(+++) BRINGING OUTSIDERS IN

We Are Mighty: 12 Ordinary Americans Who Did the Next Needed Thing. By Sharon McMahon. Illustrated by Susanna Chapman. Knopf. $19.99. 

     Families that consider themselves “minority” or “marginalized” and that want to encourage children to strive for excellence in one area of society or another will appreciate Sharon McMahon’s We Are Mighty, which briefly profiles 12 Americans whose contributions range from the highly significant to the less-known but still important and useful. 

     This is, by design, a very skewed selection of people. Black people, for example, are five of the 12 chosen for these profiles – 40%-plus racial representation in a nation in which the actual percentage is about 13%. And four of the five discussed by McMahon – that is, 80% – are women. Furthermore, Susanna Chapman does something strange with her illustrations, giving several of the white profile subjects facial features and skin tones that make them appear dark-skinned: lighthouse keeper Ida Lewis, for example, and poet Katharine Lee Bates (and, even more clearly, Bates’ brother). The reasons for this are never stated, but clearly a broad definition of inclusivity is the aim, and families in the target audience will appreciate it. 

     As for the specific people chosen, the selection seems simply to reflect the author’s personal interests and advocacy. Lewis was a lighthouse keeper who saved so many lives that she was called the bravest woman in America. Bates wrote the words to America the Beautiful. Both were women who overcame the significant gender-based societal obstacles of their time to help people’s lives, whether physically or through emotional uplift. Also here are Gouverneur Morris, a Founding Father who was disabled after a carriage accident and who was a major force in creating the Constitution, and teacher Virginia Randolph, reporter and suffragist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and World War I ambulance driver María de López. Olympic champion Jim Thorpe is here, identified additionally as “Wa-Tho-Huk,” although the reason for that is never explained. Businessman Julius Rosenwald is included because of the schools he was responsible for building in cooperation with Booker T. Washington. Norman Mineta appears partly because he was a politician but primarily because he had been interned during World War II with other Japanese Americans. Teacher and civil rights icon Septima Clark is included, and baseball player Roberto Clemente, and civil-rights campaigner Claudette Colvin. 

     The book’s subtitle’s reference to “the next needed thing,” a phrase taken from an article in The Journal of Human Resources, may be intended as a generalization uniting these disparate figures, but McMahon’s choices and Chapman’s illustrations construe the phrase more narrowly, since what most of these figures have in common is a push for inclusivity, expansion of rights in various ways, and demonstrations through their actions that individuals from any socioeconomic and (especially) racial background can be significant contributors to society. The specific challenges faced by these 12 ordinary-but-extraordinary individuals are not always made clear – for instance, the dates of their lives are not given in the profile pages, so the societal circumstances each person faced in terms of gender, nationality or race are implied but not put explicitly in context (there is, however, a rather confusing timeline at the back of the book). The absence of explicit context somewhat reduces the effectiveness of the profile pages – that “Wa-Tho-Huk” reference to Jim Thorpe, for example, is actually quite significant, since he was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States, but that fact is absent from We Are Mighty. On balance, the book is self-limited by the author’s selection criteria and the narrow approach to the brief biographical sketches. Parents looking for inspiration here would do well to page through the book before buying a copy, to ensure some level of connection between their families and the individuals profiled by McMahon and portrayed by Chapman. If there is in fact a suitable relationship, the book will do what it intends to do by providing upbeat stories aimed at giving children uplift and a sense of potential in their own lives.

(++++) WITH PIANO, WITH PASSION

Ernő Dohnányi: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Janáček: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Tchaikovsky: Souvenir d’un lieu cher; Saint-Saëns: Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso. Bruno Monteiro, violin; João Paulo Santos, piano. Et’cetera Records. $15. 

Songs: Spirit of Hope. Shira Karmon, soprano; Paul Gulda, piano. Gramola. $19.50. 

     The piano is often an accompanist but never a mere accompanist when played with sensitivity – and when performers are sensitive not only to their own musical roles but also to the piano’s supporting one. The balance of violin and piano in sonatas does vary widely and is ultimately determined by the composer, but performers have wide latitude for exploring their partnership and communicating the music through balance, dominance of one player or the other, or a fluid relationship. Fluidity is the dominant impression of Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos on a new Et’cetera Records CD featuring four late-Romantic works that handle the violin/piano duality very differently while remaining within their time period’s emotional landscape. Dohnányi’s C-sharp minor sonata, his most significant chamber work for violin and piano, is post-Romantic by date (1912) but thoroughly Romantic in sensibility. The three-movement work is interestingly structured – the first movement is essentially completed in the finale – and requires moods ranging from the anxious and unsettled to the serene and lyrical. It also requires finding emotional connection without a slow movement – it does not have one. Monteiro and Santos clearly feel the ways in which the music strives for warmth despite this lack: the first Allegro is marked appassionato and the second ma von tenerezza. The violin/piano interplay is well-balanced throughout and always nuanced. The same is true of the reading of Janáček’s sonata, which dates to about the same time period as Dohnányi’s (1914-1922). Here the canvas is more troubled – the composer was well aware that he was creating during wartime – and there is greater contrast between the violin and piano lines: in the second of the four movements, for example, there is a fairly bright tinkling effect in the piano beneath a broadly conceived lyrical violin portion, the instruments not so much in competition as they are proceeding on different paths that eventually connect. This sonata has a more-modern sound than Dohnányi’s, especially in the third movement (originally planned as the finale), and the work actually ends with an Adagio that makes the contrast between instruments quite clear: the piano’s sustained material is continually interrupted by violin urgency, and it is only toward the end that the instruments are in accord. Janáček (1854-1928) was a full generation older than Dohnányi (1877-1960), but his work has a more-modern feel about it thanks to its broken melodies, agitation and short rhythmic figures. Monteiro and Santos handle all these elements with understanding and sensitivity, and the sonata here emerges with a cohesiveness that it does not always seem to possess. Monteiro and Santos also offer a lovely version of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d’un lieu cher, an 1878 work whose first-movement Méditation was originally planned as the slow movement of the violin concerto, until Tchaikovsky decided it was too slight for that purpose. The charming Souvenir, dedicated to the “dear place” to which its title refers (Brailivo in Ukraine), starts as a quiet piano solo and gains in expressiveness, if not volume, when the violin joins the keyboard. Monteiro and Santos beautifully capture the gentle wistfulness of the first movement, the strongly contrasted and instrumentally rather competitive Scherzo, and the rocking motion of the warm, almost berceuse-like concluding Mélodie, producing a performance pervaded by just the sort of pleasant memories that Tchaikovsky had and presumably wanted to evoke in listeners. Souvenir d’un lieu cher is so uncomplicatedly lovely that it is surprising it is not heard more often. On the other hand, Saint-Saëns’ 1863 Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso is heard very frequently indeed, and it makes a delightful conclusion to this recording. This work too was originally planned for a violin concerto – the composer’s first – but was so successful when performed on its own that Saint-Saëns had it published separately. Here the instrumental juxtaposition strongly favors the violin – no surprise given the original plan for the work – and Monteiro makes the most of the spotlight, which is even brighter in the violin-and-piano arrangement (by Bizet) than in the original violin-and-orchestra scoring. Santos by no means fades into the background here, but he very rightly allows Monteiro to be front-and-center throughout and provides effective backup that, if anything, showcases the violin to an even greater extent. This performance sounds as if Monteiro and Santos, far from struggling in any way with the virtuosic demands of the piece, were tossing it hither and thither and simply having fun with it – resulting in a reading that is in fact great fun to hear from start to finish. 

     Matters of balance and expressivity are different when the piano is supporting or melded with the human voice rather than a nonvocal instrument. Here too, however, the relationship is a highly varied and variable one, with the prominence typically accorded to the voice but with keyboard participation sometimes accentuating the words, sometimes commenting on them, sometimes even contradicting them. The variegated songs on a centuries-spanning Gramola CD titled “Spirit of Hope” show this clearly. The composers here range from the exceptionally well-known to the virtually unknown, and the atmosphere of the songs varies widely as well, the disc’s overall title being barely sufficient to hold everything together. What does unite these disparate works is the sensitivity with which they are presented by soprano Shira Karmon and pianist Paul Gulda – with three of Gulda’s own pieces included within the total of 25. Topic focus aside, there are some fascinating musical matters here, such as Beethoven’s two settings of An die Hoffnung – the comparatively straightforward Op. 32 and the more operatic Op. 94, which uses more of the text by Christoph August Tiedge. Karmon’s  vocal delivery of the two versions respects their differences, while Gulda’s support in both cases underlines, in its turn, words that move through uncertainty and questioning to eventual comfort in hope. Other familiar composers here include Mozart (Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls, the first of six movements from Eine kleine deutsche Kantate, K. 619), Schoenberg (Brettl-Lieder No. 2: Einfältiges Lied), and Berg (an arrangement of Hier ist Friede, Op. 4, No. 5). The composers’ very different styles and concerns are brought into comparable focus both by Karmon’s attentive handling of the words and by Gulda’s systematic attention to the keyboard parts. The disc as a whole bears the very personal stamp of the performers, as is clear from the arrangement of the tracks, which are not chronological, not arranged by any particular handling of the overarching topic, and not even grouped clearly at all times: the two Beethoven settings are separated by Trost (1846) by Salomon Sulzer (1804-1880), and the first Gulda composition – the very intense and impressive Strife – is separated from his other two entries by I Am a Simple Man by Marwan Abado (born 1967). The good thing about this rather helter-skelter arrangement is that it allows for listeners’ differing reactions to the material as well as the presentation. The two numbers by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), for example, date to very different times in Bernstein’s compositional career: So Pretty to 1968 and Silhouette (Galilee) to 1951; and they appear between the Berg entry and Gulda’s Strife. The result of all this is a voice-and-piano journey toward hope rather than to it, with occasional reminders of just how difficult it can sometimes be to retain hope and express it (8 Jewish Folk Songs from 1947 by Szymon Laks [1901-1983]). Unsurprisingly, the CD is by and large voice-dominated, but the crucial piano elements are presented with considerable skill and understanding throughout, resulting in an effective collaborative recording that showcases the intimate relationship, sustained over many years, between the keyboard and its partner in expression.

(+++) FORMS OF FOCUS

Carl Teike: Marches, Volume 3. The Royal Swedish Navy Band conducted  by Alexander Hanson. Naxos. $19.99. 

Geoffrey Gordon: Gotham News; Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie; Fumée; Creavit Deus Hominem. Neuma Records. $15. 

     The sources of inspiration for composers are as varied as the composers themselves, so it is always intriguing to come across music that clearly has some sort of specific inspiration but whose provenance is wholly unknown. That is the case with virtually all the marches of Carl Teike (1864-1922), an exhaustive survey of which has now come to a conclusion with the third volume performed by the Royal Swedish Navy Band under Alexander Hanson. There are no fewer than 23 marches on this Naxos CD – and even more than in the earlier volumes, the works are arrangements to a greater or lesser extent. Fully 18 of them have been arranged, or at least tweaked, by various hands: 14 by Hans Ahrens, two by Erich Gutzeit, one by Sture Lundén, and one by Anders Karlsson. Neither the reasons for arrangements being needed nor the extent of them is explained in the release, adding to the mystery of a rather shadowy composer whose apparent personal modesty has resulted not so much in a veil of mystery as in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Unlike Johann Strauss Sr., whose works often bore highly specific titles relating to people and events of his time – titles whose meaning later scholarship has sometimes had to ferret out – Teike’s marches bear names that seem rather arbitrary. Some are formulaic: Krieg und Sieg, “War and Victory,” for example, and Kopf hoch, “Chin Up,” and In Freud und Leid, “In Joy and Sorrow.” Some are rather charming: Sorgenbrecher, “Worry Breaker.” Some are puzzling: Schlecht und Recht, essentially meaning “The Bad and the Good.” Some are straightforwardly celebratory of military matters: Fahnengruß, “Flag Salute,” and Friedensfeier, “Celebration of Peace,” and Die alte Garde, “The Old Guard,” and the exclamatory Fürchte nichts! That last title, meaning “Fear Nothing,” seems to stand for the upright and somewhat rousing character of so many Teike works, which were created at a time when German marches were strictly separated into concert, street and explicitly military types – those last ones being “parade marches” and not necessarily aggressive, whatever their titles may have been. Teike’s marches push no stylistic boundaries and include no out-of-the-ordinary use of instruments or expansion of the traditional complement of military ensembles. But they are uniformly well-made and structurally apt for the use of military bands, in one of which Teike himself served. Since the extent to which the 18 “arranged” marches on this CD have been altered or fine-tuned is unclear, it is hard to know whether the works in their original form had any particular shortcomings for which the arrangers endeavored to compensate – but, for what it is worth, the five marches not listed as “arranged by” anyone do not differ significantly in any way from the rest. Like the previous two discs of Teike marches, this one is very well played and certainly justifies Teike’s recently rediscovered reputation as a march composer of considerable ability within the comparatively straitened set of expectations of his time and homeland. The CD also confirms that nothing by Teike is likely to supplant other composers’ marches that are already well-known and popular for both concert and military purposes. 

     If the specific reasons for being of individual Teike marches are unknown, the opposite is the case for the orchestral works by Geoffrey Gordon (born 1968) on a Neuma Records release. The works here are tied very directly to distinct inspirations – a good thing for those interested in their provenance, although a somewhat problematic one for listeners who are not thoroughly familiar with the foundational reasons for the music’s existence. Thus, Gotham News (2018), heard first on the disc, is a string-orchestra work directly inspired by a 1955 Willem de Kooning mixed-media piece that hangs in a gallery in Buffalo, New York. The art is essentially a great splash of color and chaos, intended to portray the hectic realities of New York City. But what will listeners unfamiliar with it take from Gordon’s music? His piece, well-performed by the Radom Chamber Orchestra conducted by Szymon Morus, is not a musical portrayal of the visual art but a response to and reflection of it. How effective it is will depend on an audience’s knowledge of its reason for being: on its own it is a nicely arranged string-orchestra work that is interesting if not particularly gripping – it comes across better if connected with its inspiration. It is followed on the CD by two closely attached 2022 pieces, one having inspired the other: Fumée traces to a work by Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) – which Gordon came to by way of the Première Rhapsodie by Debussy, which in turn Gordon himself arranged as it is heard here. The pieces are played back-to-back, the Debussy first, by clarinetist Horácio Ferreira and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta under Christoph Poppen. The underlying complexity of the inspiration (Debussy, to Hahn, to Gordon and Debussy/Gordon) is here unnecessary for listeners to know: the works stand well on their own, their atmospheric elements clearly delineated both in the solo instrument and in the accompaniment. The Debussy arrangement, of a piece originally written for clarinet and piano and then orchestrated by Debussy himself, fits the material well, and Fumée is indeed smoky and smokelike in the expressive way if wafts here and there, blown back and forth both within the clarinet line and in the ensemble material. Fumée is a piece that it is possible to enjoy without knowing anything at all about how it came to be; indeed, its inherent tribute to Impressionism comes through quite well without requiring any knowledge of Gordon’s thinking about Debussy and Hahn and their era and sensibilities. The opposite is the case for Creavit Deus Hominem (2024), a four-movement oboe concerto commissioned by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra for its principal oboist, José Luis García Vegara, and here played by him with the ensemble conducted by Duncan Ward. This piece is imbued with very specific history related to Synchromism, an art movement founded in Paris in 1912 by two American artists. The movement’s underlying conceit was that color could be treated as music in a kind of induced synesthesia. With this specific and relatively little-known backdrop, the four movements of Gordon’s concerto bear clear titles that are intended to be evocative: Still Life, Cosmic, Study after Michelangelo’s Pietà, and “Creavit Deus Hominem” (So God Created Man) – that last title drawn from Genesis 1:27. The four movements certainly give the oboist plenty of opportunities to showcase his instrument’s capabilities and his own, but they are not especially clearly differentiated – titles could be swapped without impinging on the feelings evoked – and the extent to which the individual movements and their collective effect are meaningful depends wholly on an understanding of Gordon’s inspiration and the way it led him to assemble these particular sounds from this particular instrumental combination. On its own, the music is well-made although rather discursive – the timpanic opening of the finale and the “formative” brass material that follows are arguably its most effective portions – but absent an understanding of its inspiration, the work does not hang together particularly well. Gordon writes knowledgeably both for individual instruments and for ensembles. But because he is so steeped in the nonmusical referents of the music on this CD, he requires audiences to research the pieces in order to be able to appreciate them fully. Gordon is scarcely the only contemporary composer with this expectation, but it is interesting that he sometimes does write music inspired by music – as in the Debussy/Hahn material here – and is at his most interestingly communicative when he does so.

(++++) BACK TO THE 1780s

Mozart: Horn Concertos Nos. 1-4; Rondo, KV 371. Martin Owen, horn; Manchester Camerata conducted by Gábor Takács-Nagy. Chandos. $21.99. 

Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 84-86. Danish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Adam Fischer. Naxos. $19.99. 

     In the decade when Haydn was in his 50s and Mozart in his late 20s and early 30s, the sheer creativity of both composers was in full flower and to this day is something of a wonder to behold – and to hear. The music that flowed from Mozart and Haydn in those years continues to elicit new interpretations and rethinkings to this day, with contemporary performers finding that the works still have a great deal to say to modern audiences and are worth presenting with some new approaches designed to elicit changing listener responses. 

     There is also new scholarship underlying the music. The four Mozart horn concertos are now thought to have been composed in the order of 2, 4, 3 and 1, with No. 1 not finished until after Mozart’s death and being completed by Franz Xaver Süßmayr, who is best known for another completion, of Mozart’s Requiem. In accordance with the new information, Martin Owen gives the two-movement No. 1 a warmer and more expansive reading than it customarily receives, and is backed up aptly in the approach by the Manchester Camerata under Gábor Takács-Nagy. Nor is this the only concerto in which Owen and Takács-Nagy place Mozart closer to the forefront of the Romantic era than is usually the case: all the concertos’ slow movements are delivered with considerable warmth, their emotive qualities emphasized; and at various places – not just in the slow movements – there are tempo variations, unmentioned in the score, that are intended to make the music more expansive or communicative in various ways. It is only in the comparatively straightforward performance of the Rondo, KV 371, which dates to 1781 and thus predates all the concertos, that Owen and Takács-Nagy follow the precedent of other performers pretty much throughout, although here too there is considerable lyrical flow that is accentuated by the round, full tone of Owen’s instrument. Everything here is carefully thought through and presented with considerable elegance and very fine ensemble playing – but the Chandos release does take some getting used to for listeners long familiar with the repertoire. Soloist and conductor do succeed in shining some new light on the material, and without conveying a sense that they are somehow trying too hard to find a new line of communication between the 18^th century and the 21^st. In some ways, though, this thoughtful and well-conceived approach is a bit of a throwback to recordings such as those of Dennis Brain and Barry Tuckwell, which were exceptionally well-played and made no attempt to display the historicity of the music, the scholarship for which was on a totally different level at the time – when the notion of historically informed performance practice was essentially nonexistent. In the collaboration of Owen and Takács-Nagy, matters of history are fully understood based on current scholarship, and when the interpretations seem to deviate a bit from what is now the generally accepted approach to the music, that is entirely by design. Even if this is not a listener’s first choice for a recording of Mozart’s horn concertos, it could surely stand as a second – because it does showcase the music in some genuinely new ways while presenting it always with exceptionally fine playing and some genuine verve, especially in the exuberant hunting-horn finales. 

     Unlike Owen and Takács-Nagy, Adam Fischer may be trying a bit too hard for a new approach in his ongoing reimagining of Haydn symphonic performance. Fischer is supposed to be recording the last 25 of the symphonies for Naxos, although how that will work with three to a disc is by no means clear, since 25 is not divisible by three. The final 12 “London” symphonies did fit neatly onto four CDs, and the six “Paris” symphonies would fit on two, but the expected sequence would be Nos. 82-84 on one disc and Nos. 85-87 on another – which is not what Fischer has recorded in the fifth volume of this series. Instead he delivers first-rate performances of Nos. 84-86, with an accompanying note that sounds almost apologetic for Haydn tending to be less popular nowadays than Mozart and Beethoven despite being No. 1 among audiences of his own time. But this is where Fischer may try too hard to “redeem” Haydn, who needs nothing of the sort: Haydn wrote music not to challenge but to delight, and no apologia for that, no attempt somehow to “equalize” Haydn with his contemporaries, is required. 

     Haydn was endlessly inventive, his symphonies – including Nos. 84-86 – being totally unlike each other even when their formal plans are superficially similar. To modern ears, the differences among the symphonies, and between those by Haydn and those by his contemporaries, are subtle. But in context they were substantial, and that is why Haydn had such an outsized reputation. Today’s audiences would need to be steeped in symphonic works of Haydn’s time to hear just how distinctive Haydn’s were, and that is simply not possible after the intervening centuries. In any case, Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra make a wonderful case for Haydn in general and these three “Paris” symphonies in particular. No. 84 features great clarity of the solos – a distinctive Haydn symphonic feature – despite occasional unneeded slowdowns that are intended to mark points of emphasis. This is inappropriate, as are some brief pauses before some downbeats – a performance oddity that does nothing to burnish the otherwise very clean orchestral sound. “Rescuing” Haydn is entirely unnecessary, but we would have to be steeped in the way symphonic works were commonly conceived in Haydn’s time to understand just how revolutionary Haydn was. There is simply no way to recapture the milieu in which he operated, so it is something of a fool’s errand to try to “revive” the response his music received. Fischer’s approach is attractive in its use of a variety of subtle alterations of typical performance techniques, especially in the strings, to try to bring freshness to the symphonies. They really do stand on their own, though, no matter how effective the bouncing bows in the finale of No. 84 turn out to be. 

     In No. 85, the string speed in the first movement’s runs, and the contrast when the movement dips into the minor, are handled with great panache: it is difficult to sustain the movement at this pace, but this orchestra does so exceptionally well. Fischer is also, here and elsewhere, willing to do slow movements not very slowly at all. In the third movement, piano and forte contrast to particularly good effect, and Fischer never loses sight of the humorous touches that, like the contrast between loud and soft, are characteristic elements of Haydn’s symphonic thinking. The performance climaxes with a very bouncy finale that features a perkily percolating bassoon line – the bassoon having also featured to good effect in No. 84. As for No. 86, timpani are prominent and used to especially good effect in the first movement, in which the transition from the slow opening to the main tempo is both subtle and surprising – again, a combination typical of Haydn but not to be found elsewhere (not even in Mozart). Fischer takes the first movement Allegro spirituoso quite quickly, with the repeated forte exclamations handled with aplomb. This is one of Haydn’s most perfectly proportioned symphonies, and Fischer manages it to fine effect. The second movement forte/piano contrasts are again handled particularly well – this is an unusual movement in its alteration of very slow, emotional material with brighter, quicker elements. The third movement again features especially effective timpani, and its rustic Trio with woodwind emphases is a standout. The finale is very quick, with excellent strings – this movement is a showcase for them – and yet again there are delightful little bassoon touches that are well-handled. The unexpected silences near the very end really come as a surprise here and underline the quality both of the music and of the performers. Nevertheless, nothing that Fischer delivers in his reexamination of a few dozen Haydn symphonies will be as impressive as his remarkable survey of the entire set of 104, recorded over a 14-year period (1987-2001) with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra. But even during that monumental undertaking, Fischer was expressing misgivings about the untoward permanence being given to interpretations that he said he was reconsidering and looking at in new ways even as the cycle was being assembled. That sort of self-criticism is understandable: great music invites constant reassessment. So Fischer’s recent thoughts about Haydn’s later symphonies, like the thoughts of Owen and Takács-Nagy about Mozart’s horn concertos, have considerable validity and deserve to generate considerable interest. But nothing in these Haydn and Mozart performances can be or should be thought of as definitive: the characteristics that have kept this music appealing, engaging and meaningful from the 1780s to the 2020s will surely continue to provoke new ideas and new approaches in the future.

(+++) RETHINKINGS

Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme; Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture; Pezzo capriccioso; Six Morceaux, Op. 19—No. 4; Six Morceaux, Op. 51—No. 6; Violin Concerto—Canzonetta. Gabriel Schwabe, cello; Sinfonieorchester Aachen conducted by Christopher Ward. Naxos. $19.99. 

Schubert: Wandrers Nachtlied II; Am See; Auf dem Wasser zu singen; Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge; Ives: The Housatonic at Stockbridge; Patrick Castillo: Skyline Palimpsest; Vivian Fung: Lamenting Earth. Nicholas Phan, tenor; Myra Huang, piano; Jasper String Quartet (J Freivogel and Karen Kim, violins; Andrew Gonzalez, viola; Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello). AVIE. $19.99. 

     It is facile but demonstrably incorrect to think that the familiar, customarily performed versions of well-known musical works are the versions. Aside from instances such as the vocal version of the Blue Danube Waltz and the two separate Prokofiev symphonies that both are listed as No. 4, there are many, many pieces that are commonly played a certain way but are equally authentic in others. That fact lies at the heart of a rather ill-assorted set of works performed by Gabriel Schwabe and/or Sinfonieorchester Aachen under Christopher Ward on a recent Naxos release. That “and/or” is part of what makes the disc a rather peculiar one. Of the six Tchaikovsky works on it, five feature cello solo but the longest piece does not. And among the five in which Schwabe is at the forefront, two are world première recordings of his own arrangements – one of which is very odd indeed. And even works that listeners may think they know well sound different here, because the versions on this disc are ones that predate some modifications made in Tchaikovsky’s lifetime and perpetuated since then. Thus, the CD opens with a performance of Variations on a Rococo Theme in which the variations are given out of the order in which they are usually heard – because this is Tchaikovsky’s original sequence, which cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, the work’s dedicatee, modified for his own purposes; and the changes stuck, resulting in the much-more-usual way the piece is played. Next is Pezzo capriccioso, a very serious work (despite its title) that was first performed on cello and piano and not in its version with orchestra, heard here, until a year and half later. Here too the cellist for whom the piece was written – in this case, Anatoly Brandukov – altered the cello part to make it more to his own liking, and here too the changed version is the one usually heard, with the current recording restoring the original. Brandukov is also the cellist for whom Tchaikovsky arranged the fourth of his Six Morceaux, Op. 19, a Nocturne; that arrangement follows Pezzo capriccioso on this disc. Then come the two brand-new arrangements by Schwabe. The first is of the slow movement from Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and hearing it on the cello is very strange indeed – although it must be said that the movement’s warmth and lyricism fit the cello quite well. This is followed by Valse sentimentale, No. 6 from the Six Morceaux, Op. 51 – a trifle of a piece that is pleasantly unassuming both in its original form and as heard here. And after all this cello-focused material, the CD moves to the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, which has no solo cello part and really does not fit with anything else on the disc except for being by the same composer as the rest of the works. Furthermore, this is not the hyper-familiar 1880 final version of the work – it is the intermediate, second version that was published in 1870 and first performed in 1872. In it are notable differences from the version usually used: the entire climactic section, which is the recapitulation in the work’s sonata form, is different in emphasis and effect. What to make of all this? It is hard to see what audience the CD is intended for: the performances are quite good (although Romeo and Juliet, despite fine orchestral playing, is somewhat lacking in sweep and drama), but the collection of pieces is a hodgepodge, and the instances of rearrangements or restoration of less-known versions are more academically than musically significant. The disc is perhaps best thought of as a curious addition for the collection of audiences strongly devoted to Tchaikovsky and interested in some of the byways associated with the shaping of some of his works. 

     Several pieces on a new AVIE disc are not so much rethought as repurposed: this is one of those politically aware recordings in which music is at the service of a supposedly higher calling – in this case, the relationship between humans and the environment. To make its point, the CD takes Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Ives out of context and mixes them with two contemporary works that are intentionally designed to make sociopolitical points. The result is a rather odd collection redeemed (from a musical standpoint) in much the same way as the Tchaikovsky disc: through generally very fine performances. Nicholas Phan’s voice is beautifully expressive in the three Schubert songs, whose wistful lyricism shines through with warmth and emotional commitment. The even greater emotional range of Vaughan Williams’ settings of A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad in On Wenlock Edge gives Phan plenty of scope for emoting, and he very clearly conveys the skillful ways in which Vaughan Williams accentuates Housman’s placing of human feelings and emotions both within grand natural settings and outside of them. Political intentionality aside, this is a highly sensitive and thoughtful interpretation of the work. Ives’ The Housatonic at Stockbridge, arranged by him for voice and piano after first being used as the third of his Three Places in New England, contrasts appealingly and very effectively with On Wenlock Edge, being mostly quieter and more strongly philosophical. Here Phan melds his voice with the complexities of the piano part to very fine effect, and Myra Huang’s accompaniment is very much to the point – as indeed it is throughout this recording. However, the main extramusical purpose of this CD comes after the Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Ives material, in two contemporary works. Skyline Palimpsest by Patrick Castillo (born 1979) is an instrumental piece intended to reflect the past, present and potential future of New York City – a schema not clear from the music itself and thus requiring listeners to know the work’s reason for being in order to try to hear elements of its argument as it proceeds. It is dissonant enough and ambiguous enough to fit pretty much any scenario that an audience may envision. The CD is designed to build to its final entry, Lamenting Earth by Vivian Fung (born 1975), which is much more direct: it sets poetry by Claire Wahmanholm in four songs focused unerringly on climate change and the regrets, fears and demands for action associated with it. The vocal settings are as straightforward in their tone painting as the words are in their verbal precision, and here Phan’s determination to be expressive leads only to making the obvious sound over-obvious. This is one of those pieces filled with well-meaning verbiage and determined musical underlining; and it is quite focused on giving “Generation Z” a voice, incorporating a variety of student comments into the text. “My body is more sorrow than water,” “the birds swirling recklessly throughout the hurting skies,” “death knocks on our doors,” and other forthright if scarcely unconventional expressions of sorrow, worry and fear mingle with music intended, ultimately, as a call to – what? Concern, action, understanding, determination, resilience? Not apathy, surely – but the music itself is less effective than the composer and performers clearly hope it will be as a rallying cry of some sort. The CD as a whole moves musically from sensitivity, subtlety and thoughtfulness to a kind of hectoring that may be justified by circumstance but that is unlikely to change minds or spur actions among those not already inclined to think as these words and this music insist they should be thinking.