(++++) OPERA RE-UPPED

Ferdinand Hiller: Operette ohne Text, Op. 108; Ignaz Moscheles: Grande Sonate Symphonique No. 2, Op. 112. Stephanie McCallum and Erin Helyard, piano four hands. Toccata Next. $20.99. 

Michael R. Jackson and Justin Vivian Bond: Complications in Sue. Opera Philadelphia conducted by Caren Levine. BCM+D Records. $25 (2 CDs). 

     Opera is all about singing. Yes, there are different schools of thought and composition when it comes to the relationship between vocal and instrumental elements of the form: in simplified terms, the Italian focusing more on the voice, the German more on the orchestra, the French tending to balance the two. But without some vocal material, opera is not opera; it is something else. And then we have Operette ohne Text by Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885), which really is something else. When Hiller created this fascinating curiosity in the early 1860s, the world of the piano was largely the province of hyper-virtuosic performers whose stock-in-trade was, to a great extent, opera. It is impossible for today’s audiences, accustomed to thinking of opera as a rarefied if not moribund form, attractive to the cognoscenti rather than the masses of music lovers, to understand and feel how compelling opera was at a time long before recordings, before electronics, even before widespread use of electricity. It was everywhere: even small tabletop music boxes were designed around opera tunes. And the great pianists of the day made much of their reputation by writing or improvising opera pastiches, fantasies and variations – Liszt being a dominating force but scarcely the only exemplar (think Thalberg, Alkan, Kalkbrenner, Pixis, Tausig, Anton Rubinstein, and others). In this world, in this context, Hiller came up with something genuinely unusual and remarkably engaging: an opera (or operetta, if you prefer) without voices, without text, without plot, but with all the elements that audiences in the 1860s would expect, recognize and enjoy. Operette ohne Text has it all – and has none of it, if by “it” we mean the outstanding characteristics of opera, which are plot and singing. Written for piano four hands, Operette ohne Text has never been recorded before, making the Toccata Next offering featuring Stephanie McCallum and Erin Helyard a genuine find. McCallum and Helyard, a highly skilled pianistic duo, throw themselves with relish (and near-abandon) into every operatic element that Hiller thinks up, from the extended Ouverture to the maidens’ chorus, the Jägerchor (the hunting chorus that would be expected in a world familiar with Weber’s Der Freischütz), the Trinklied (complete with the aftereffects of over-consumption), right down to the concluding dance and inevitable Schlussgesang to which the nonexistent singers exit the nonexistent stage. The work is great fun to hear, perhaps doubly so for today’s audiences, whose lack of familiarity with opera is irrelevant when there is music that invites all listeners to decide for themselves what may be going on as the music unfolds. A work like this would not occur to composers in the Italian or French schools of the time, given the comparatively subservient nature of the orchestra in their stage works – but for Hiller, the creation of an opera without words fit neatly into a compositional school in which orchestral material was prominent. To be sure, the “opera without words” notion exists today, but with a different meaning – it is a way for orchestras to present, in the concert hall, the music underlying existing operas. Hiller, however, produced in Operette ohne Text a piece that would work on stage only if someone chose to create a book for it – which the music invites all listeners to do on the stage of their own minds. To complement Hiller’s piece, McCallum and Helyard give a rousing performance – the first ever on a period piano, specifically an excellent 1853 Érard – of Grande Sonate Symphonique No. 2 by Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870). There is no Grande Sonate Symphonique No. 1 – the numbering refers to Moscheles’ second work in this sort of style rather than one with exactly the same title – and here too we have a work that looks askance at specific formal boundaries, in this case those of the piano sonata and orchestral symphony. Moscheles was certainly not the first to create a piece giving symphonic scope to the piano, but what makes his Grande Sonate Symphonique No. 2 interesting is the emphasis on getting the piano to produce orchestral effects. The piece’s thematic choices, developments and interconnections are symphonic, and Moscheles – whom Beethoven chose to create the piano arrangement of Fidelio – produces a series of orchestra-like effects from the very start, when listeners can practically hear brass and tremolando strings, to a concluding chorale-like movement that evokes not only traditional orchestral forces but also the organ. Taken together, these Hiller and Moscheles works constitute a fascinating aural journey not only to the composers’ time period but also to musical forms that, although they were clear in that era and remain in use today, are here shown to have boundaries that can be skillfully bent, if not broken, to produce fascinating musical blends. 

     Speaking of where the focus of opera lies, operatic works are almost always identified by their composers. Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas are the exception that proves the rule, and the close three-opera collaboration between Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte strains it – although few audiences know that Da Ponte produced libretti for 10 other composers, and no one actually refers to “Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni” outside academia. Opera Philadelphia, however, bursts through this longstanding tradition with a work whose composers (plural) are secondary to librettist Michael R. Jackson and principal cast member Justin Vivian Bond (credited with giving Jackson the idea for the whole production). The piece is called Complications in Sue, its rather strained pun on “complications ensue” being indicative of its entire approach, which involves music by no fewer than 10 composers: Andy Akiho, Alistair Coleman, Nathalie Joachim, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Rene Orth, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kamala Sankaram, Dan Schlosberg, and Errollyn Wallen. Complications in Sue is a work that is exceptionally clever and utterly heartless, in the sense of lacking any emotional center. The idea is to progress through the life of one woman, with 10 short scenes from her 99-year lifespan created by the composers and sung by soprano Kiera Duffy, mezzo-soprano Imara Miles, tenor Nicky Spence, and bass-baritone Nicholas Newton. Given the many composers involved, there is of course no consistency of style and no sense of through composition at all: each scene is independent of all others, tied together by Bond, as Sue, progressing from birth to childhood to education to and through everyday life until eventually arriving at death. Insistent that it is meaningful, the work offers a “Sue’s Childhood” section is called Christmas Time, Somebody Kill Me, and there is a later scene called “Susan’s Imagination” with exclamatory prosaic expressions of mundane feelings such as disgust interrupting the sung material. The work pushes all the “today” buttons it can, with words about erectile dysfunction, suicide attempts and various concerns of the moment, some set to music and some delivered in prose (and prosaically). The singers do their best with what is given to them, and much of the music is in fact quite listenable – although some material is self-consciously modernistic. The audience heard in this live recording is clearly appreciative of everything happening on stage, and very much in tune (so to speak) with the formulaic progress of the story (the unkindness in “Sue’s Old Age Home” would be politically incorrect if applied to so-called “protected” groups, which aging people clearly are not as far as Bond and Jackson are concerned). In a visual presentation – say, as a DVD – Complications in Sue would likely be more effective than it is on an audio-only basis. It certainly merits a (+++) rating and an A for effort, specifically its effort to find new ways to reach out to audiences in a more-or-less operatic manner. And for the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University, it is certainly an intriguing experiment and a worthwhile project. As a piece of theater shorn of its visual trappings, however, it is not especially convincing and not likely to be a work to which listeners uninvolved in its creation are likely to return. There is no there there, as Gertrude Stein commented in a very different context – although her libretto for Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts possesses insouciance and verbal attractiveness to which nothing in Complications in Sue ever comes close.

(++++) FOURSOMES

Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6; Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartet; Juri Seo: river at the end of the mind. Esmé Quartet (Wonhee Bae and Yuna Ha, violins; Dimitri Murrath, viola; Yeeun Heo, cello). Alpha. $20.99. 

Music for Trombone Quartet by Jorge Variego, Eve Beglarian, Brooks Frederickson, Cole Bartels, and Alec Love. Beltline Bones (Cole Bartels, Justin Coyne, and Zach Bethel, tenor trombones; Adam Nissenbaum, bass trombone). New Focus Recordings. $20.99. 

     The development of the string quartet is one of many things that the music world owes to the perennial innovator Haydn, who created the scherzo movement along the way. And even while Haydn was producing his 68 quartets, other composers were expanding the emotional compass of the form and experimenting with ways to increase its expressivity. Mendelssohn, who was born the year Haydn died, created six numbered quartets plus an early one in E-flat – the key in which his beloved older sister, Fanny, wrote her only quartet. The ties between Felix and Fanny were exceptionally deep and continue to be thoroughly explored biographically – and their musical ties were profound as well. The Esmé Quartet tries to emphasize both the siblings’ personal and musical relationships through a new Alpha recording, and if the conception is a bit forced – made more so by the inclusion of a new work by Juri Seo (born 1981) and a CD given the title Nui, a Korean word for “sister” – the actual musical performances are thoroughly convincing and make a fine case for all three pieces on the disc. Felix Mendelssohn’s sixth quartet, in F minor, is a great yawp of despair responding to Fanny’s death from a stroke in May 1847. The outer movements, in particular, are a blend of beauty and anguish unmatched anywhere else in Felix’s music, and the quartet is his final completed work – presaging (at least in retrospect) his own death only five months after Fanny’s. Again and again the quartet strives for the lyricism that seemed to flow so effortlessly from Felix at other times, and again and again its flow gives way to somber exclamations of pain. The many tremolos of the first movement have a feeling of shivering about them, and the second movement’s syncopations have a clocklike sense as if indicating the inexorable passage of time (toward death; again, at least retrospectively). What the Esmé Quartet does so well with this music is to allow it to flow, even overflow, emotionally, while not pushing it even further than it already goes: the performers retain a sense of control of the flow and design, no mean feat in a work in which the very structure of classical form, and of the string quartet in particular, seems to disintegrate. The players allow the lovely third movement to come across as the quartet’s only attempt at calm, or at least resignation, before plunging back into the deep darkness of the finale, a movement so much without consolation that Mendelssohn, a master of thematic design, here comes up only with fragmentary material that never fully develops into any theme at all. It is very difficult to couple this strong and strange quartet with anything else – it is in fact barely perceptible as “Mendelssohnian” – so mixing it with Fanny’s 1834 quartet is certainly as good a pairing as any. Fanny’s work – heavily influenced by Felix’s approach at the time and incorporating many suggestions that he made to her to overcome her reluctance to write for strings – actually has particular interest of its own: its first movement is marked Adagio ma non troppo and has the sense of a poignant, rather melancholic fantasia. It is in no way anticipatory of Felix’s No. 6, but, in the context of a recording, it does show elements of sensitivity and emotional depth that complement Felix’s work reasonably well. Indeed, Fanny’s quartet is unusually reflective: in addition to its thoughtful first movement, it has a third-movement Romanze filled with a sense of resignation. The two more-pensive movements mix rather uneasily with a brightly skittering second movement, which sounds a great deal like something by Felix, and a rather prosaic finale that changes the entire mostly thoughtful mood of the earlier movements into a conventional-sounding contrast and wrapup. A bit more ebullience and sense of joy would fit this movement better than the forthright approach of the Esmé Quartet, which only underlines the straightforwardness of the movement itself. However, the darker elements of Fanny’s quartet come through well enough to make the overall performance a worthy one despite the somewhat disappointing handling of the finale. Fanny’s quartet is placed first on the disc and is separated from Felix’s by the Seo work, river at the end of time (titled without capitals in a common contemporary-composer affectation). This is a mostly slow-moving piece, rooted in a Korean folk song. More pretty than profound, it has some nice instrumental touches (with especially sensitive use of pizzicato) but emotionally is surface-level throughout. Its louder and speedier central section, which provides some respite from its otherwise monochromatic mood, soon subsides toward an inevitable quiet conclusion that evaporates rather than concludes. Placing this piece with the two Mendelssohns’ is more a matter of the performers’ social commitment – and their interest in recording works they commission – than one involving musically solid decision-making. But if the Seo work adds little to the disc, it takes nothing away from it, and the sensitive playing of the Esmé Quartet’s members serves Seo as well as it serves Fanny and Felix. 

     Haydn could scarcely have anticipated the future developments accorded to the string quartet – much less the creation of four-instrument ensembles not involving strings at all. Contemporary predilections for aural experimentation have led to a proliferation of unusual instrumental groupings in the 21^st century, one such being the four-trombone ensemble called Beltline Bones (a suitably avant-gardish name) created in 2021. In a new recording, the group highlights some works it has commissioned – commissions obviating the necessity of transcribing non-trombone music for a trombone quartet, an awkward concept at best that may well put fanciers of the Hoffnung Festival concerts in mind of the presentation there of an arrangement of a Chopin mazurka for four tubas. The five composers whose works appear on a New Focus Recordings release – one of them being Beltline Bones leader Cole Bartels – all have trombones and modern electroacoustics in mind in their pieces. Two of the six works on the CD are by Eve Beglarian. Wet Psalm is actually a primarily vocal piece, in which Bible readings are interrupted/accentuated (depending on your viewpoint) by choral shouts and zither-like sounds mingle with those of the violin (played by Matheus Garcia Souz) and the trombones. Pump Music mixes field recordings of pumps and flowing water with instrumental interjections and underlinings. Jorge Variego’s Ocho, mostly chordal, incorporates vocal elements and, eventually, a kind of vocalise. Brooks Frederickson’s I was thinking about the buffalo is the exception on this disc to the “no arrangements of string quartet music” approach: it was originally written for strings and is here arranged by Bartels for trombones. Intended to reflect the world of Star Trek, it will have a meaningful connection only for fans of that series who understand that the piece’s title relates to the series’ finale. Alec Love’s Technological Eclipse also has a fantasy/SF tie-in, or sounds as if it does, incorporating the sorts of instrumental and electronic effects frequently used in genre productions into a soundworld also permeated by voices – computer-generated ones. Midway through the CD, in the midst of all these works appears Bartels’ own, Stella eats her breakfast, at three minutes the shortest piece on a disc that itself is quite short (41 minutes). Based on the sound effects in this work, Stella appears to be a cat, and the trombones comment rather entertainingly on her feeding time and, eventually, her satisfied postprandial nap. The humor of Bartels’ work is noticeably absent in the other music on this (+++) CD, which is a shame, since trombones’ ability to produce a multiplicity of moods (from the sacred to the outright funny) is an element of their communicative potential. This disc is clearly intended only for audiences enamored of typical contemporary mixings of acoustic instruments with electronic alterations (which are not necessarily enhancements, although often described with that word). It is less an exploration of quartet capabilities than a chance to hear how the four-instrument format can be adapted to various up-to-date if no longer unusual compositional methods and the sounds they produce.

(++++) NATURALLY CONNECTED

The Magnificent Banyan and the Green Tong Lau. By Stephanie Ellen Sy. Illustrated by Ishita Jain. Kokila. $18.99. 

     Understanding starts with the title: exotic-sounding to Western children, clear and straightforward to those from (or familiar with) Hong Kong. A tong lau is essentially a tenement building, a mixed-use structure with shops at the bottom and living quarters above – a common enough arrangement worldwide, but not one known everywhere by this name. This tong lau just happens to be green – a nod to the “nature” focus of the book. And the everyday activities of the residents of the tong lau are, like the structure itself, common in country after country. But again, the specifics differ: different games are played indoors and outside, different prayers are offered, different groups are gathered for different purposes. The gatherings and games of children, however, are much the same everywhere. And so is the determined resilience of nature, especially when given a small boost from small humans. 

     Banyan trees are an example of determination as well – certainly the one in Stephanie Ellen Sy’s book is – but they are also an example of the uncaring nature of Nature. They are a form of strangler fig, which means they generally root and grow by slowly and inexorably destroying a host tree: they are, in effect if not in a formal biological sense, parasites. However, banyans themselves are so impressive in appearance that their life cycle tends to be ignored. Certainly it is in Sy’s book, where the banyan of the title begins life not by invading an existing tree but as a seed dropped by a bird into a crevice in the tong lau. Nobody notices; indeed, parenthetical comments along the lines of (“Nobody noticed”) are an important element of Sy’s narrative. The early part of the book depicts the banyan growing along and beside and in a sense within the tong lau, while the human inhabitants go about their daily lives – including, for three specific humans named Nick, Leon and Kitty, “running and sliding on the rooftop,” where the building has a combination playground, clothes-drying area and place for potted plants. 

     The banyan goes about its ever-quiet growth in text charmingly laid out to reflect the action – for example, the phrase “Down, down, down crept a spindly root” moves down the page on which it appears. And speaking of charm, Ishita Jain’s illustrations practically ooze it: they are beautiful watercolors that manage to give the book a fairy-tale atmosphere while also doing a wonderful job of depicting, realistically, the birds and squirrels and other wildlife that interact with the banyan. Humans interact with it, too, but that relationship is a more troubled one – and provides what conflict there is in this essentially conflict-free celebration of the intersection of the natural world with that of human life. What happens is that the banyan tree grows to a huge size – a truly lovely Jain illustration, so large that readers must rotate the book 90° to see it, shows it even taller than the entire tong lau. However, what was formerly unobtrusive has now become intrusive for many of the adults in the building, blocking the sky and muffling residents’ songs and generally interfering with the small routines and pleasantries of daily life. The grown-ups – identified only as “the Grandpa,” “the Uncles” and so forth, thus having less individuation than the three children – decide that the tree must come down so everything can return to its prior placidity. The children, however, have become used to playing in and around the tree, and each time the grown-ups appear with implements to cut the banyan, the kids give them a reason not to do so. It provides shade on a hot day, the children point out, and the hot and uncomfortable adults see that that is true, so everyone sits under the tree and has a picnic. Again and again the kids point out the good things the banyan does, until one night the area is hit by a typhoon that “howled like a hungry ghost” and seemed bent on destroying the entire tong lau. But Sy writes that the banyan wrapped its branches around the building – Jain’s illustration makes it seem to do so almost intentionally – and “tamed the typhoon’s fury,” winning over the Aunties, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncles and giving adults, kids and tree the recipe for continuing coexistence amid mutual admiration and appreciation. 

     Sy’s story is based on an actual banyan tree in the heart of Hong Kong, but nothing here is presented as fact or history lesson or even almost-reality, except for the underlying truth – never stated explicitly – that human coexistence with nature is better for humans and nature alike than any attempt by people to direct, control and take power from the natural world. Yes, the message is simplistic, but after all, this is a picture book for young children, and what Sy teaches so delicately and Jain illustrates so winningly is that a cooperative mindset, a willingness to see the good in natural processes and not just the occasional inconvenience, is a positive attitude throughout life – and very definitely something worth cultivating.

(++++) TRIALS OF AN INNOVATOR

Field: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-7; Nocturnes Nos. 1-18; Sonatas Nos. 1-4; Rondo on Del Caro’s Hornpipe; Yearning Waltz; Variations on a Russian Folksong; Andante inédit. Paolo Restani, piano, with Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice conducted by Marco Guidarini; Tyler Hay, piano. Brilliant Classics. $43.99 (7 CDs). 

     John Field (1782-1837) was a man of multiple misfortunes, many of them self-inflicted. Musically, he had the misfortune to be born either too early or too late, depending on how one regards his style, which was more-or-less “proto-Romantic” and has led to his music sharing much the same neglect as that of Hummel (whom Field knew and with whom he performed in 1822). Field also had the misfortune to be highly influential, most famously through his development (sometimes wrongly considered the origination) of the piano nocturne, which Chopin raised to a level that quickly eclipsed Field’s. Chopin and other successors who drew on Field’s innovations tended to develop them to greater heights and thus to leave Field himself in their shadow. 

     Field also seems not to have been a particularly engaging or attractive human being, biographically speaking. Indolent, sloppy with record-keeping and inclined to avoid fulfilling agreements if he was not in the mood, he had the added misfortune of turning his back on the rising Germanic influence in music (especially disdaining most of Beethoven) and himself being a composer best described as Russo-Gaelic – an awkward combination of Field’s country of origin, Ireland, with the place in which he had his greatest successes that, for a time, made him quite well-to-do (a situation that did not last). 

     Field got to Russia through the not-so-good offices of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), another musically transitional figure, whose main interest was not composition but the manufacture and sale of pianos – with Field being his student and later, for a time, through his performances, an effective salesman of the instruments. The notoriously miserly Clementi, considered a skinflint both in his own time and subsequently, almost abandoned Field before the two travelers reached Russia, but relented enough to get Field set up there, albeit in something close to abject poverty. The men nevertheless retained a rather uneasy alliance over time, with Field dedicating his Piano Concerto No. 3 to Clementi and eventually serving as a pallbearer at Clementi’s funeral. 

     The extent to which Field’s music deserves to be rescued from obscurity has been debatable for years, and it is a real pleasure for listeners to have a chance to judge it for themselves through a very fine Brilliant Classics release of all the Field piano concertos and nocturnes, plus some solo-piano miscellany. The concertos are handled very ably indeed by Paolo Restani and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice under Marco Guidarini, in performances dating to the 2007-2008 time frame. It should be noted at the outset that these are not historically informed readings: in particular, the use of a Steinway Model D, the model most favored by so many contemporary pianists, is a poor choice for Field’s concertos – a six-octave Clementi instrument would serve the music much better in terms of the balance between soloist and ensemble, which is distinctly overweighted toward the piano in these performances. The actual playing here, though, is very effective even if it is not idiomatic. Field’s concertos manage to sound post-Mozartean without being fully in the Romantic (much less Beethovenian) idiom, and they are all very noticeably front-weighted. In Nos. 1 and 3 (the second to be written), the first movement is almost as long as the second and third put together; in Nos. 2 and 4, the first movement is longer than the other two together; and in Nos. 5 and 6, the first movement is almost twice as long as the others combined. (No. 7 is in only two movements; and No. 3, originally also written in two, has for many years – including in this recording – had a version of Field’s Nocturne No. 2 interpolated as a slow movement.) There is more a sense of musical extension than of genuine grandeur in the very long, frequently discursive opening movements, portions of which tend to meander here and there; but the piano writing is very effective throughout, and the concertos have decidedly different characters. Most are comparatively upbeat except for well-planned but generally short lyrical sections and brief slow movements. Only No. 7 is in a minor key (C minor). Nos. 1, 3 and 4 are in E-flat; Nos. 5 and 6 are in C; and No. 2 (written third) is in A-flat. The oddest is No. 5, written by Field as a can-you-top-this response to a very popular 1799 concerto by Daniel Gottlieb Steibelt (1765-1823), with whom Field had a rather friendly rivalry. Steibelt’s concerto, his third, featured a movement called L’orage (“The Storm”), whose tone-painting Field decided to outdo: his No. 5, L’Incendie par l’Orage (“The Fire Caused by the Storm”) goes well beyond Steibelt. All three movements of Field’s concerto are in C; the first features thunder (possibly influenced by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6) and then highly melodramatic sound effects that climax with a crash on the tam-tam – an instrument never before used in a piano concerto and not to reappear until the time of Ravel and Gershwin. 

     Field’s concertos are best heard one at a time rather than in a group: Restani’s generally light touch helps make up for the over-sonorous piano, but the works’ effect comes through better when each is listened to on its own. And there are some occasions, such as the piano’s first entry in No. 3, when Restani cannot resist the impulse to make full use of the Steinway’s power – to the music’s detriment. This release does provide a pleasant way to immerse oneself in Field without feeling the need to listen to concerto after concerto: indulge in between the piano-and-orchestra works in some listening to ones for piano solo. These are played by Tyler Hay and were recorded more recently: the Nocturnes in 2023 and the remaining solo-piano works in 2025. Heard on their own and without invidious comparisons with Chopin’s, Field’s Nocturnes are very enjoyable character pieces, a bit beyond “salon music” and laced with delicacy, expressive lyricism and captivating charm. Ranging in length from two minutes to 11, they are harmonically refined, thoroughly expressive, and captivating in their individual focuses on drifting dreams and mild melancholy. Hay plays them without fussiness and without overdoing their mostly surface-level (if sincere) emotive communication, producing a sense of soothing sound that makes it easy to see why these works so attracted not only Chopin but also Liszt and many others. 

     The seventh CD in this collection is best regarded as miscellany or an appendix. Field’s four piano sonatas, three written for his then-teacher Clementi and the fourth a decade later but with essentially the same approach, are two-movement works that come across as being études or sonatinas rather than larger, full-scale sonatas. Four small musical palate cleansers are scattered among the sonatas here. Rondo on Del Caro’s Hornpipe is an unusual-for-Field engagement with Irish music and a suitable encore for any Field recital. Variations on a Russian Folksong brings in the other side of Field’s musical personality, transforming a melancholic tune into something genuinely poetic. And the Yearning Waltz and Andante inédit are unashamed salon pieces: pleasant, short (the waltz lasts barely 90 seconds), enjoyable miniatures of no great consequence. As for whether or not Field himself was or was not a consequential composer: this very extensive collation of his major works, and some minor ones, provides ample opportunity for listeners to engage with his musical worldview and make up their own minds about an apt place for him in the compositional firmament.