(++++) MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSES

Ten Little Rabbits. By Maurice Sendak. Harper. $19.99.

Amazing Grapes. By Jules Feiffer. Michael di Capua/HarperCollins. $21.99.

     Some artists manage to do the impossible. For example, Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) was so amazingly prolific that he has produced three books since his death. And they are all wonderful, no more so than the latest of them, Ten Little Rabbits. Few children’s-book creators, living or dead, are as masterful at their craft as Sendak was (or is) at his. Like My Brother's Book (2013) and Presto and Zesto in Limboland (2018), Ten Little Rabbits has appeared courtesy of The Maurice Sendak Foundation – but unlike the two earlier posthumous works, this one has a certain direct connection to Sendak from his days among the living. In 1970, Sendak created the work as a pamphlet for a fundraiser for Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum, after originally thinking about making it a pocket-sized book but then rejecting it in that form. This bit of history is, however, thoroughly irrelevant to enjoyment of Ten Little Rabbits in its brand-new, suitably elegant hardcover version, because the book in any form is pure Sendak and purely wonderful. It is a traditional counting book in the sense that young readers get to count up from one to 10, then back down from 10 to one (actually to zero in this case). It is also traditional in the near-complete absence of words – there is little here except numbers, plus the letter M on the pedestal atop which the boy magician (said to be named Mino, although the name does not appear in the book itself) has placed the traditional magician’s top hat with the intention of bringing forth bunnies from it. Mino is pretty good at this, but the bunnies are a bit less than cooperative. As they mount in number, Mino becomes increasingly exasperated – and the fun of the book lies in his changing expressions as he moves from pride and enjoyment and self-possession (even yawning as he brings out #4, as if this is the easiest thing in the world to do) to increasing irritation and annoyance as the bunny pile grows and more and more of them climb onto him, to such a point that by #10 he can barely be seen. Clearly something must be done, and clearly Mino knows what to do: one by one, he makes the rabbits vanish, first with an exasperated expression, then (at #5) looking much more relaxed, and then smiling and even dancing as the last few disappear one at a time. A tip of the top hat, a bow, the words “All done,” and the magic show is indeed all done as Mino proudly walks off the page – with his every expression, every pose, every attitude perfectly reflective of Sendak’s instantly recognizable drawing style and his ability to communicate a great deal on a purely pictorial basis. Whether today’s kids are just meeting Sendak or have been introduced to him already (likely by parents enamored of Where the Wild Things Are), they will find Ten Little Rabbits a picture-perfect opportunity to enjoy the picturesque (and sometimes a touch picaresque) world of Sendak and his art.

     Jules Feiffer (born 1929) is at least as much an institution in his own right as Sendak was (and is) in his. But the gentle amusements of Sendak are very far indeed from the satirical barbs of Feiffer, and the communicative art through which Sendak tells stories is nothing like the complex, extremely text-heavy method – with its own instantly recognizable art – that Feiffer employs in Amazing Grapes. From its punning title to the reappearing song based on that title to the song’s and book’s final line of “ ’Twas grapes that set me free,” this is a kind of interdimensional multidimensional Timothy-Leary-on-LSD graphic novel that either has no point whatsoever or has too many to count. Feiffer ain’t sayin’ which. But he, or rather his characters, are saying a great deal, much of which is expressed in exclamations such as “wahhh” and “yagaa” and much of which is even less coherent and understandable: “It’s standing in the middle of the second floor, and we don’t have a second floor!” Amazing Grapes is at heart a quest story in which the quest, its purpose and its consequences are unknown and unimportant unless they matter more than anything in the universe. It is the tale of Mommy and her children Shirley, Pearlie and Curly, who are about to be sundered as a family when father Greg walks out and leaves $100 to get everyone through the rest of childhood, leading Mommy to decide to marry Lenny and blend his children Penny, Benny and Kenny into the group, until a two-headed swan intervenes and takes Pearlie and Curly somewhere or rather several somewheres that include the tower that goes nowhere, the land of Trotamania, Feartopia, the Geyser of Glorious Goodness, and elsewhere and elsewhen. It is really impossible to sum up or even describe Amazing Grapes, which is surely Feiffer’s put-on of just about everyone and everything but which constantly hints tantalizingly that it all may mean something that may be important until the next page or panel proves that it doesn’t and isn’t. The book is really pretty amazing, if not particularly grape-ish. Feiffer’s highly distinctive, easy-to-recognize art – the type for which he became famous decades ago and has stayed that way ever since – is used for a few of the characters, but the versatility of bizarrerie is what dominates here. As it turns out, Feiffer appears to have a nearly illimitable number of styles, so that the Lord High Muckety-Muck seems to have been drawn by someone else, the Trotamaniacs by yet another artist, the Feary Queen by another, the Doomanians by another, the Elegantics by another, and – well, you get the idea. But it is well-nigh impossible to get all the ideas, so quickly does Feiffer strew them hither and thither and yon. Take those Elegantics, for example: they are vaguely sharklike flying things, dressed in tuxedos, that speak ominously and in rhyme: “We are the Elegantics! Not antic – nor frantic – We charm a lot – then harm a lot.” So they put the other characters to sleep and then drop them from a height so they die until they wake up, which they soon do (many characters die and are reborn in Amazing Grapes, which may be part of the point of a title that parodies that of a famous spiritual). Feiffer tells his story, or stories, or non-stories, in such chapters as “The Resentful Rescue,” “Floating Mommy,” “Nobody Cares,” “The Lost Head,” and “One More Dumb Thing.” Characters range from the nightmarish to the ridiculous, one of the latter being a guide dog named Kelly that cannot guide because he is a cat in disguise who eventually meets a cat named Kelly who is “the other half of you and me,” resulting in a rollicking dance reminiscent of a scene in the Disney/Pixar movie WALL-E, which – who knows? – might have influenced Feiffer somehow, some way, sometime. The point is that the point of Amazing Grapes may be obscure-to-nonexistent, but the book is a wonderful example of telling a story (or non-story, or multiple stories) in graphic-novel form, and the art (including extensive absurdist dialogue) through which Feiffer communicates his communication is communicative in a way just as unique to him as the equally recognizable stylistic presentation of Ten Little Rabbits is to Maurice Sendak. Feiffer and Sendak may be masters of wildly different styles and thought processes, but both are masters, and their mastery is masterfully presented in these very different masterworks.

(+++) FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

Schumann: Cello Concerto; Fantasiestücke; Adagio et Allegro; Intermezzo from the sonata “Frei aber Einsam”; Romances, Op. 94; Träumerei from “Kinderszenen”; “Widmung” and “Du Bist wie eine Blume” from “Myrthen”; Clara Schumann: Three Romances; “Ich Stand in Dunklen Träumen”; Romanze from Piano Concerto; Brahms: Scherzo from the sonata “Frei aber Einsam”; Fabien Waksman: Replika; Michelle Ross: Désenvoyé; Jean-Frédéric Neuberger: Vibrating; Patricia Kopatchinskaja: Kingelnseel und Choral; SMS. Christian-Pierre La Marca, cello; Jean-Frédéric Neuberger, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Raphaël Merlin. Naïve. $19.99 (2 CDs).

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 30 and 31; Josquin/Wuorinen: Ave Christe; George Benjamin: Shadowlines—6 Canonic Preludes for Piano; Dowland/Byrd: Pavana Lachrymae. Benjamin Hochman, piano. AVIE. $19.99.

David Fulmer: Violin Concerto “Jauchzende Bögen”; Cantantes Metallis; I have loved a stream and a shadow; Star of the North—Requiem for Zhanaozen; Only in darkness is thy shadow clear; Eldorado; immaculate sigh of stars…; whose fingers brush the sky. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

     Some tributes are so deep, so heartfelt, so intensely personal, that it seems churlish to respond to them with anything short of admiration. And when they are musical tributes to musical figures, it is hard not to be moved by them even if they seem to be more than a tad overdone. Christian-Pierre La Marca’s beautifully played, cello-focused two-CD Naïve set is specifically designated as  a tribute to one of the great love stories in classical music, that of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck (later, after a famous confrontation involving her father, Clara Schumann). Robert Schumann produced some incomparably beautiful, soaringly Romantic music, which La Marca believes fully reflected his feelings for Clara – perhaps a bit of an overstatement, although in a sense Robert Schumann was one of the primary creators of the Romantic musical era, not only through his music but also through his writings and, for that matter, his tragic personal history of mental illness and death at the age of 46. Clara Schumann, herself a composer of some merit, was primarily a performer, one of the very greatest pianists of the 19^th century; and then there was Johannes Brahms, his music largely discovered and assertively championed by Robert Schumann, with Brahms’ own respect-and-longing for the widowed Clara Schumann scarcely a secret from anyone although their relationship appears to have remained one of extremely close non-romantic friendship (perhaps with an underlying current of yearning on Brahms’ part – very much a part of the capital-R Romantic sensibility). There is a tremendously rich narrative as well as musical vein to be mined in the Schumann/Schumann/Brahms oeuvre, but even that is not enough for La Marca, who puts together a potpourri of beautifully limned performances from the 19^th century and also offers world première recordings of four contemporary composers’ new cello-and-piano works (commissioned by La Marca) in which the composers consider, reconsider, interpret and reinterpret the Robert/Clara connection. If this brief description makes it sound as if all this is a bit much – well, it is. There is nothing wrong with any of this, no sense that the whole complex production is anything less than heartfelt and sincere. But it is very difficult to figure out the audience for what is essentially a musical mishmash. La Marca plays everything by the Schumanns and Brahms very well indeed, so listeners interested in his technique and in some very fine cello performances – including a beautifully rendered version of Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto – will find much to enjoy here. But pretty much everything other than the concerto is a tidbit, a small encore taken (often arbitrarily) from a larger work or set of works that would be far more effective heard as a totality even if in that form there would be less obvious “romanticism” (or “Romanticism”) then there is here. And the inclusion of the five works by four of today’s composers – pieces scattered about and juxtaposed with some of the most beautiful of the short excerpts from the Schumanns’ music – really does not work at all. Instead of trying to somehow outdo or extend the love and yearnings of the Schumanns, the modern composers create acrid, acidic up-to-date material that verges on parody (presumably unintentional) and serves only to highlight how much more expressive and meaningful the music of the Schumanns was and is when compared with the material by today’s music makers. Fabien Waksman’s Replika mixes piano pounding and string screeching with an occasional bit of almost-lyricism. Michelle Ross’ Désenvoyé (“Unsent”) plods along to nowhere in particular. Two pieces by Patricia Kopatchinskaja are predictably atonal and disconnected-sounding – the opposite, really, of what the Schumanns’ works are. And Jean-Frédéric Neuberger’s Vibrating has the cello, yes, vibrate, while Neuberger plays a piano part that interjects bits and pieces of notes and the occasional trill. In fairness, all the modern composers’ works are well done for what they are, but what they are not is anything remotely connected to the Schumanns’ love story except perhaps in the composers’ own minds, and maybe La Marca’s. Context matters: a CD consisting entirely of modern compositions inspired by works by the Schumanns would come across better than a hodgepodge that interpolates contemporary-sounding pieces among tremendously emotive ones from the 19^th century. What La Marca offers here surely makes sense to La Marca himself, but unless a listener is so attuned to La Marca’s thoughts and emotions as to be his virtual clone, the effect of this production will be far less than intended – with the positive elements lying entirely in the performances of the highly expressive works of the more-distant past.

     The juxtapositions run from the past to the deeper past – as well as to the present day – on an AVIE release featuring pianist Benjamin Hochman. This disc too is a personal journey, if not one as overwrought and overextended as La Marca’s. The main attractions here are the performances of two of Beethoven’s last three sonatas, a trio of works in which the composer, having struggled to the top of a metaphorical and psychological mountain in his Hammerklavier sonata (No. 29), essentially surveys the landscape around him and atop the summit. At the start of the CD, Hochman opens No. 30 expansively and with a fantasia-like sense of exploration, brings considerable delicacy to the short second-movement Presto, and then balances quietude and beauty to very fine effect in the extended third movement, especially taking to heart the molto cantabile portion of the movement’s tempo-and-mood indication. At the end of the disc, Hochman offers an equally sensitive reading of Sonata No. 31, the first movement of which somewhat reflects the finale of No. 30 in its indication of Moderato cantabile molto espressivo. There is a pleasantly meandering quality to Hochman’s handling of this movement that results in a very strong contrast with the brief Allegro molto second movement: this sonata and No. 30 follow very closely parallel designs of total length and length and sequence of individual movements. Hochman nicely balances the varying moods of the finale of No. 31, from the more-Romantic earlier elements to the later fugal ones that connect Beethoven’s sonata more closely to the past. It is a shame that Hochman does not also offer Sonata No. 32 on this recording – but that is a deliberate omission, since Hochman’s point here is not to produce a Beethoven recital but to elucidate what he sees as Beethoven’s connections with earlier as well as more-recent expressive material. To that end, the CD has a kind of “arch” format: Beethoven appears first and fifth, material by earlier composers is second and fourth, and a work of the 21^st century is offered in the middle. The success of the whole project depends on how closely listeners can hear (not just intellectually understand) the connections among the pieces. Sonata No. 30 is followed by the motet Ave Christe by (or attributed to) Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450-1521), sensitively arranged for piano in 1988 by Charles Wuorinen (1938-2020). Hochman’s delicacy in handling the motet is notable, although the work’s connection to Beethoven’s late sonatas is less so. Sonata No. 31 is preceded on the disc by the famous lute work Lachrymae (“Flow My Tears”) by John Dowland (1563-1626), arranged for harpsichord (decidedly not piano) by William Byrd (1543-1623). Here too Hochman plays with feeling, but this piece sits oddly on a modern piano, and the performance does not really capture the work’s depth of feeling – or, again, the nature of its connection to Beethoven’s late piano sonatas. As for the piece around which the entire CD is centered, it is Shadowlines—6 Canonic Preludes for Piano, written in 2001 by George Benjamin (born 1960). Benjamin here does his own outreach to the past, notably in a passacaglia in the fifth of the pieces – which takes up more than six of the work’s total of 15 minutes. It is clear intellectually that Benjamin, like Beethoven, reaches to earlier music and imbues old forms with newer meanings. The specific sound world of Benjamin is, however, very different from that of Beethoven, to such an extent that in some of the preludes (notably the second, Wild, and fourth, Tempestoso) it is simply not possible to hear any reasonable level of connectedness between Beethoven’s world and Benjamin’s. As with the works of the contemporary composers featured in the La Marca project, Benjamin’s music stands well on its own and in its own context, but Hochman’s attempt to force it to share the context of Beethoven’s sonatas is just that: forced. The intellectual underpinnings of this Hochman recital are convincing in their own way, at least to a certain extent; but despite the attractiveness of Hochman’s playing, the musical arguments drawn from his foundational thoughts are not especially convincing.

     For some of today’s composers, ties to the past primarily involve choosing instruments (and sometimes forms) that have long been familiar, and pulling them in different directions by extending techniques, altering the sonic landscape, or otherwise disconnecting potential audience expectations from prior experience. Many of the eight works by David Fulmer (born 1981) on a New Focus Recordings CD are reflective of this approach. Fulmer, himself a violinist, reaches to some extent to the relatively recent past through his connection with Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), with whom Fulmer studied. This can be heard in the longest work on the disc, the violin concerto Jauchzende Bögen (“Jubilant Bow”), played by Stefan Jackiw with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen conducted by Matthias Pintscher. The work has a three-part sonic canvas: soloist, string quartet, and full orchestra. The actual sound is rather formulaic, but the overall design is intriguing in its centering of an extended violin cadenza between two ensemble passages. The other extended work here is Cantantes Metallis for cello (Jay Campbell), piano (Conor Hanick), and percussion (Mike Truesdell). Although classical on one level, this is a sort of heavy metal music on another, with the instruments sounding distinctly metallic and the cello’s usual warmth and long lines transformed into a sound far closer to that of the percussion. I have lived a stream and a shadow (played by Conrad Tao) and whose fingers brush the sky (titled with the affectation of no capital letters and performed by Hanick) are solo-piano works. The former features metal-sounding running passages interspersed with chordal ones; the latter also gives the piano a metallic timbre, although sections of it are a bit more expressive – expressiveness generally not being a hallmark of Fulmer’s music. Star of the North—Requiem for Zhanaozen is for solo cello (Campbell) and is an occasional work, the occasion being a fatal clash between workers and authorities in Kazakhstan in 2011. Since it is highly unlikely that most audiences will have any idea whatsoever of what the piece is about, the work’s strident dissonance and violent sounds will seem to exist mainly to offset, musically, its concluding chorale-like harmonics. The remaining three pieces on the CD also feature specific references: they are inspired by works by poet Hart Crane. Only in darkness is thy shadow clear is for two pianos (Nathan Ben-Yehuda and León Bernsdorf) and is interestingly conceptualized: the two pianos are tuned a quarter tone apart. This obviously leads to a complete lack of harmonic centrality (scarcely a matter of concern for Fulmer in any case) – more intriguingly, it takes the ear on an unusual journey in which it tries to capture some evanescent and elusive sense of consonance that, under the circumstances, is quite impossible. Eldorado, for string trio (played by the Horszowski Trio), rarely uses the entire three-voice grouping, instead presenting solo and duo passages that produce differing interactions among the players. And immaculate sigh of stars… (titled without capital letters and with an ellipsis) is a solo work for harp (Parker Ramsay) that works strongly against any of the feeling of ethereality with which the instrument is associated: Fulmer wants the harp to be denser, deeper and darker than it is generally perceived to be, and in this work as in others his primary interest seems to be in finding ways to produce a variety of metallic sounds. The extent to which Fulmer’s music looks back to or connects with the past, even the recent past, is arguable, but his determination to take familiar instruments and instrumental combinations in new directions – drawing on listeners’ expectations based on what they have previously heard from those instruments – comes through clearly throughout the recording.

(++++) A CONSTELLATION OF SUPERLATIVES

Offenbach: La Vie parisienne. Anne-Catherine Gillet, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Buendia, Elena Galitskaya, Louise Pingeot, Marie Kalinine, Marie Gautrot, Caroline Meng, Artavazd Sargsyan, Marc Mauillon, Jérôme Boutillier, Pierre Derhet, Philippe Estèphe, Carl Ghazarossian; Chœur de l’Opéra national du Capitole du Toulouse and Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse conducted by Romain Dumas. Bru Zane. $42.99 (2 CDs).

     It is almost impossible to explain just how good this latest Bru Zane release is. Stating that it is by far the best recorded version of Offenbach’s La Vie parisienne does not say enough, since it may just be the best performance – not just recording – of this work, certainly so in modern times. And just to complicate matters further, this actually appears to be the only performance of this version of La Vie parisienne – or rather set of performances, since the recording is based on stagings from 2021 through 2024 at theaters in Rouen, Tours, Paris and elsewhere.

     It’s complicated. As heard here, La Vie parisienne is a very extended work: two hours and 40 minutes of music, which means a theatrical performance with intermissions would run well over three hours. Until this production, La Vie parisienne had never been given this way, ever: the fourth and fifth acts were significantly truncated before the original 1866 première, characters were dropped altogether or rearranged, numbers were eliminated or significantly altered, and the whole dramatic arc of the piece was changed in significant ways. This is one reason that, even today, the superb music permeating La Vie parisienne seems to be at the service of a particularly weak and un-engaging story.

     But that is complicated. La Vie parisienne is a genuine slice-of-life story of Paris at the height of the Second Empire, before the Franco-Prussian War brought that age to a screeching halt and, not coincidentally, nearly did the same to Offenbach’s career. The entire story of La Vie parisienne requires a level of familiarity with the Paris of the 1860s, the types of people and entertainments common then and there, the largely nonjudgmental attitude toward the demimonde, the unending pursuit of questionable pleasures by young men and women of certain classes – and the attraction of the whole lifestyle to travelers throughout Europe and even from overseas. The libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy is complex and witty, and louche in ways that the censors did not always notice and excise, as when a young woman sings of a supposed coachman’s skill at “giving you a tumble” and comments that he “gave me a tumble one day, and I won’t forget it.” Furthermore, the libretto abounds in clever references to contemporary political events, social circumstances and theatrical realities that were highly familiar to audiences of the time but that are now almost hopelessly obscure.

     Also, the actors presenting the original La Vie parisienne were in fact more actors than singers, and Offenbach had to make numerous musical changes to accommodate the less-than-stellar vocal capabilities of some of them. But the singers, including all the very numerous soloists and the chorus on this recording, are singers, and quite capable of delivering first-rate renditions of the original, nonsimplified versions of Offenbach’s music. At the same time, the performers here act well enough to make it clear why the published version of the libretto described La Vie parisienne as a “play with songs in five acts,” not an operetta or opera or anything else of the sort. There is a lot of dialogue, and it is absolutely crucial to an understanding of the very complex plot and the intricately interrelated relationships among the large cast of characters.

     That La Vie parisienne has continued to entertain non-French audiences for more than a century and a half, amusing people worldwide for whom its underlying assumptions are thoroughly unknown, is testimony to the tremendous entertainment value of Offenbach’s music, which is never better than it is here. But, again, it’s complicated: La Vie parisienne includes three short interpolations from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, one of which has some dramatic import, and it reuses some of Offenbach’s own material from other works, yet it never has the slightest flavor of pastiche or of flagging creativity.

     What the scholars and musicians associated with Bru Zane have done so magnificently here is to recover all (or at least most) of the excised material that never reached the stage in the first performance. They have filled in gaps in various musical numbers; orchestrated some items that have survived without instrumentation being indicated; returned to Offenbach’s preferred more-difficult vocal material (when it could be found) instead of using the now-standard simplified music; brought the fourth and fifth acts back to their original design and length to the extent possible; and engaged an exemplary set of soloists, a very fine chorus, an orchestra that plays with abandon and seems to have no trouble with some mighty challenging tempos, and a conductor – Romain Dumas – whose pores seem to be permeated with Offenbachiana, so unerringly does he pace the work and so skillfully does he hold it together.

     It is not possible to do absolutely everything to restore, re-complete and present in toto for a modern audience the original version of La Vie parisienne, for various reasons – for example, several sections turn on Ludovic and Halévy’s intent to show the amusing contrast between a woman’s Bordeaux accent and a man’s German one, which then carries over into matters of food preference as explicated by the chorus and sung partly in German. And it has to be said that the fourth act, which is given over largely to talk that is intended to unravel a host of instances of disguise, miscommunication and outright knavery, is weaker than the rest of the production. (This act was actually dropped when La Vie parisienne was revived in 1873.) But my goodness, what a wealth of musical delight there is in this theatrical extravaganza, and how much more of it there is in this Bru Zane offering than in any other recording! This two-CD set represents a genuine Offenbach rediscovery, made all the more surprising by the fact that La Vie parisienne has long seemed to be a work that was very well-known. The reality is that it has never been known quite this way before, and all devotees of Offenbach’s music owe it to themselves to experience and re-experience this absolutely marvelous release as soon as they possibly can.

(++++) TO VIEW ANEW

Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 102-104. Danish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Adam Fischer. Naxos. $19.99.

Bach: Overture in the French Style in B minor, BWV 831; Partita for Traverso, Strings and Basso Continuo in D Major; Overture for Strings and Basso Continuo in G Major (all arranged by Rinaldo Alessandrini). Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Naïve. $16.99.

     Adam Fischer continues his “journey of reconsideration” of Haydn symphonies with the last of four CDs devoted to the composer’s 12 “London” Symphonies; he plans to record new versions of 25 Haydn symphonies in all, and it remains to be seen which others will be included (although surely the six “Paris” works will be among them). Fischer is a fine and thoughtful Haydn conductor who has previously done an impressive full cycle of the symphonies, although in the current sequence his scope and interest are more limited. This time he is also trying a bit too hard here and there, being so determined (for very good reasons) to emphasize Haydn’s liveliness and many innovations that he periodically slips into the realm of the overdone. The Danish Chamber Orchestra plays exceptionally well for Fischer, its chief conductor for a quarter of a century, and goes along gamely with his occasional eccentricities while shining the light of fine performance on all the works. In the latest Naxos release, Symphony No. 102’s first movement has a warm and well-shaped opening, very strongly contrasted with the Vivace that follows. The movement is played with great verve and spirit, and the use of emphatic timpani is very well done. In the second movement, the irregular rhythm is nicely highlighted at the opening, after which everything flows smoothly. The highlights of individual sections and even individual instruments are particularly nicely done, and dynamic contrasts are well-managed. The third movement has considerable bounce at the opening, with contrasting accents handled well. There is slight hesitation after each appearance of the first chord before the downbeat, making things a bit mannered rather than emphatic (which is surely the intent). The Trio features very smooth woodwinds, making a good contrast with the angularity of the Menuet rhythm; but the slowdown at the very end is uncalled-for and is an example of a place where Fischer is a bit heavy-handed in making his musical points. The fourth movement is very fleet indeed, a true Presto. Despite the speed, the strings articulate all notes clearly, and sectional contrasts are nicely highlighted. Haydn's very clever, unexpected rhythmic and dynamic contrasts are expertly emphasized, making the finale a bouquet of melodic and rhythmic surprises.

     Fischer’s approach is even better in Symphony No. 103, the “Drumroll,” which is the highlight of this disc. Haydn’s delightful decision to make the opening timpani solo ad libitum gives percussionists and conductors an entire sound world of possibilities, from a gentle roll of approaching thunder to a dramatically insistent exclamation. Fischer has the initial display be emphatic and martial, a kind of calling-to-attention. The seriousness of this introduction contrasts neatly with the ebullience of the main Allegro con spirito section, whose second theme has a swaying, dancelike quality here. Piano sections are especially impressive, and so are pauses, which actually help shape the movement. This first movement is thematically rich and particularly well-orchestrated, and Fischer takes full advantage of Haydn's elegance of presentation. The return near the end of the introductory material (timpani and the following section) shakes the established mood, until the movement ends brightly. The second movement is this symphony’s longest, which is rather unusual in Haydn. It is well-paced, light but not overly so, with nicely contrasted handling of its more-emphatic sections. Dips into the minor make for effective mood changes. The solo violin section two-thirds of the way through provides an attractive interlude, after which the brass-and-timpani-featuring tutti brings a considerable change of feeling. Eventually the movement seems to fade out, until Haydn shows he has a few more surprises in store. This is a very rich and complex movement that really gets its due here. The third movement is lightweight and amusing, with unexpected brass and wind interjections. The Trio, which is much smoother than the Menuet, features its own pleasant instrumental touches. In the finale, Fischer really presents the music con spirito. The movement sweeps along with a consistent underlying rhythm and nicely decorated thematic material. There is one unnecessary slowdown on a chord near the end, but otherwise the sense of perpetuum mobile is nicely sustained throughout.

     In Symphony No. 104, the “London” and in some ways the capstone of the dozen that Haydn created for that city, Fischer leads with strong opening fanfares and gives the first movement a large-scale and ambitious sound. It is an unusually speedy Allegro, whose dips into the minor offer particularly good contrast. In all, it is a strong movement with propulsive forward motion, featuring notable contrasts between piano and forte sections. In the second movement, there is an interesting light-opera quality to the delicate opening, providing good contrast to the seriousness of the first movement. Then the outburst introducing the more-intense central section comes as a wake-up call. The movement features several delightful instrumental touches, including a brief bassoon solo and flute highlights here and there. There is strong accentuation in the third movement, here labeled Menuetto, with some interestingly emphasized ornamental trills and good timpani underpinning. The movement has a rather martial quality, with emphasis on brass as well as timpani – but unfortunately a touch too much rubato now and again. The pleasant wind-led Trio starts a bit too slowly but is well-paced once the strings enter. The slowing-down of wind elements recurs each time they appear, so this is clearly intentional on Fischer’s part, but it is unnecessary and breaks up the flow of the piece – as does the slowdown at the end. The finale’s opening is very fleet and bright, building well on the initial pedal point. The movement has plenty of bounce and spirit, despite some questionable emphases in which Fischer brings out the accompaniment rather than the main theme. The movement’s contrasts of lyricism come through effectively, but Fischer’s intermittent tempo reductions are scarcely necessary – for instance, at the very end. Fischer is clearly looking for something new to say about Haydn in these performances – or rather for something old, in the sense of restoring the excitement that Haydn’s music inevitably generated during the composer’s lifetime. At its best, this effort can shed real light on the quality and innovative elements of Haydn’s music; but at times, in trying to reproduce the effects that delighted 18^th-century audiences, Fischer goes a touch too far, undermining rather than underlining the elements that make Haydn’s symphonies so special.

     The excellent playing of the Danish Chamber Orchestra is one thing that makes Fischer’s new Haydn releases so worthwhile despite their peccadillos – and the excellent playing of Concerto Italiano under Rinaldo Alessandrini is one thing that makes his new Bach CD on Naïve such a pleasure to hear. Actually, this disc could just as well be labeled as being composed by “Bach/Alessandrini,” since the underlying music is pure Bach, but the transcriptions and adaptations are pure Alessandrini. Bach himself habitually reused and rearranged his works and those of others, and so did other composers of his time – Handel was particularly fond of doing so – so there is theoretically nothing sacrosanct about works whose instrumentation has come down to us in a specific way, nor anything sacrilegious about presenting Bach’s music differently from the way it is usually heard. It does feel rather odd, to be sure, to hear the Overture in the French Style from Clavier-Übung II played by oboes, bassoon, strings and basso continuo – and in D minor rather than its original B minor. But our modern ears are so accustomed to hearing Bach on instruments for which he did not write – this exact piece frequently turns up on piano rather than two-manual harpsichord – that it is not all that much of a stretch to listen to a transcription for chamber ensemble. Certainly a version as well-thought-out as this one, and played in so idiomatically apt a fashion, is a worthwhile experience, and Alessandrini’s beautifully proportioned and elegantly presented adaptation is a pleasure from start to finish – indeed, Bach could have presented this music this way, but he happens not to have done so. The other two works on this CD are equally interesting even though they are a bit more of a stretch. They are essentially orchestrated pastiches: the Partita for Traverso, Strings and Basso Continuo contains six movements from six different works (BWV 1016, 828, 1069, 825, 815 and 817); the Overture for Strings and Basso Continuo consists of eight movements from four sources (four from BWV 820, two from BWV 833, and one each from BWV 816 and 843). These works could easily come across as hodgepodges, their movements having originated in pieces ranging from a sonata for violin and harpsichord to the French Suites for harpsichord or clavichord. But Alessandrini chooses the individual movements with care and a firm understanding of the sequencing that Bach himself used in suites and suite-like works, and he juxtaposes and contrasts material with thoughtfulness and skill – resulting in music-making that is not exactly Bach but is very much “Bachian,” not only in its foundational material but also in Alessandrini’s realization of works presenting that material in a new context. The considerable personalization of these Bach works through their reassembly in new forms results in some wonderful-sounding material that comes across as thoroughly authentic because, on the most basic level, it is thoroughly authentic. Alessandrini has simply (and this is really not simple at all) found ways to shed new light on Bach by dressing up bits and pieces of his music in new garments – ones that, it turns out, fit Bach and Alessandrini and the excellent players of Concerto Italiano exceptionally well.