(+++) WELL, HE TRIED

I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay. By Matthew Ferrence. West Virginia University Press. $21.99.

     Self-congratulatory memoirs are scarcely unusual; indeed, they are the norm in this type of writing, for which the desire for self-congratulation appears to be a significant stimulus. And politics is pretty much always silly season, although some seasons are sillier than others. So a memoir that asserts itself as not being self-congratulatory and that sounds from its title as if it is going to take a lighthearted view of American political culture seems to have the potential to be a breath of fresh air (to trot out a suitable cliché) both autobiographically and politically.

     No such luck. In Matthew Ferrence’s I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me, the author flaunts his superiority by declaring that he’s not, you know, really superior, just, you know, different, but in a really good way. The book is built around Ferrence’s experience as a losing Pennsylvania House of Representatives candidate in 2020, in a rural district registered some 60% Republican and some 40% Democratic, in which Ferrence is shocked, shocked, to find that he gets about 35% of the vote while the long-serving Republican incumbent gets about 65%.

     Ferrence, a university professor and self-avowed progressive, uses his book primarily to trot out the same tired old bona fides beloved of his political cohorts and anathema to his political opponents. Nothing wrong with that – politicians, including would-be ones, do that all the time – but the sanctimoniousness of Ferrence’s proclamatory prose may be less than engaging even for those who happen to believe, to a considerable extent, in the same things he does. “The high road is a laudable goal, but it’s also a losing strategy when you’re getting bulldozed. …If you’re a rural Democrat, whether progressive or not, you are forced to vote for Democrats who don’t care about you. Republicans, in turn, hate you because you are a Democrat. So you’re left with a decision between casual disdain and active loathing.” Gosh, how could voters not choose Ferrence for office when he so clearly articulates such uplifting thoughts?

     The specificity of Ferrence’s politically charged (and, let’s face it, strikingly unoriginal) comments on Democrats and Republicans does not fully bring out his passion, however. That comes into full view when he gets to wax philosophical about politics and life and all that stuff: “I’m getting to a point here about migrations and flow and the legality of existence and the indignity of nativist claims and the collapse of politics into what we know is a ridiculous racism-driven discourse of ‘border issues.’ …Much of this relates to home, definitions of it, who gets to claim it, and how the structures of politics are just one of many ways to alienate human beings from places where they might choose to make a life.” Wow, what a clear and voter-focused platform to run on! Again, how could people not choose to support it?

     Yet none of these comments is as strongly felt as what Ferrence has to say about poetry, which he abundantly and clearly asserts to be the highest good, not only by comparison with politics but also when compared to – well, pretty much anything else. “Poetry again, also the disdain of it, how declarations against poetry are declarations against the hope of a different, better, flourishing future. …Declarations against poetry echo as a marker of everything wrong with the philosophies of abandonment that shape our days in rural America. Austerity hates poetry, because poetry refuses the austere.” Leaving aside that arguable final sentence (T.S. Eliot, anyone?), it is difficult to remember the last time “declarations against poetry” were germane to a political campaign. Well, all right, not that difficult: Ferrence’s opponent, Bradley Roae, had mocked college students studying “poetry or another pre-Walmart major,” and this clearly raised Ferrence’s hackles, and the result was – well, among other things, I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me.

     Really, though, the anti-poetry quip (it scarcely qualifies as a broadside) is such a small matter, so deeply irrelevant to the everyday lives of the Crawford County constituents of Pennsylvania’s District 6, that it seems the height of elitism to make it foundational first to a political campaign and then to a book ostensibly about a political campaign – but really about the wonderfulness of progressive thinking (whatever that means) in areas usually deemed to be solidly conservative (whatever that means). Memoirs are often monumentally boring in the self-adulation of their creators, who proclaim themselves to have sprung Athena-like from the forehead of Zeus with their inevitably superior knowledge, understanding and even experience ready-made for the edification of the mere mortals who only get to read about their wonderfulness. Effective memoirs, non-self-celebratory ones from which readers may actually learn something, tend to be modest and filled with exploration and failure and learning gleaned from difficulties in life to which readers may themselves relate even if their personal circumstances differ significantly from those of the author. Does Ferrence say in I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me that he learned anything usefully communicable from his failed campaign? Well, he says that it is “easy to fall into the trap of thinking that politics somehow matters, and by that I mean the power, and ideology, and polling, and thinking that being a Democrat or a Republican matters in some fundamental way.” And he adds that he favors “self-immolation as an act of political defiance.” And for anybody who deems those thoughts useful and revelatory, perhaps Ferrence will be willing to make himself available as a campaign consultant.

(++++) CHANGES IN THE CHAMBER

Boccherini: Chamber Works for Flute. Sally Walker, flute; Elizabeth Layton and Alison Rayner, violins; Stephen King, viola; Thomas Marlon, cello; Celia Craig, oboe; Sarah Barrett, horn; Mark Gaydon, bassoon; Robert Nairn, double bass. AVIE. $19.99 (2 CDs).

Classical String Trios, Volume 4—Music by Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Simon Leduc (l’Ainé), Boccherini, and Joseph Schmitt. The Vivaldi Project (Elizabeth Field, violin; Allison Edberg Nyquist, violin and viola; Stephanie Vial, cello). MSR Classics. $14.95.

Richard Cameron-Wolfe: Chamber Works. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

     The primary characteristic of chamber music, for many centuries, was intimacy: works for small ensembles were sometimes intended as unobtrusive indoor or outdoor background music, sometimes planned as meaningful ways to engage listeners located in a suitably small indoor listening area, and always designed to provide a more-intimate experience than works for larger instrumental groups offered. The mostly quiet beauty of well-made chamber music is as engaging today as it must have been when created centuries ago, as is clear from the excellent performances of flute-focused chamber works by Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) on a new AVIE recording. There are eight works in all on this two-CD set, seven by Boccherini and one attributed to him and sharing the charm and poise of those known to be genuine. The primary material here consists of six two-movement Quintetti, Op. 19. They are for flute, two violins, viola, and cello, and give considerable prominence to the flute and somewhat lesser but still noticeable material to the cello, which was Boccherini’s own instrument and which he may well have played in these pieces when the works were new (they date to 1774). The quintets skillfully progress through five different keys: E-flat, G minor, C, D, B-flat, and again D. Sally Walker is the central performer of these works, or at least the one highlighted in the recording, but in fact the works’ poise and balance mean that even when the flute is quite prominent, the remaining instruments have quite an important role to play – the cello’s being a bit more significant than that of the others, especially in Nos. 3 and 4, where Thomas Marlin is called on for considerable virtuosity and produces it in fine period style and with considerable panache. Unsurprisingly, the most dramatic of these generally easygoing pieces is No. 2, whose minor key gives it more darkness and weight than the other pieces receive, particularly in the first movement – although this is certainly nothing close to the intensity that Mozart brought to the same key in the same time period (Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 dates to 1773). The last of these pieces, No. 6, is called Las parejas (“The Couples”) and opens particularly interestingly, with each string instrument playing in octaves. All the performers handle the inherently cooperative nature of chamber music of this time period with sensitivity and skill, blending well as an ensemble and standing out whenever a single instrument is given a brief opportunity to shine – the only extensive such opportunities, however, being reserved for the flute and cello. Boccherini’s skill in chamber music including flute also shows clearly in the so-called Sestetto primo for flute, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, and double bass – an intriguing work taken from a set called Sei Notturni (two of them unfortunately now lost). This is a three-movement piece in E-flat that is notable for the exceptionally careful balance that Boccherini brings to the three winds against the three strings, all the while maintaining the flute’s prominence. The second movement, Allegro ma non presto, is a real charmer. This thoroughly engaging release concludes with a Quintetto for flute, oboe, violin, viola, and cello that is of uncertain provenance but attributed to Boccherini. Whatever its origin, it is a work that certainly shares the charms and delicacies of the other pieces offered here, and it brings out the same level of cooperative skill that the performers confer upon the rest of these unusually pleasant pieces.

     Boccherini’s music also stands out in the fourth MSR Classics collection of delightful performances of delightful trios from the 18^th century, courtesy of the period-instrument ensemble The Vivaldi Project. Although Boccherini’s Trio in C minor, Op. 4, No. 2 lasts just 14 minutes, it is the longest of the seven pieces on the disc – an indication of the modest scale of all the discoveries and rediscoveries here. As in several of his works including flute, Boccherini here offers a nominally balanced piece that in fact tilts heavily (or rather, in terms of the pleasant nature of the music, lightly) toward the cello, which dominates through much of the three-movement work and helps emphasize its dark but scarcely gloomy minor-key character: this is one of a set of six trios and the only one written in the minor. Interestingly, minor-key material is more prominent on this CD than on the prior ones, making the disc somewhat more thoughtful (if not really darker) than the three previous volumes. F minor is the most-heard key here, being the home key of the two-movement Sonata, Op. 1, No. 6 by Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen (1745-1818) and the three-movement Trio, Op. 5, No. 6 by Simon Leduc (1742-1777), whose name also appears as Le Duc and who is somewhat confusingly known as “l’Ainé” (the old) to distinguish him from his younger brother, Pierre (“le Jeune,” the young). In addition, F minor is the key of the rather melancholy Trio in the second movement of the unusually serious two-movement Sonata, B. 40 by Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782). Although none of these composers plumbs any significant depths in these generally pleasant (even when darker-hued) works, the minor-key material does nicely balance the still-dominant brighter and lighter material in the major that dominates here as in The Vivaldi Project’s first three CDs. The balance is especially interesting in the music of Sirmen, some of which the performers also offered in Volume 3. Here Sirmen provides the bookends for the recording, with her F minor work opening the CD and a more-substantial and especially well-balanced three-movement Trio in B-flat closing it. The attentive and historically informed handling of all the music is a major strength of this disc, as of the previous entries in the series. Interestingly, a three-movement Divertimento in G, H.V:20, by Haydn, fits quite neatly into this set of works by lesser and/or less-known composers: Haydn here proves, yet again, how adept he was at crafting perfectly poised and beautifully balanced material for specific instrumental groups without overdoing either technique or emotional content. All the pieces on this CD were created from the 1750s to the 1770s, with the latest being the three-movement Trio in G, Op. 11, No. 3 by Joseph Schmitt (1734-1791). This dates to 1778 and shares the charm and easy elegance of the other pieces heard here without in any way advancing the form of the string trio or trying to make it any more (or less) expressive. The Vivaldi Project’s always-assured performances make all these Classical-era trifles a joy to hear, and if nothing on the disc is a substantial piece, neither is anything unworthy of being rediscovered and played again and again.

     In the 21^st century, chamber music is often considerably more ambitious than it was in the 18^th, and is only rarely created as any sort of “background” material. Today’s composers tend to use reduced-size ensembles to make specific points that they feel are better communicated with fewer performers. Richard Cameron-Wolfe (born 1943), for example, creates some chamber works for only one performer, but expects that individual to assume multiple roles. A New Focus Recordings release of Cameron-Wolfe’s chamber music leads off with just such a piece: Heretic, which the composer labels a “micro-opera” in which he collaborates with a visual artist, videographer and writer. This type of piece lasts five to 15 minutes and is designed to be staged in a small space, which certainly echoes the “chamber” part of “chamber music.” But the effect of a piece such as Heretic is quite different from that of more-traditional chamber music. Marc Wolf performs it as narrator, vocal artist, guitar player and percussionist, and even without the visual element – inevitably absent in CD form – it is clear that this is intended as a dramatic play with music, using wordless effects as well as spoken text along with the instrumental material. The CD contains another “micro-opera” called Lonesome Dove: a True Story, featuring Geoff Landman on tenor saxophone and Umber Qureshi as the “watcher,” a role invisible in this recording but clearly integral to the bird-observing experience that Cameron-Wolfe seeks to illustrate both visually and with the usual techniques of avant-garde musical production. Virtually all the works on this (+++) recording have theatrical elements. Time Retracted for cello and piano was designed for dancers. Mirage d’esprit for guitar quartet uses microtonal tuning and requires technique that would be highly watchable in performance. O minstrel for soprano and guitar is part of a chamber cantata and is unusually attentive to the text for a work in strongly contemporary guise. Telesthesia: 13 episodes/deliberations on multi-planar syzygy for cello quartet is one of those deliberately over-titled pieces whose overstuffed name is attached to some surprisingly moving string writing – the piece is a memorial written after the death of a friend of the composer. Kyrie(Mantra)IV is another of those overdone-title works so common in the oeuvre of many modern composers, and features flute-and-guitar scoring that gives the constant impression of electronic amplification even when none is present. And Passionate Geometries for soprano, flute, guitar, and cello, using a text by Cameron-Wolfe himself, rather unconvincingly attempts to explore the mind of an angst-ridden poet with writer’s block – a cliché if there ever was one. Cameron-Wolfe’s insistent theatricality is more distinctive than any specific compositional style in these pieces, which collectively and individually blend into a kind of modernistic assemblage that is similar to the work of many other composers who may wish to be forward-looking but who effectively merely look askance at the traditions of chamber-music creation and performance without really expanding them in any meaningful way.

(++++) THE BOOK’S THE THING

Bookie & Cookie. By Blanca Gómez. Rocky Pond Books. $18.99.

     An absolutely delightful, very cleverly conceived and well-executed story with a simple message so charmingly and engagingly presented that it will make a much bigger impression than more-preachy books on the same topic, Bookie & Cookie is all about two characters in, yes, a book. In fact, Bookie gets his name from the fact that he lives on a book page filed with books, while Cookie gets his from the fact that he lives on a page filled with ingredients for creating, yes, cookies. And as if that is not already clever enough, Blanca Gómez builds the whole story around the two characters’ predilections and living spaces – using those to create conflict that is then resolved using those same predispositions. And it is all done with thoroughly charming illustrations and a perfectly paced explanatory narrative that will captivate the target audience of kids ages 3-7 – and any adults lucky enough to be reading the book with them.

     Gómez presents a world in which Bookie, who lives on the left-hand pages of the book, always visits his best friend, Cookie, on the right-hand pages where he lives. The problem crops up when Bookie invites Cookie to his left-hand-page home, and Cookie refuses to come because everything is fine just the way it is and he simply knows he would not enjoy going somewhere new. The result: estrangement between the best friends – who quickly discover that lots of things they used to do together are no fun to do alone. The point here is not a right-or-wrong issue but the fact that both the friends are unhappy about their mutual separation, but neither can quite figure out how to get past their argument and go back to being best buddies again.

     Gómez handles the characters’ separation perfectly, showing Bookie crying despite being in a comfy left-hand-page chair and surrounded by books, while Cookie is frowning unhappily as he sweeps up some cookie crumbs on the right-hand-page. Then Cookie has an idea: he will make cookies and entice Bookie back to the right! In fact, Cookie leans all the way into the middle of the book to invite Bookie to come have just-baked cookies. But this does not work, since Bookie – who walks into the spine of the book, getting as close to the right-hand page as possible without actually going there – insists that Cookie bring the sweet treats over to the left-hand page. So Cookie’s plan to reunite fails – but now Bookie has an idea, grabbing one of his books, which is full of cookie recipes, and deciding that he will make cookies. And he does, bringing them right to the center of the book, between the two pages, and inviting Cookie to try one even though “you don’t like what you don’t know” (the excuse Cookie had used to avoid visiting Bookie on the left-hand page). That does it! Cookie walks past the spine of the book onto the left-hand page, where Bookie has placed the plate of freshly baked cookies on a table for the two friends to enjoy, and “now Bookie and Cookie are best friends again.” And they have both learned a lesson about trying new things, because by the end of the book, they are shown putting on outerwear and preparing to “go on an adventure together…outside their pages.”

     The soft-pedaling of the “try new things” message is perfectly managed by Gómez, as is the establishment of the separate domains of the two characters – Bookie’s with books on shelves everywhere and even stacked on the floor, Cookie’s centered on a kitchen and with wall decorations that say “Cookies” and “Page Sweet Page.” Simply and endearingly drawn, the characters live in an utterly charming world. For example, Bookie at one point reads a book called “Side by Side” while one called “Betsy & Besty” is visible on a shelf. Cookie perpetually wears a white chef’s hat. Also, there is a strange little rounded white creature that looks like a smiling, animated dust ball walking on two tiny legs that pops up sometimes on one page, sometimes on the other, and at one point is marching along carrying a cookie half its own size. Kids (and adults!) will have a great time finding all the little elements that make Bookie & Cookie fun to read again and again – and that help its underlying lesson go down as sweetly and easily as a freshly baked, still-warm-from-the-oven cookie.

(++++) ERAS IN CONTRAST

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Ailbhe McDonagh: The Irish Four Seasons. Lynda O’Connor, violin; Anamus conducted by David Brophy. AVIE. $19.99.

Ives: Piano Sonata No. 1; Three-Page Sonata; Bernhard Gander: Peter Parker. Joonas Ahonen, piano. BIS. $21.99 (SACD).

Kris Bowers: For a Younger Self; Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1. Charles Yang, violin; American Youth Symphony conducted by Carlos Izcaray. Orchid Classics. $16.99.

Music for Brass and Percussion by Tom Pierson, Milton Babbitt, David Felder, Iannis Xenakis, Charles Ives, Jon Nelson, Dimas Sedicias, Dámaso Pérez Prado, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Brian McWhorter (“boiled jar”). Metalofonico conducted by Jon Nelson. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

     It is a longstanding practice in concert design to juxtapose well-known works that have long since gained audience acceptance with new ones that listeners have previously heard rarely, if at all. The thinking is that although people may not wish to pay to listen to music that they may or may not enjoy, they will be willing to hear something new if they get to experience the tried-and-true at the same concert. This program design can be quite carefully managed – for instance, placing a known piece first, a new one second, then having intermission, and then offering another familiar work for the concert’s second half. The idea is that even people uninterested in the new material will probably show up for the first half of the concert to experience the work they already know and enjoy, and are unlikely to walk out on the new piece when the event’s second half is still to come. If the little-known or unknown work fits in some way with whatever is well-known, this approach can be quite effective, providing insights into similar or contrasting handling of musical material and hopefully giving the new music a chance to be heard more than once (it is notoriously difficult for new works to receive a second concert performance).

     This approach to live concerts has been less common when it comes to recordings, but in recent years has gained increasing acceptance in the recorded-music field as well. How well it works continues to depend on the skill with which disparate works are put together for presentation on the same CD (although the matter is more complex with regard to digital-only releases, which make it super-simple for people to skip a work they do not know or wish to experience). One of the earliest and most-effective recorded juxtapositions has been that of Vivaldi’s ever-popular The Four Seasons with Ástor Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (“The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” the “port city” – hence the work’s title). Piazzolla’s work was actually conceived as four different pieces, one dating to 1965 and three to 1969, and it was not until Russian film composer Leonid Desyatnikov cleverly rearranged and fine-tuned the four from 1996 to 1998, increasing their parallels to Vivaldi’s concertos, that Piazzolla’s music began its ascent to the popularity it enjoys today. Recorded pairings of the Vivaldi and Piazzolla works are no longer surprising at all – and a new AVIE release seeks the same sort of prominence-through-juxtaposition for the world première of The Irish Four Seasons by Ailbhe McDonagh (born 1982). McDonagh’s parallels with Vivaldi are quite deliberate: her movement sequence of Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter is the same as Vivaldi’s (Piazzolla’s begins with Summer), and she specifically looks for Irish-inflected material inspired by Vivaldi’s music. The four movements of the new work are Earrach (Spring), Samhradh (Summer), Fómhar (Autumn), and Geimhreadh (Winter). Unlike Vivaldi’s set of four three-movement concertos (actually Nos. 1-4 of his Op. 8, Il cimento dell' armonia e dell' inventione), McDonagh’s work consists of four single movements: Spring is surprisingly gentle and lyrical, lacking the get-up-and-go usually associated with the season of growth after chill; Summer is considerably more Vivaldi-ish both thematically and in its effervescence; Autumn has a pleasantly dancelike quality that does reflect Vivaldi, but with a particularly distinct Irish accent; and Winter, whose opening stasis directly parallels Vivaldi’s handling of the same season, later returns to the lyricism of Spring before concluding in a very speedy 40-second burst of intensity and enthusiasm. The Irish Four Seasons proves to be a pleasant, comparatively unassuming work, well-crafted and neatly paying tribute to Vivaldi while asserting its own national origin to rather good effect. It deserves further hearings but will probably do best when juxtaposed, as on this recording, with the Vivaldi original. Lynda O’Connor plays the McDonagh stylishly and with enthusiasm, nicely accompanied by a string ensemble that she formed herself and that bears the rather odd name of Anamus (which sounds exactly like “animus,” that surely not being the intent of the moniker). It should not be construed as churlish to note that O’Connor’s and Anamus’ handling of Vivaldi’s original set of concertos is even better than what they offer in the McDonagh piece: sensitive, filled with elegant touches (from the clarity of individual notes to the many instances of well-thought-out ornamentation), and emotive without being inappropriately Romantic in sound or pacing. It is, in fact, a splendid performance that makes this disc well worth owning for the Vivaldi alone – thus increasing the chance that the McDonagh work will be heard more frequently, which appears to be the whole point.

     A fascinating BIS recording featuring Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen partakes in an unusual way of a form of juxtaposition known among television producers as the “hammock.” This involves scheduling two well-known, popular 30-minute programs, typically so-called “situation comedies,” with a separation of 30 minutes between them – and using the middle 30 minutes for a new, untried show. The idea is that people will tune in to watch the first popular program and stay put for the second, being introduced to the new material out of a kind of laziness – that is, an unwillingness to switch to some other channel for a relatively brief 30-minute period. Less common today than in the days when there were fewer available TV channels and programs, the “hammock” concept still survives in some circumstances, and is used cleverly in the Ahonen disc. Here the composer provides the “hammock” effect even though the specific works do not, since neither Ives’ Piano Sonata No. 1 nor his Three-Page Sonata can be thought of as highly popular and well-known – certainly not by comparison with the “Concord” sonata. Nevertheless, Ives himself is a known quantity and an endlessly fascinating one, so listeners predisposed to hear his music and experience some of it that is less frequently performed will presumably be sufficiently attracted to this disc to stay put for Peter Parker by Bernhard Gander (born 1969). As it turns out, the recording is a thoroughgoing success: Ahonen appears to have no difficulty with the considerable complexity of these Ives sonatas – which are almost on par with the technical enormity of the “Concord” – and seems to have a genuinely good time putting across Gander’s very contemporary work, which dates to 2004 and is a kind of Impressionistic and pianistically up-to-date presentation of the comings and goings of comic-book hero Spider-Man and his alter ego, whose name the work bears. Anyone who does not know the Marvel Comics icon will have difficulty figuring out what all the swoops and zips and full-keyboard antics and note clusters and arpeggios and odd pauses are supposed to refer to, and even listeners who do know the Spider-Man milieu may be hard-pressed to figure out all the referents. But anyone intrigued by up-to-the-minute piano compositions and performances will find Peter Parker an exhilarating experience and Ahonen’s playing completely engaging. Gander’s work, though, takes up just 11 of the disc’s 61 minutes – and thankfully, the focus on Ives is every bit as involving and impressive as is the handling of Peter Parker. Indeed, Ahonen’s playing is so good and these two Ives sonatas are so involved and involving that it is hard to understand why the works are not heard more frequently – except perhaps for their formidable technical difficulties, which Ahonen surmounts with apparent effortlessness. Piano Sonata No. 1 proves to have almost the same expansive scale as the “Concord,” and offers a fascinating object lesson in Ives’ penchant for interweaving hymn tunes and their straightforward harmonies into movements that are rhythmically complex, often highly dissonant, and bordering on atonality (and at times crossing the border). Some of the hymns that recur almost throughout the sonata remain quite well-known today, notably Bringing In the Sheaves. Others are less familiar, and in one case will bring today’s listeners some inappropriate and unintended bursts of humor: O Happy Day is now more widely known as the humorous drinking song How Dry I Am. Ahonen nevertheless plays all the music forthrightly, as Ives intended, and the result is a first-rate performance of a large-scale and highly impressive sonata whose neglect is demonstrably unfair. Ahonen also does a fine job with the Three-Page Sonata, so called because it was written by Ives on, yes, three pages. Small-scale but scarcely simple, the work – like the “Concord” – has an optional part for an instrument other than the piano, in this case the celesta, which Ahonen uses to good effect. Ives’ usual complexity shows here through material that ranges from a statement of the notes making up the name BACH to the use of the so-called Westminster chimes that sound not only in England but also in innumerable clocks in the United States. This is, in totality, a remarkably effective and interesting recording that shows just how winning a combination of material from very different musical time periods can be when thoughtfully presented.

     The juxtaposition of works on a new Orchid Classics CD featuring the American Youth Symphony under Carlos Izcaray is less obvious and more rarefied. A more-appropriate pairing of a work with For a Younger Self by Kris Bowers (born 1989) would have been something like Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. This is not to say that Bowers’ modest symphonic piece shares Strauss’ grandiosity or that this orchestra would necessarily be a good one to handle the Strauss – but in terms of the programmatic intent of Bowers, there is more in common with Strauss than with Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1. Bowers composes for films and TV, and he brings some of the sensibility honed in those media to For a Younger Self, which is conceived as a journey of self-exploration by a protagonist represented by solo violinist Charles Yang. The three-movement work is not quite a symphony, not quite a violin concerto. From the start, it dips into and out of contrasting musical and emotional spaces: Bowers presses ahead with driving, usually dissonant and percussion-heavy sections that he alternates with more-lyrical, more-emotional material seated firmly in the expressive mode of films – which is to say that these sections tug at the heartstrings in thoroughly predictable ways. The entire second movement, marked Larghetto (Gently), swoons and pleads in its extended solo passages, then evokes quicksilver emotional changes (accentuated by brass outbursts) for purposes of contrast. It sounds quite fine – Bowers certainly knows how to write for an orchestra – but is emotionally obvious (those harp arpeggios!) and vapid. The brief finale is filled with a kind of perpetuum mobile fiddle playing that produces a feeling of bounce and brightness, accentuated by snare drum and cymbal emphases that add to the impression of rushing toward an upbeat conclusion that indeed arrives quickly and with a final speed-up. For a Younger Self is fun to hear in many ways, but it is entirely a surface-level work that sounds as if it could be a warm-up for Bowers to enter the concert-hall field in the future – on its own, it really does not have much to say. And it does not meld particularly well with Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1906), originally written for 15 instruments and heard here in a 1935 arrangement for full orchestra. This is early Schoenberg (his Op.9), best known for its extensive use of quartal harmony (built on perfect fourths); it is a one-movement work in five distinct sections. The structural care, well-considered use of dissonance, and effective contrasts among the work’s segments keep it engaging throughout – if not always “easy” for listeners, even a century-plus after its composition. The complexity underlying the Schoenberg serves to highlight the comparatively simplistic approach of Bowers’ piece – and while the Schoenberg is played very well indeed, it is not really enough by itself to justify owning a (+++) CD on which it is offered as the secondary piece. For what it is worth, the disc is a short one – 48 minutes – and would have had room for Ein Heldenleben rather than the Schoenberg if those involved in the project had been thinking in that direction.

     An even more extreme assemblage of material from very different eras – consisting of compositions written during a period of more than 400 years – appears on a New Focus Recordings release featuring trumpeter Jon Nelson (born 1956) and an ensemble that includes brass, percussion and electric guitar. And if that sounds like a thoroughly weird instrumental combination for a work by Giovanni Gabrieli (1558-1613) – well, it is. Yet the arrangement by Louis Hanzlik of Gabrieli’s Canzona No. 25 is actually respectful and quite effective as heard here – a pleasant surprise indeed. From the Steeples and the Mountains by Charles Ives (1874-1954) does not come across quite as well, but Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet by Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) is very well-played indeed, although musically not fully convincing. The longest work on the CD is Music for a Solemn Occasion by Tom Pierson (born 1954), a work written for a wedding rather than anything funereal – this is a piece whose highly dissonant opening chords lead to an extended exploration of sonorities rather than a focus on emotional depth. In all, there are 13 works here, two of them by Brazilian composer Dimas Sedicias (1930-2002): Raymond My Friend, for tuba solo and notable for the extreme low notes with which it opens; and Metalofonico, which starts with a shrill whistle and immediately becomes a riotous proclamation of dance music (the CD concludes with a third Sedicias item, Tuba Out Take). One other composer is heard more than once: David Felder (born 1953), whose Incendio (an arrangement of a work originally for chamber choir) progresses gently at first, then becomes strongly chordal; and Shredder, a more-dramatic work built over timpani. Also on the CD are Khal Perr by Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), a work of complex and constantly shifting soundscapes; the very bright and thoroughly engaging Mambo #5 (arranged for winds by Nelson) by Dámaso Pérez Prado (1916-1989); Nelson’s own Insomnio, built on the sounds of a drum set and featuring strong contrasts between outgoing and quiet material; and Lucre Iota by Brian McWhorter (born 1975) writing as “boiled jar” – this being a self-consciously avant-garde work that uses mechanistic raucousness to establish its bona fides with audiences inclined to present themselves as an “in” crowd. To the extent that anything ties together this disparate material, it is the skillful playing of Nelson and his ensemble: the CD is certainly attractive from an aural perspective for those who fancy brass combinations and recombinations. But this (+++) mixed bag of a disc, despite being likely to appeal to enthusiasts for brass music, is not particularly effective in blending and contrasting works from very different time periods, written in very different styles, by composers of widely varying predilections. It will likely be most attractive to brass and percussion players who can appreciate the nuances of the scoring and arrangements of the various pieces, and can imagine themselves as part of the ensemble delivering these enthusiastic renditions of highly varied material.