(+++) ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

Ned and the Great Garden Hamster Race. By Kim Hillyard. Penguin Workshop. $14.99.

     Lest there be any doubt about the real topic of this book, the front cover – beneath the title but in very clear and bright letters – proclaims Ned and the Great Garden Hamster Race to be “A Story about Kindness.” That is, it is not about any sort of race – not really. And not about hamsters – not really. Not even cartoon hamsters – no, not really. Aimed as it is at the youngest readers and even pre-readers, Kim Hillyard’s book is first and foremost a teaching/advocacy tool, with the author using the trappings of a supposed competitive event to demonstrate good reasons not to be competitive.

     This is a trifle strange, and adults reading the book with or to young kids may think the setup does not quite work. But children will likely enjoy the tale of six cartoon hamsters of varied appearance competing in a race and then not competing in a race – that being Hillyard’s whole point.

     “Hamsters from all over the world have come to take part” in the competition, Hillyard writes, showing five that are different from each other and also from Ned, who looks the most like an actual hamster (a cartoon one, anyway). The race appears to be a big Olympic-style deal, drawing worldwide competitors and causing Ned himself to have been in training for who-knows-how-long. And when the race starts, well-trained Ned speeds to the front of the pack and continues zipping along even when a nearby slug comments on being lost, some pigeons say they are hungry, and someone-or-something calls for help after falling into a hole. Competitive spirit dominates! Until – well, Ned himself gets stuck, and a very toothy fox suddenly appears; but luckily it turns out that “this is not a hamster-eating fox!” The fox helps Ned and gives him a small flower, which Ned looks at thoughtfully. And then he abandons the Olympic-style race for which he has trained long and hard, and goes back to the critters that need help: he rescues what turns out to be a rabbit from the hole, brings carrot sandwiches to the pigeons (no idea where he found those, unless the rabbit supplied them), and escorts the slug to her slug family.

     Then, and only then, Ned resumes the race – even though it is now dark and things have obviously been wrapped up a very long time ago. But no! Lo and behold, as Ned approaches the finish line, he finds all five other hamster racers waiting for him: they have not tried to help the rabbit, pigeons or slug (why not is unclear), but have waited patiently while Ned did all the helping. And all six competitors cross the finish line at the same time, united in the solidarity of helpfulness (well, sort of united: why didn’t the others help Ned help out?).

     Hillyard’s admirable intention here is to teach that kindness matters more than competitiveness, which is all well and good but may not be a lesson that adults should urge children to absorb in the context of sports, which by their very nature are designed to create winners and losers. Because the book targets such young children, its lapses of logic and use of a framing tale of sports cooperativeness will probably go unnoticed and unremarked by its intended audience. And kids really will enjoy the illustrations, in which all the different hamsters are roly-poly (each in its own way) and all have huge and appealing stares that make them seem wide-eyed with spirit (whether competitive or helpful). It is probably best for adults just to let things go if very young children accept this kindness lesson at face value, as Hillyard obviously hopes will be the case. But if a child is a bit older and a bit more experienced with competitive realities – that is, is in kindergarten or a later grade – adults should not be surprised to be told that participants do not stop competing in sports events to help other people, except in a genuine emergency (and not always then). The best that an adult faced with that observation can do at that point is probably to shrug and say, “Well, it’s just a story. And it really is nice to be kind and helpful.” That, after all, is this book’s foundational message.

(++++) THE PLUSES OF ZERO

Bruckner: Symphony No. 0. Altomonte Orchester St. Florian conducted by Rémy Ballot. Gramola. $24.99 (SACD).

     The peculiarity of the decade-long sequence in which Rémy Ballot’s Bruckner cycle was performed and released resulted in an open question regarding “Die Nullte,” the symphony often referred to as “No. 0” even though it was composed after No. 1. Ballot conducted one Bruckner symphony per year with the Altomonte Orchester St. Florian beginning in 2013, with the exception of 2020 – a pandemic-related interruption of the project. The resulting sequence was: No. 3, No. 8, No. 9, No. 6, No. 5, No. 7, No. 2, No. 4, and No. 1. That appeared to be the end of things, the releases concluding at the end of 2023, just in time for the Bruckner bicentennial. But it turns out that Ballot’s series was to include “No. 0” after all, with a performance from August 2023 now released by Gramola within the bicentennial year.

     This is a particularly welcome disc, since “No. 0” really does belong in the symphonic sequence even though the composer declared it “nullified” (but, interestingly, did not destroy it, as he did some other works he came to regard as unworthy). And Ballot, by approaching this D minor symphony in the same way as the nine numbered ones, clearly demonstrates its value within the group.

     Ballot’s handling of Bruckner has everywhere been broad, wide, majestic, and expansive, favoring slow tempos and massed sound that nevertheless offers clarity of middle voices and individual sections. “No. 0” is less affected by this approach than some others in the Ballot sequence: it runs 52 minutes, making it an outlier among recorded performances, but not by much – other conductors’ versions last from 42 to 48. But if the difference in timing is not substantial, the difference in feeling is. The immediate very slow pacing as the first movement begins creates a sound that is closer to that of the later symphonies. The work’s very opening is not so much a theme as a pulse – one reason Bruckner, after being criticized on that very basis, turned his back on the symphony. Under Ballot’s direction, though, the opening has the effect of establishing an environment, after which the lyrical thematic material that follows flows particularly well. True, the pacing eventually becomes glacial midway through the movement, sounding more like Impressionistic scene-painting than symphonic structure. But just after the sense of cloudlike meandering slows everything to a near-halt, Ballot picks matters up nicely and builds the succeeding section, just prior to the recapitulation, with power as well as beauty. The orchestral playing is first-rate throughout, with the movement’s conclusion featuring especially impressive brass and timpani.

     The second movement is warm and sweet, featuring more scenic elements. At the start it is not really Andante, as marked, but closer to Adagio. Here the strings excel in mood-setting and their fullness is highly welcome. The pacing then picks up pleasantly, and woodwind touches are well-handled. The ebb and flow of sound is nicely managed: this movement is not deeply felt, being more pretty than profound, but Ballot finds plenty of sweetness and emotion in it. The evanescent strings near the end are quite moving in their quiet flow: Ballot has an especially good sense of the ending of the movement.

     For the third movement, Ballot opts for strong rhythms and a solidly quick pace. In fact, here he is speedier than several other conductors, proving, if proof were needed, that his generally slow pacing throughout his cycle flows from carefully conceptualizing every movement of every symphony. Ballot carefully distinguishes the Trio from the Scherzo: he looks for and finds lyrical beauties that tie Bruckner's thematic concepts and their working-out to the influence of Schubert. The finale has Schubertian elements, too. Ballot offers a gentle, warm start – indeed, the word “warm” consistently applies to this performance. But soon enough, after the trumpet call, the gentleness gives way to well-paced drama that accentuates the balance of the orchestra's various sections and delivers the themes with considerable clarity. The contrasting lyrical episodes, which are the elements of the movement directly reminiscent of Schubert, are given time to expand and evolve, but do not feel stagnant. The result is a finale that, despite being unlike Bruckner's later ones and more conventional in most ways (although the use of brass is distinctly "Brucknerian"), does a good job of capping the symphony – even if it does not exactly sum up what has come before. The result of Ballot’s obvious care for and engagement with “No. 0” is a performance that stands as an intelligent, sensitive, beautifully played, thoroughly thought-through conclusion to an excellent, if idiosyncratic, Bruckner cycle.

(++++) SEASONS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Mahler: Symphony No. 3. Jennifer Johnston, mezzo-soprano; Women of the Minnesota Chorale, Minnesota Boychoir, and Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. BIS. $42.99 (2 SACDs).

     The famous opening of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities contains not only the juxtaposition of the bright and the dark but also the remark that “it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” And that is a particularly apt, if reversed and oversimplified, way of looking at and listening to Mahler’s monumental emotional explorations in his Symphony No. 3. Performances that get to the heart of the feelings underlying the music by unfolding its structure with care and eloquence are always uplifting experiences. And the completion of Osmo Vänskä’s superb Mahler cycle – occurring after his departure from Minnesota, because of COVID-related scheduling issues – beautifully fulfills the promise of his earlier recordings.

     The excellence of this reading announces itself from the very beginning, as the eight horns ring out with tremendous clarity, as if with a call to arms. But then the music subsides into perfect, evocative silence: the SACD sound from BIS is excellent, and that includes lack of sound. Vänskä makes the movement’s procession almost funereal at first, but soon broadens the scope so it gives the impression that something enormous is awakening. Is it benign? Malign? Indifferent? An open question at this point. The brass is remarkably effective here, with Vänskä bringing out some midrange material that is not often clearly heard. The pace picks up after about six minutes, and the delicacy of the scoring becomes apparent: Vänskä highlights individual touches to excellent effect. Again and again the music subsides into quietude, seeming to contemplate where to go next; again and again, Vänskä pulls it forward into new realms that connect surprisingly seamlessly with ones already explored – while opening new vistas ahead. Getting the silences right is surprisingly important in Mahler, and in this enormous movement it is truly crucial – a fact that Vänskä clearly understands. Holding this massive movement together is an achievement for any conductor; granting it cohesiveness despite the ways in which it meanders is an even bigger accomplishment. The silken playing of the orchestra focuses listeners' attention throughout and produces a feeling of anticipation for what comes next. Vänskä allows each of the interwoven episodes of the movement full expressiveness while providing an effective overarching view of the music, which in this performance is on one level a self-contained tone poem (in this one way along the lines of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4) – but on another level, and at the same time, is a gigantic curtain-raiser for even more exploration and splendor still to come. The percussion use two-thirds of the way through is especially outstanding, actually carrying along the more-melodic instruments to the recapitulation of the opening – which thus makes perfect sense in this context. Vänskä gives the impression of taking his time throughout the movement, but the pacing is not actually slow: it is expansive, which is exactly what the movement requires for its full effect. The ending, partly as a result, is genuinely thrilling.

     The gentle simplicity and straightforward prettiness of the Tempo di Menuetto contrast strongly with the multifaceted complexity of the first movement. The pacing is essentially andante, walking pace, and the effect is of a pleasant and largely unchallenging stroll through nature, with some underlying yearning, although for what is not (yet) clear. Here Vänskä keeps all themes and sectional balance as clear as possible, and touches of special delicacy, such as the solo violin two-thirds of the way through, are handled effectively and with affection. Then the third movement brings a light and almost humorous rhythmic bounce, nicely paced to contrast with the second but never too fast. Much of the music seems to float placidly and lightly, but periodically there are contrasting full-orchestra passages whose dissonance is emphasized. Again Vänskä perfectly approaches the chamber-music-like touches of solo trumpet, solo violin, solo flute, and of course the posthorn – whose sound, although warm and beautiful, seems to come from a world different from that of the rest of the movement. The contrast of the solo posthorn with the massed French horns is particularly well done. The movement percolates toward its end with increasing disquiet that helps foreshadow the concerns of the fourth movement. The ability of the orchestra to play extremely quietly – individuals and sections alike – is especially noteworthy, producing an otherworldly sense of space and sound as the movement glides toward its emphatic but somewhat unsettled conclusion.

     The exemplary BIS sound shows its value throughout this recording, and no more aptly than in the extreme quiet of the beginning of the fourth movement, before Jennifer Johnston’s voice emerges as if from palpable darkness. Johnston sings with deep expressiveness and feeling, complemented by instrumental passages that skillfully underline and highlight Nietzsche's words, the emphasis on ewigkeit as fraught with meaning here as ewig will be much later in Mahler’s music, at the end of Das Lied von der Erde. After this, the contrasting brightness of the start of the fifth movement is immediate, but this movement’s words soon turn darker – despite the children's voices elevating the discourse. The verbal promise of heavenly joy seems less than certain because of Mahler’s contrast, skillfully put forth under Vänskä, between the words and the instruments underlying them. Thus, the concluding bell sounds raise hope, if not expectation. It is left to the profound sense of peace that Vänskä immediately evokes at the start of the final movement to pull the audience toward eternity and its joyous placidity. The pacing of this movement is key to its success, and Vänskä knows this, avoiding too broad an approach but keeping it at a slow enough speed to let all the beauties and subtleties of the orchestration emerge bit by bit, as if the petals of a gigantic flower are opening gradually to the sunshine of everlasting love. By the time the material from the first movement recurs, the emotional transformation through which the composer has taken listeners is complete, the evanescence of life now absorbed into eternity. What Mahler has done here musically is truly remarkable – and by the time of the monumental conclusion of the movement, what Vänskä has done to elucidate the composer's world-encompassing concept is so convincing that it cements Vänskä's Mahler cycle as one of the very best available anywhere.

(++++) SOUND THINKING

Brahms: Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ, Op. 122, orchestrated by Virgil Thomson; Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No. 2, orchestrated as “Black Swan for Orchestra” by Bright Sheng; Piano Quartet No. 1, orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg. Kansas City Symphony conducted by Michael Stern. Reference Recordings. $16.98.

Danny Elfman: Percussion Concerto; Wunderkammer; Are You Lost? Colin Currie, percussion; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Sony. $13.98.

     Brahms’ approach to orchestration was rich, even opulent, but his last works – although still suitably characterized as “autumnal,” an adjective often used of Brahms’ music – were solo or chamber pieces in which he deliberately eschewed massed sound in favor of clarity and his own version of delicacy. It may therefore seem like something of a fool’s errand to orchestrate some of those final Brahms works, but if so, there are some mighty fine foolish orchestrators out there, as a very unusual and very appealing Reference Recordings release shows. Its most striking element is Virgil Thomson’s orchestration of Brahms’ final, posthumously published Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ, created after the death of his longtime friend and apparently unrequited love, Clara Schumann, whom Brahms outlived by less than a year. The nine Lutheran chorales (No. 10 is an additional setting of No. 9 and No. 11 an additional setting of No. 3) are simply and elegantly presented as organ works, expressive without being over-decorated, emotive without wallowing. They are lovely – and are considerably more spiritual than might be expected of Brahms, who although baptized a Lutheran was a humanist/agnostic (and from whom Dvořák famously became estranged as a result). Whether it was Clara Schumann’s death, his own approaching end of life, or some other factor – or a combination of elements – that led him to these simple, beautifully evocative spiritual settings, the chorale preludes show a side of Brahms that is rarely to be heard elsewhere in his music. And Thomson, himself a fine (and underrated) composer, was technically careful and emotionally respectful when orchestrating the works in 1957-58. Michael Stern leads the Kansas City Symphony in a performance that mirrors the care brought to the orchestration by Thomson while also adhering to the underlying spirituality – which includes a degree of sadness – that is incorporated by Brahms into all 11 of these short works. Stern and the ensemble also produce a warm, caring performance of a Brahms orchestration that does not hew quite so closely to the composer’s original concept. It is Black Swan, an arrangement by Bright Sheng (born 1955) of another late Brahms work with a strong Clara Schumann connection: Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No. 2, which Brahms dedicated to her and which she in turn praised to the composer for its “wealth of sentiment.” By giving his orchestration its own title, Sheng indicates that he is doing more than simply adapting this piano piece for an ensemble. And indeed he takes the music a step beyond Brahms’ original, using sectional sounds to accentuate its passion, emotional heft and closing wistfulness. The underlying melodies and harmonies remain those of Brahms, but the more-expansive emotionalism of the piece – well-communicated under Stern’s direction – is Sheng’s contribution. Yet Sheng does not personalize this music to the extent that Arnold Schoenberg does Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1, a much earlier work (written in 1861, when Brahms was 28) that Schoenberg (1874-1951) adapted late in his own life, in 1937 (there is a Clara Schumann connection here as well: she was the pianist in the quartet’s first performance). Brahms’ chamber music often possesses symphonic qualities, so to some extent it is scarcely surprising that another composer would seek to bring them out. And Schoenberg, for all his fame (or notoriety) in twelvetone composition and atonality, had considerable respect for Brahms. But he was also very much steeped in his own compositional style, and his expansion (it is more than an orchestration) of this Brahms quartet makes that abundantly clear. Schoenberg insistently finds symphonic elements throughout the quartet – more than Brahms put into it, except perhaps by implication – and brings them out through his own considerable skill at orchestration and willingness to take the music well beyond Brahms’ own harmonic and expressive world. The adaptation is interestingly reflective of Schoenberg’s own creative production, which began with late-Romantic works before becoming famously acerbic and decidedly un-Romantic in sound and orientation. Schoenberg does not hesitate to update elements of Brahms’ sound world to his own – the percussion use in the finale is an especially clear example – nor does he feel obliged to adhere to Brahms’ own notions of harmony and balance. The result is a work that feels a bit like a pastiche, a bit like a tribute, a bit like a rethinking, and a bit like something altogether new. It is really not the Brahms quartet at all, despite being foundationally derived from it. But it is quite fascinating to hear and is often exceedingly cleverly structured – and it is presented with considerable verve, as well as understanding, by Stern and his very fine orchestra. The disc as a whole will perhaps be of greatest interest to listeners who already know Brahms’ own versions of the music – but even those who do not will find much to enjoy and explore here, although one would hope they would eventually seek out these pieces the way the composer himself conceptualized them.

     There is no question about either the concept or the presentation of the music of Danny Elfman (born 1953) on a new Sony CD, but there are certainly some surprises here. Elfman is known almost entirely as a film composer (he has written music for more than 100 movies) and singer/songwriter; his association with the concert hall is tenuous at best. This disc, however, shines a different and thoroughly engaging light on his work. In fact, listening to Elfman’s Percussion Concerto shortly after hearing Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 – especially that work’s finale – is quite an intriguing experience, the juxtaposition shining as much light on Elfman’s skills with percussive thinking as on Schoenberg’s. Elfman’s music is more overtly accessible than much of Schoenberg’s oeuvre, though, and the Percussion Concerto is nothing if not involving. It is a significant tour de force for Colin Currie, for whom it was written, and also requires JoAnn Falletta to put the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra through a considerable set of paces – which she and the ensemble manage with genuine panache. For all its performance complexity, the Percussion Concerto continually gives the impression that it is not to be taken overly seriously, at least not by the audience: it is fun above all, and Elfman’s skill at producing readily accessible, interestingly conceived music that may not be profound but is certainly listenable, is everywhere apparent. The concerto is in four movements: Triangle, which in the absence of three Curries requires three percussionists; DSCH, the initials of Dmitri Shostakovich, which that composer himself incorporated into many of his works and which Elfman uses to indicate a sort-of-tribute; Down, a slow meandering through more-extended harmonies than Elfman uses elsewhere; and Syncopate, which relieves any hint of auditory stress from the previous movement by splashing sound all over the place with a level of exhilaration that is thoroughly infectious. Complementing this unusual and appealing concerto on the CD is the world première recording of Wunderkammer, a word referring to a room filled with a random assortment of odd and appealing knickknacks. It turns out that the piece is more appealing than odd: here Elfman’s skill at film composition is everywhere apparent, with each of the three movements sounding as if it is accompanying some sort of unseen visualization – and the use of vocalise adds to that impression. Although not designated as a percussion concerto, this work certainly gives the percussion section a considerable and near-constant workout – although, to be fair, all the orchestral sections get pushed to extremes, not of subtlety but often of volume, as the piece progresses. There is nothing the slightest bit subtle about Wunderkammer: even its attractive central slow movement, although it provides respite from the hectic material that precedes it and largely avoids exclamatory percussion, offers the sort of straightforward emotion-weaving that is to be expected in music intended to underline the visuals of films. And the finale, unsurprisingly, offers the sort of noisily emphatic martial proclamations with which Elfman appears particularly comfortable – it is full of sound and fury even if it signifies, well, not very much. The CD does, however, conclude with a bit of a surprise: a song from Elfman’s Trio called Are You Lost? Although there is percussion here, it is comparatively downplayed in scoring that also includes women’s voices, piano and strings; and the piece (sung in French) is gentler and quieter than is usual in Elfman’s music. It is scarcely profound and certainly breaks no new musical ground – consonance, harmony and facile expression of easily perceived emotions are hallmarks of the work – but it is, all in all, somewhat less intense and insistent than the rest of the music on this disc. It is far from subtle or deep, but it at least ends the recording by providing some respite from material that, although salutary, is frequently a kind of aural assault – a pleasant and well-crafted one, to be sure, but scarcely an experience to which most listeners will want to subject themselves on an ongoing basis – although these Elfman works are certainly worth experiencing from time to time, perhaps in somewhat smaller doses than are provided by this all-Elfman recording.