(++++) EXCELLENCE, COMPROMISED

Nielsen: Complete Solo Piano Music. Rikke Sandberg, piano. OUR Recordings. $34.99 (3 CDs). 

Bach: French Suites Nos. 1-6, BWV 812-817. Francesco Tristano, piano. Naïve. $16.99. 

     A release of genuine importance marred by significant, pervasive missteps in packaging and presentation, Rikke Sandberg’s recording of Carl Nielsen’s complete solo-piano music ought to be an occasion for three cheers, or even four. Those cheers are fully merited by Sandberg’s playing: the uniform excellence of the performances almost makes up for the slapdash and inconsiderate-to-listeners sequencing and presentation of the ancillary material. But not quite. Because Nielsen’s piano music is not well-known or frequently performed – perhaps because he was a mediocre pianist himself and very rarely played his own keyboard works – it is more than usually important for a comprehensive release like this one to present the works in a logical sequence and provide some written connective tissue to allow listeners to hear them in context. A booklet essay by Niels Bo Foltmann attempts to do just that, discussing the pieces chronologically and using their CNW numbering from the catalogue of Nielsen’s works to provide continuity. But the CD track listings themselves never give CNW numbering – not once – and the arrangement of pieces on the discs is thoroughly incoherent. For example, the essay makes much of the fact that Nielsen’s 1917 Theme and Variations was composed immediately after his Chaconne, an important fact since these are two of his three most significant piano works. But the two pieces are not placed one after the other on the discs – in fact, they are on separate CDs. The overall arrangement of the tracks is neither chronological nor set up systematically in other ways. For example, after 1897, Nielsen went through a near-20-year period in which he composed no piano music at all, and that could certainly be an organizing principle for the discs; but here, works from before and after the hiatus are tossed helter-skelter together. Elements explained in the essay sometimes do not dovetail with the actual recording: the written material notes that in 1908, Nielsen “composed several short piano pieces for Otto Benzon’s play Parents,” but the recording includes only a single 90-second item labeled as relating to that stage work – so are the other pieces lost, is this not really a complete-works release, or what? And there are plenty of other discrepancies between what is written and what is heard, often in the form of small but irritating wording differences, such as the essay mentioning a piece called The Music Box that appears nowhere, although there is one called The Musical Clock. And then there is the strange instance of “a small piano piece (CNW 95)” that turned up after Nielsen’s death – but there is absolutely no identification of where it might be on the recording, although by process of elimination, listeners may be able to figure out that an undated 41-second entry simply labeled Piano Piece is it. But it is important, despite all this, to point out that the frustrations associated with these inconsistencies and many others have nothing to do with Sandberg’s actual performances or with the worthiness of Nielsen’s piano music. There is nothing of meaningless display in these works or Sandberg’s handling of them: a sense of seriousness of purpose pervades her playing throughout, even when the pieces themselves are quite light. Indeed, many of these works are trifles, micro-miniatures lasting a minute or less. The brief items show Nielsen in a jovial mood that contrasts strongly with the complexity and high seriousness of the Chaconne, Theme and Variations, and his third major piano work, Suite “The Luciferian” (the title meaning “light bringer” and having nothing satanic about it). This last work veers effectively from complex and gnarly movements to a sweet and simple Allegretto innocente that shows Nielsen at his most charming. Theme and Variations features some fascinating up-and-down-the-keyboard pianistic acrobatics, and the Chaconne, which itself is actually a theme and variations, starts in traditionalist mode but becomes increasingly modern in sound and approach as it progresses. There is plenty of interest in some other pieces here as well, with one simply labeled Three Piano Pieces being especially involving in its very modern-sounding sonic palette. Scattered around the more-important and more-significant material are some very tiny pieces that in some cases sound like throwaways while in others – notably the 25 of them collectively called Piano Music for Young and Old – are well-conceived and gathered meaningfully into groups. This OUR Recordings release is not the first collection of Nielsen’s solo-piano music, although Christina Bjørkøe’s 2007 readings for CPO, on which the pieces are intelligently arranged chronologically and generally played at brisker tempos, omits the arrangements and incidental music included on Sandberg’s third disc. Sandberg’s offering is significant by any pianistic and musical measure, and her remarkable devotion to the material keeps the recording engaging throughout. It is a real shame that there are so many small but irritating elements in the way the three-CD assemblage is put together: the sloppiness of presentation stands in stark contrast to the care and elegance of the musicianship that is so much in evidence throughout the release. 

     There is nothing sloppy in Francesco Tristano’s fourth entry in what he intends as, eventually, a complete Bach keyboard cycle: the six French Suites. The CD’s many strengths and few weaknesses parallel those of Tristano’s earlier forays into the Six Partitas, English Suites and Seven Toccatas. Among performances on the piano – historically an incorrect instrument, a fact that will trouble many listeners and bother others not at all – Tristano’s show unusual awareness of the way in which the piano’s gradations of touch and dynamics, and the significantly longer decay between notes compared with that of the harpsichord, affect the music. Tristano employs considerably less pedal in this repertoire than do many other Bach piano performers, using the inherent qualities of strings played through striking rather than plucking as an interpretative element. The clarity of his Yamaha instrument is a big plus for this music, although there is a dryness to the sound – from piano, recording or both – that is a touch off-putting in movements intended to convey greater warmth. Tristano nevertheless strives for precisely that: a less-brittle sound than he achieved in the English Suites, befitting music that, written slightly later, is more inward-looking and offers more opportunities for lyricism. Interestingly, while the brighter and quicker movements were the most successful in Tristano’s interpretation of the English Suites, in the French Suites he seems particularly devoted to and focused on the warmer and more expressive elements, such as the Allemande in Suite No. 3 and the Allemande and Sarabande in Suite No. 4, where the welcome lack of overt flair showcases an impressive level of sensitivity. Subtlety is more apparent in Tristano’s French Suites than in some of his prior Bach recordings for Naïve, with Suite No. 6 being especially notable for the careful balance among its movements and the poise with which Tristano explores each individual one while still treating it as an element of a larger whole. Tristano’s ongoing exploration of Bach’s keyboard works is already an impressive achievement that listeners who favor the piano for Bach interpretation will certainly consider a (++++) offering. As for those who prefer the suites on harpsichord and in more historically accurate readings – well, they will be right to deem this version of the French Suites a (+++) release simply because of the use of a piano and Tristano’s way of employing piano-specific techniques and sounds to highlight elements of the music. The good news is that Tristano shines enough meaningful interpretative light on the French Suites so that his recording is worthwhile even for harpsichord-preferring listeners to possess: it proffers a genuinely thoughtful and deeply engaged view that sees the music through a modern lens, but with deep-seated sensitivity and understanding.

(++++) LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3, “Organ.” Park Avenue Chamber Symphony conducted by David Bernard. Recursive Classics. $16.98. 

Gary William Friedman: Journeys Piano Concerto; Palimpsest String Quartet; Butterfly Cantata. Tanya Gabrielian, piano; Skye Stauffer, soprano; Neal Benari, baritone; Antoine Silverman Orchestra conducted by Gary William Friedman; Charlotte Munn-Wood and Aimée Niemann, violins; Blake Allen, viola; Dara Hankins, cello. 150 Music. $15.99. 

     Sometimes a CD really wishes it had been a DVD. The Recursive Classics live recording of Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony as performed by the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony under David Bernard is more a souvenir of a very thoughtfully produced concert than a competitive rendition of this work. The performance is very fine throughout, but that is not the issue: the concert was designed as an immersive experience in which the audience was literally surrounded by the sounds of a digital organ, and the enthusiastic applause at the very end of the disc certainly shows the intensity of listeners’ response. But this is only a 35-minute-or-so symphony (actually 37 in Bernard’s reading here), and it is offered alone on the disc – not even paired with Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2, with which it shared the original program in November 2025. In the absence of video or a compelling multi-work presentation, the CD seems fitting mostly for people who attended the concert where it was recorded and want to revisit what was clearly a highly involving performance. 

     Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony is more-or-less an occasional piece, created for a specific venue in London possessing both an organ and a high-quality acoustic setting for an orchestra. The work has created performance challenges ever since, because very few suitable locations existed at the time of the work’s creation (1886) and even fewer remained in subsequent years. The solution demonstrated in this recording is a fine one for those not insisting on use of a pipe organ, but the high-quality performance does not, in and of itself, stand significantly above other recordings that handle the work’s auditory complexities differently. This is in many ways a very strange symphony, containing not only the organ but also a piano that requires both two-hand and four-hand performance. But nothing is done purely for effect: the unusual elements are thoroughly integrated into an overall sonic environment that they both support and help create. It is easy to see why there has never been another symphony quite like this one, and also easy to see why its effectiveness has scarcely diminished with time. Just how unusual the organ’s position is comes clear throughout: it is not a soloist in a concerto or a basso continuo supporting other instruments, but a fully integrated member of the orchestra, perhaps inevitably primus inter pares because of how distinctive its sound is in this context, but nevertheless functioning as in effect an additional section of the ensemble. Contextualizing the organ is very difficult, and a major challenge for a conductor is to make the symphony into something other than a buildup to its finale, when the organ emerges front-and-center – similar to the complication inherent in Beethoven’s Ninth. Bernard does an excellent job of seeing the symphony as a totality, with the quiet portions particularly well done and the overall performance showcasing the especially impressive strings, whose easy elegance fits this music particularly well. The symphony is in two parts, although sometimes, as here, presented as being in four movements. Bernard handles the first part (or first two movements) expansively, starting with quiet precision that immediately draws listeners into a scene as if dawn is breaking for one minute, a pleasant journey with fine sense of flow then begins, and the atmospheric setting is tempered by some genuine sweetness – all this in a very different way from that of, say, Mahler’s First, completed just two years later. If the Saint-Saëns is thought of as being in four movements, then Bernard’s way with the quiet ending of the first is especially well-handled, allowing the music to blend seamlessly into the following Poco adagio, wherein the organ first appears. The second half of this performance is less determinedly expansive, with the Allegro moderato bright but scarcely jaunty, and good rhythmic sense throughout – and a particularly effective quiet section toward the end, culminating in a full-sounding Maestoso organ entry that comes as something of a shock. The inevitable, inextricable interweaving of the organ with the form of the fugue is one of many subtly impressive elements of this symphony, and Bernard’s handling of the work’s final portion – up to and including having the orchestra really cut loose in the last 90 seconds – is skillfully managed and produces as full-fledged a triumphal conclusion as any listener could wish to hear. This CD will nevertheless mostly be a souvenir d'un lieu cher for people lucky enough to have experienced the performance in person and understandably wanting to revisit a musically meaningful time and place. 

     Music can go back to places of horror as well as ones of joy, and can try to come to terms, at some level, with the nearly unimaginable cruelties associated with terror-permeated sites. That is what Gary William Friedman (born 1957) attempts in Butterfly Cantata, a seven-section work setting poems written by children incarcerated at the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. “The wind sings song of far away,” “this plot of grief and shame,” “the wheels hurry onward…they carry a cargo of shivering shoes,” and similar words of affecting naïveté are combined with music that sometimes underlines their meaning, sometimes contrasts with it. It is all very well-intentioned, deeply unsettling, sensitively composed and gently sung, with Friedman at pains to keep the words front-and-center at all times, whether they are experiential, metaphorical, or frighteningly direct (“evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake”). The sincerity of the work is beyond doubt – as is the sincerity of many other modern works that have mined this and similar horrors for similar purposes. The irony is often laid on very thickly indeed (“the world is full of loveliness – how fine it is to live”), and elements of the composition are far from unexpected, such as having it start and end with the word “Listen!” It is difficult to imagine anyone wanting to return repeatedly to so dismal and bleak a work – which, however, underlines its points effectively enough on a single hearing. The other pieces on a new 150 Music disc travel in different ways and to different kinds of locations. Journeys Piano Concerto deals with going places inwardly rather than externally. Its three inward-looking movements, which have no titles or tempo indications, have a kind of film-music emotionalism about them. They are reflective enough in a kind of bluesy, thoughtful, melancholic mode, but they tend to wallow: all three are moderately paced, and the largely unrelieved jazz/improvisational feeling of the piano part wears thin very quickly. The music has no real sense of evolution or progress, and the swooning string sounds that pervade the orchestral portions start inconclusively and never really move into any other mode. Cut from much the same dark-but-not-quite-depressive mode is Palimpsest String Quartet, whose two movements also lack titular or tempo indications and whose “visiting places” are, according to Friedman, directly musical: he says he wanted to revisit his earlier works and use their elements differently. Requiring audiences to know the genesis of a piece in order to understand it is a conceit of many contemporary composers, but Friedman does not quite insist on this – although knowing the source material for this quartet would undoubtedly give it more meaning than it has when simply listened to without preconceptions. The vast majority of the material is handled by the ensemble rather than the individual instruments, and there is a curious blending of sound that makes the distinctive voices of the higher and lower strings seem much more similar than is usual in quartet writing. In both this quartet and the piano concerto, there is an underlying lugubriousness that seems to want to pass for deep thinking but that makes the works less-then-rewarding places for a listener to spend time and attention. All three pieces on this (+++) CD are certainly well-wrought and well-performed, but the expenditure of emotional energy they require to connect with what Friedman wants to communicate is more substantial than the evocative nature of the works really justifies.

(++++) UNEXPECTED MIXTURES

Vierne: Piano Works, Vol. 1. Michael Schöch, piano. MDG Scene. $24.99 (SACD). 

Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 32, K 454; Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 3; Shane Shanahan: Audacity; Oil Field Fires; Khanda Jog; Ariana Kim: Migrating Home; traditional Indian, Macedonian and Bulgarian works. Ariana Kim, violin; Roger Moseley, fortepiano; Shane Shanahan, percussion. Saffron Soul Records. $15. 

     The name of Louis Vierne (1870-1937) is inextricably linked to the organ, given that he famously died while performing his 1,750^th recital at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, where he had been organist since 1900 – and given that his six organ symphonies are major milestones in compositions for the instrument. So hearing Vierne’s music for other instruments is something of a surprise, although one of his non-organ pieces, his Piano Quintet, is still occasionally performed. It turns out that the piano was a secondary focus for Vierne in ways that are not often acknowledged – a state of affairs that Michael Schöch is moving to alter by recording all of Vierne’s solo-piano music for MDG Scene. The first volume of the series, although it contains nothing earthshaking, offers multiple works of considerable interest, starting with the seven-movement Suite bourguignonne, Op. 17. Individual movements here have pleasures all their own, reflecting various moods, and the suite as a whole is interestingly structured to move listeners through a full day of feelings and thoughts, from its opening Aubade to its concluding Clair de lune. Schöch takes full advantage of the 1901 Steinway used in this recording (and in a number of other MDG releases): it is a piano with very wide dynamic range but a softer and less-brittle sound than newer Steinways tend to possess, apparently thanks to a highly sensitive Manfred Bürkl restoration. The richness of the piano’s sound helps highlight ways in which Vierne’s musical thinking dips frequently into organlike realms: many of the works on this SACD sound as if they would, at least in part, be as effective on the organ as on the piano. Schöch follows the extended suite with a brief Air à danser, which proves to be a slight but upbeat waltz, and then with Deux pieces, Op. 7, the first a short and crepuscular Impression d’automne and the second an even shorter, virtuosic Intermezzo. Then there is another multi-movement suite, Silhouettes d’enfants, Op. 43, whose title and approach echo those of Schumann’s Kinderszenen but some of whose technical demands go beyond the level of most younger players. There is a pleasant openness in the sound of this suite’s five pieces, the last of which is a Gavotte that, uncharacteristically for the Vierne piano works here, has something of a stylistically imitative feel to it. Airs de danse, heard after this grouping, includes two movements discovered after Vierne’s death (a third is apparently lost) and is noteworthy for the rhythmic and harmonic effects in the second piece, Les esprit de la nuit. Schöch’s recital concludes with Trois Nocturnes, Op. 34, a rather lugubrious set of Impressionistic pieces, each preceded in the score by a phrase intended to show the evocative nature of the work. Echoes of Debussy are notable in one piece, and an overall sense of pervasive although non-gloomy darkness pervades all three. This piece actually received its première from Vierne himself, although he rarely performed on piano in public, and its swells and dwellings on sustained sounds show why that initial performance proved quite a success for a composer/performer whose special relationship with the organ is complemented, even to some extent enhanced, by this recording’s rediscovery of his skill at writing convincingly for a very different instrument. 

     Melding of another sort – a cultural and auditory one – is at the heart of a Saffron Soul Records release built around and featuring violinist Ariana Kim. What is heard here is not just beyond the usual expectations, as is the case of finding convincing Vierne music not written for the organ: Kim, the mastermind of this recital, has a very, very personal and personalized conception of the juxtapositions present throughout the hour-and-a-quarter production. She suggests that a focus on improvisation is what unites these otherwise disparate works, and for audiences that are in tune (so to speak) with Kim’s thinking, that assertion may suffice to provide connective tissue among the pieces. Simply hearing the CD as a collection of pieces of music, though – without feeling obligated to study the theory underlying the CD’s development – produces much less of a feeling of unity among the works and a much greater sense of discontinuity. Certainly the actual performances are at (++++) level – indeed, the handling of the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas (in E-flat and B-flat respectively) is exceptionally impressive, thanks not only to Kim’s excellent back-and-forth with Roger Moseley on fortepiano but also to the inherent sound of the violin and aptly selected keyboard. Kim’s use of gut strings and the duo’s performance of these sonatas with A=430 Hz contribute to the effectiveness of these readings, although that tuning is not quite historically accurate: Mozart was probably accustomed to a warmer A=420 Hz, more or less, while Beethoven actually seems to have favored A=450 Hz or even a bit higher, producing a brighter sound than the accepted modern level of A=440 Hz. The point of Kim’s choice is not historical accuracy, though, but production of an aural environment supportive of her interpretation of these sonatas in conjunction with the sort of keyboard instrument actually in use when the pieces were written. The “improvisation” connection to these sonatas is tenuous at best, but the actual performances are first-rate, the instrumental blendings handled with exactly the sort of seemingly effortless companionship that produces a sense of intimacy and flows from an equal commitment by both players. The remainder of the CD, however, is much more of a mixed bag for any listeners who are not like-minded in terms of Kim’s thinking. The disc includes three works by percussionist/composer Shane Shanahan (born 1972), all designed to meld Western and non-Western musical traditions; they are intermingled with three pieces traditional to three distinct cultural milieus. The Shanahan works are Audacity for violin, djembe (a West African drum), and ocean drum (a Messiaen invention intended to mimic ocean sounds); Oil Field Fires for violin, riq (a traditional Arabic tambourine), and ocean drum; and Khanda Jog for violin, frame drum (a tambourine-shaped handheld instrument), kanjira (a frame drum specifically from South India), and udu (a clay-pot instrument from Nigeria). It is interesting to hear the ways in which the violin blends or contrasts with the various exotic percussion instruments, and the improvisational elements of the pieces (all of which have some) give the works something in common. But however meaningful to Kim personally, and to Shanahan, the pieces may be, their placement on a recording with the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas seems quirky, if not arbitrary. The Shanahan pieces alternate with three tradition-based offerings. Raga Aalapana: Bahudari, arranged by Kim for solo violin, has a calm and meditative sound above a continuous drone. The traditional Macedonian Lesnoto: Cveta Moma Ubava, for violin and frame drum, is a dance with alternating sections dominated by rhythm (emphasized by the drum) and free-ranging violin lines. The traditional Bulgarian Krivo Sadovsko Horo for violin and darbuka (a Middle Eastern hand drum) is rhythmically uneven, opens with an extended portion on percussion alone, and gives Kim ample opportunity to display fiddle-style virtuosity. Kim also plays a work of her own, Migrating Home for violin and looper pedal (a record-and-playback device usually associated with guitar); this allows her to layer sound upon sound and have her improvised violin part transformed into something vaguely choral. This work and several others on the CD are intended to reflect or comment on various nonmusical sociopolitical matters, creating yet another way in which the disc is an extremely personal one whose fine musicianship is not enough to produce a convincingly integrated – or convincingly contrasted – program for listeners who are disinclined to study the material thoroughly and absorb its background and intentions rather than simply to hear and appreciate it. On balance, performance quality aside, this is a (+++) disc that is presented as if it reaches out beyond standard musical boundaries – but that in fact aims for a small and narrow audience whose members will perceive, through choosing to convince themselves, that the music and the thinking behind it have been tailored exclusively to them.

(++++) TRIFLES, BUT SCARCELY TRIFLING

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: Complete Solo Piano Works, Vol. 1. Ana-Marija Markovina, piano. Hänssler Classic. $32.99 (4 CDs). 

     There were few exigencies impinging on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s creative life, but by modern standards her compositional prowess was attenuated both by her gender and, strangely to today’s way of thinking, by her upper-class existence. Strictures associated with the expectations of her well-to-do upbringing seem to have been at least as binding upon her as ones involving her gender, which were certainly present but which did not prevent other highly skilled female musicians of the time, such as Clara Schumann, from developing and managing long, successful careers. Those two women met several times, cordially and with mutual respect, during the last year of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s life, although the class differences between them were substantial. And then there was Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny’s brother and someone to whom she was so close that at various times there have been unjustifiable hints regarding how close they were – suggestions that result from a lack of understanding of familial relations in upper-class households of their time. 

     Musically, Fanny was at least moderately encouraged by Felix, who arranged for some of her works to be published under his own name to avoid any “unseemly” publication pressures on her; and she was certainly supported by her husband, the artist Wilhelm Hensel, who at one point, in 1841, provided illustrations for Fanny’s piano cycle Das Jahr. Piano works were at the center of Fanny’s music, most of them small-scale and often in the form of the sort of “songs without words” with which Felix is so closely associated. More than one-third of Fanny’s 450 or so compositions – an impressive number – are for piano, and a great many of the piano works have never been recorded before. So it is cause for celebration that Ana-Marija Markovina, who has previously recorded Felix’s complete solo-piano music, has now turned her hand – that is, both her hands – to Fanny’s keyboard oeuvre. 

     The first of two planned multi-disc releases on the Hänssler Classic label is a revelation and a delight, a success on virtually all levels. Arranged chronologically – a very wise decision – the recording allows listeners not only to hear and enjoy these generally very short pieces on their own, but also to experience Fanny’s growing confidence in her compositional abilities as she develops her own musical voice. Nothing in the 78 tracks on these four CDs – four-and-a-half hours of music in all – is profound; everything justifies Fanny’s self-evaluation to Felix that she “lack[ed] the ability to sustain ideas properly and give them the needed consistency” and was therefore only truly comfortable in brief, self-contained pieces (although her comment actually referred to Lieder, which were her primary focus beyond piano solos). 

     Nevertheless, the poise and elegance and awareness of keyboard capabilities – and desire to extend them to a certain degree – are everywhere present in these pieces. Fanny, who at age 13 was able to play Bach’s entire Das wohltemperierte Klavier from memory, emerges gradually through these miniatures as a composer with her own ideas and approaches and her own emotional compass – which is finely honed and never indulged in to excess. 

     Speaking of excess of a different sort, one would do well, before listening to these discs, to consider the single significant flaw in this highly admirable project: Markovina’s use of a highly resonant and resounding Bösendorfer piano, whose full intensity she does not hesitate to produce in the stronger chordal passages of these works. It was not until the 1880s that pianos even had the modern 88 keys, so nothing by Fanny (or Felix) was conceived for such a large and full-sounding instrument – and Markovina’s has an especially strong lower register, which would be highly impressive in appropriate music but which here sometimes overwhelms these rather slight pieces. 

     Aside from that issue – which is of little importance in the quieter and more delicate portions of the music, in which Markovina carefully keeps her pedaling in check and her touch light (pianos of Fanny and Felix’s time had less key travel) – the playing here is first-rate throughout. There are many, many highlights to be heard in pieces that are frequently labeled simply Klavierstück or Übungstück. On the first CD, catalog numbers H 37 and H 42 are distinctly Bachian, while H 71 connects clearly to Beethoven. The longest work on this disc, at seven-and-a-half minutes, is H 44, labeled Sonatensatz and having a modicum of sonata scale. H 67 is especially bouncy and technically interesting, requiring a particularly light touch, while H 74, a Larghetto in E-flat minor, is the first piece in this collection showing Fanny starting to develop her own voice. Interestingly, the last work on this CD, H 108, has the sort of sound that is sometimes referred to as “Mendelssohnian,” based on Felix’s music. 

     The second CD in this set contains 17 works, 16 of them in minor keys: in these pieces Fanny is often striving for tinges of melancholy, although scarcely anything deeply emotional or tragic. There are still many echoes of earlier composers present, notably in H 114, labeled Tokkate and very clearly imitative of Bach. This CD includes an actual three-movement sonata, H 128, which is the only major-key work on the disc (in C) but dips repeatedly into minor to make its points. The third CD contains a much larger sonata, Ostersonate, H 235, laid out in four movements; at 26 minutes, it is the longest piece in this set by far. It is not particularly cohesive, but it does show Fanny coming to terms with material on a broader scale. Even more interesting here is H 253, labeled Fantasie, which sounds quite different from everything else on the disc and is exploratory of emotions and techniques in some more-forward-looking ways. By the fourth CD, the extensive use of minor keys diminishes somewhat in favor of tempo indications intended to show what feelings Fanny wants to elicit: agitato, con espressione, con sentimento and more. Some highlights here are H 269, labeled Duett für Tenor und Sopran and indeed sounding like a song without words, and H 294, which is impressively emotive and graceful – although here Markovina’s pounding chords are just too strong and intense for the music’s filigree. But this piece and the two that follow on the CD, H 302 and H 304, certainly show Fanny reaching for wider sweep and scope, and so do other pieces on the disc, such as H 393 – where, again, the very strong chords are a bit too much for the music, but the piece makes its points nicely nevertheless. The final four works on this disc and thus in this collection all carry a designation of Lied and show Fanny thinking in songful terms even when, as here, the vocal element is absent – or rather is “sung” by the piano. Comparisons with Felix’s music are inevitable and serve to show that this brother and sister were in many ways similar in creativity and thought patterns, despite their everyday lives moving in very different directions. It will surely be as fascinating to hear the second volume in Markovina’s comprehensive performance of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s piano works as it is to visit and revisit the works offered in this first, highly welcome and thoroughly enjoyable volume.