

Certainly, these defections were no fault of the Magellan players, who played the work with warmth and depth, and made its melodies sing sweetly.