(++++) A MULTITUDE OF MEOWS

Catphabet. By Jo Stewart. Illustrations by Meredith Jensen. Harper by Design. $16.99.

     Cats are never just cats. They are always representatives of something: of grace, of mischief, of elegance, of orneriness, of uncontrollability (“like herding cats” is a way of denoting impossibility). And because there is always more to cats than mere felinity (not that there is anything “mere” about that), the alphabetical arrangement of Catphabet by characteristics rather than breed makes perfect sense. It also invites cat lovers everywhere to decide whether their evaluation of specific cats’ cat-itudes agrees with those written down by Jo Stewart and illustrated amply and exuberantly by Meredith Jensen.

     Yes, Catphabet runs from A (“athletic”) to Z (“zoomies”). And yes, every descriptive characteristic is assigned to a specific breed of cat – but given felines’ predilection for quicksilver personality and behavioral changes, a descriptor that fits one type of cat at one particular time may not be appropriate later. Or earlier.

     Still, there is something to be said for trying to decipher cat personality and behavior based on breed. “B is for bond,” for example, is said to relate to “beautiful Birmans [that] love to attach themselves to their favorite humans.” And “G is for genie” goes with ragdolls, “blue-eyed beauties [that] sport a lustrous coat, magnificent bushy tail and distinctive markings.” The march through the alphabet is full of these observations. “J is for jovial” is said to apply to “happy-go-lucky Tonkinese cats [that] adore being around people so much they’re often compared to dogs,” while “O is for outgoing” refers to the “gregarious, friendly and social” Turkish Van. That is one of several cat breeds with which readers of Catphabet may not be familiar – but everyone will immediately know about “R is for rescue,” which portrays half a dozen examples of domestic house cats, “mixed-breed moggies [this book was first published in Australia] like Torties and Tabbies [that] are neighbourhood [sic] legends.”

     A few of the entries here are unsurprising, such as “T is for tailless,” relating to the Manx, and “I is for imposing,” referring to the very large Maine Coon. But some letters, although associated by the book’s creators with specific cat types, could just as well apply to other felines: “E is for exquisite” does indeed relate to the Siberian, but to others as well, and surely “N is for noble” applies well beyond the Abyssinian that receives the adjective here.

     This is, of course, part of the enjoyment of the book: deciding the extent to which specific associations go along with one’s own perception of cats, or do not. It is also fascinating to find out about cats that one may not know at all: the Selkirk Rex, Norwegian Forest Cat, Egyptian Mau, Devon Rex and Chartreux all make appearances in these pages. Because the alphabetical element here is descriptive rather than based on these cats’ breeds, readers interested in a more-organized approach to all the included felines will want to turn to the back of the book, a six-page “Kitty Club” listing all the cats in the book alphabetically by type and giving tidbits of information on the lifespan, likes and dislikes of each. Again, some of these characteristics may apply to felines other than the ones to which the attributes are attached: the Birman is said to dislike “seeing other pets receive attention,” but that scarcely seems like a Birman-specific description! Still, given felines’ reputation for being aloof and frequently solitary, it is interesting to discover that numerous cats are said to dislike being left alone: the Oriental Shorthair, Siamese, Snowshoe and others are said to share this characteristic. Be that as it may, cat fanciers are sure to have their own opinions about beings of the feline persuasion reinforced, challenged, contradicted or underlined – all in a thoroughly enjoyable context – by Catphabet, a book that will certainly not lay to rest the numerous contradictory opinions about cats or, for that matter, the numerous contradictory elements of their always-intriguing personalities.

(++++) OLD BACH AND NEW

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4; Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3; Concerto for Oboe and Violin; Telemann: Suite from “Don Quixote”; Vivaldi/Sorrell: La Folia (“Madness”). Apollo’s Fire conducted by Jeannette Sorrell. AVIE. $19.99.

Busoni: Piano Music; Bach/Busoni: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903; Liszt/Busoni: Fantasie über Zwei Motive aus W.A. Mozarts “Die Hochzeit des Figaro.” Jiayan Sun, piano. Bridge Records. $16.99.

Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9; Papillons, Op. 2; Intermezzi, Op. 4; “Abegg” Variations, Op. 1. Charles Owen, piano. AVIE. $19.99.

     After Johann Sebastian Bach’s death in 1750, as his sons’ stars were in the ascendant – especially those of Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian Bach – the family patriarch was sometimes referred to dismissively as “old Bach.” Yet as wonderful as many works of Bach’s sons proved to be, it is the music of “old Bach” that proved ever-new to succeeding generations after the time of his sons had passed, and that remains influential, beloved and respected down to the present day. The “respect” element, it is true, sometimes leads to performances that are on the dry side and that seem more concerned with preserving the formulaic aspects of J.S. Bach’s musical structures than engaging with the music on a more-intimate, more-emotional level. It takes period-instrument ensembles as good as Apollo’s Fire – which is to say ones that are very good indeed – to go beyond formula and showcase the ways in which “old Bach” simply used forms for their expressive and developmental potential rather than employing them as scaffolding for its own sake. It is precisely because Bach absorbed formal structures without being bound by them that his music proved so attractive to other composers in his own time and long afterwards, the “old Bach” moniker notwithstanding. A new AVIE recording by Apollo’s Fire under Jeannette Sorrell provides some delightful musical juxtapositions anchored in Bach’s own time, while a Bridge Records release focusing on the music of Ferruccio Busoni shows some significant ways in which Bach’s influence not only persisted but, if anything, increased over the years.

     The Sorrell disc opens with a light and lively rendition of Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, the fine flute playing highlighted throughout and the emotional expressiveness of the central Andante proving highly effective before the exuberant bounce of the concluding Presto. This is followed by expressiveness of a different sort in the Suite from “Don Quixote” by Bach’s contemporary Telemann, who both influenced “old Bach” and was strongly influenced by him. Being essentially self-taught, Telemann was less bound by musical conventions than many of his contemporaries, a state of affairs that allowed him a level of expressiveness unusual for his time and especially evident here in Le réveil de Quichotte and Ses soupirs amoureux après la Princesse Dulcinée. Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire are especially effective in contrasting these warmer and gentler elements of Telemann’s suite with the ebullient ones, such as Son attaque des moulins à vent. Next is a return to Bach’s music, the “Air on a G String” from his third orchestral suite – serving here as a kind of palate cleanser before the ensemble proceeds to the Concerto for Oboe and Violin, BWV 1060. Reconstructed from what is thought to have originally been a work for two harpsichords, this concerto is notable for the differing emphases of its movements: the middle one makes the solo instruments essentially equal partners, while the finale gives the violin considerably greater scope than the oboe receives. The pacing and ornamentation in this performance are particularly well-considered, and the playing is sensitively handled throughout. Then, as an encore, Sorrell presents her arrangement of the “La Folia” movement from Vivaldi’s Trio Sonata in D minor, Op. 1, No. 12, RV 63 – Vivaldi being another composer whose music is intertwined with that of Bach, while the “La Folia” theme shows both composers’ connection to their shared past, the theme already being old and well-known when Vivaldi used it.

     The Sorrell disc, although somewhat scattershot, is enchanting because of the numerous ways in which it explores and explicates the realm of Bach’s influence in his own lifetime. Jiayan Sun’s exploration of Busoni does something similar for a much later time period. The compositional designation “Bach/Busoni” is actually a common one, Busoni having done many adaptations and arrangements of music by Bach. Sun opens the CD with one of these, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903, which Busoni edited in 1915. Hearing Busoni’s handling of this work paves the way for a series of pieces by Busoni that are heavily influenced by Bach even when they are not actual transcriptions or arrangements. These are Busoni’s Toccata, BV 287; Elegy No. 7, BV 252—Berceuse; and Fantasia nach Johann Sebastian Bach, BV 253. Sun is fully equal to the considerable virtuosic demands of these works, presenting them in a way that showcases Busoni’s often-very-intense style while also displaying his sensitivity to some elements (if not all) that Bach brought to his music. Sun’s interest on this disc is exploring a variety of influences on Busoni’s music, not only that of Bach, so after displaying the Bach-related material, he moves on to equally convincing presentations of other material. He offers the rhythmically irregular and harmonically ambiguous Indianisches Tagebuch, Book 1, BV 267, in a closely detailed presentation that showcases the forward-looking elements of this 1915 work while still bringing forth the lyricism of the third of its four sections, a pleasant if slightly halting Andante. Next, Sun performs Busoni’s Sonatina No. 6: Kammer-Fantasie über Bizets “Carmen,” BV 284, a work from 1920 that shows the composer’s late style and his indebtedness to the “display pieces” offered by the great composer/pianists of the 19^th century. The greatest of those, by most estimations, was Liszt, and to show that Liszt was another significant influence on Busoni, Sun plays Liszt’s 1842 Fantasie über Zwei Motive aus W.A. Mozarts “Die Hochzeit des Figaro,” as edited by Busoni in 1912. A typically impressive Liszt thematic exploration, which spins out essentially delicate elements of The Marriage of Figaro into 15 minutes filled with fireworks, this piece is impressive both for showing how well Liszt absorbed Mozart’s framework and made it his own, and how Busoni handled Liszt with as much care and sensitivity as he brought to Bach. The CD concludes with a very short work that reaches directly back from Busoni to Mozart and that pianists other than Sun have also chosen as an encore: Variations-Studie nach Mozart, 1, from Busoni’s Klavierübung, based on the serenade from Don Giovanni. The CD is certainly worthwhile for listeners interested in Busoni’s piano music and some of the influences upon it – and it is also interesting for demonstrating the ways in which the music of “old Bach” became the basis of new musical thinking through the 19^th century and into the 20^th.

     The “Bach/Busoni” designation may be well-known, but one would be hard-pressed to look around for anything listed as “Bach/Schumann.” Yet Bach’s influence on Schumann was substantial, going well beyond Schumann’s only organ work, Six Fugues on the Name Bach, Op. 60 (1845). For one thing, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 is absolutely packed with Bach-related material: Schumann studied Bach intensely when recuperating from one of his bouts of severe mental illness, in 1844, and included the musical equivalent of Bach’s name (B flat-A-C-B natural) in the second movement – plus several references to Bach’s Musical Offering. Even before writing these works, Schumann had been profoundly influenced by Bach and had adapted many Bach techniques of quotations and references to other works. A new AVIE disc featuring early Schumann piano music played by Charles Owen shows some of these techniques already clearly present in Schumann’s first two published pieces, “Abegg” Variations, Op. 1 and Papillons, Op. 2. Owen presents the gently lyrical “Abegg” theme and the five contrasting variations attentively and without making the piece out to be more grandiose than it is, and handles Papillons similarly: the work’s 12 movements are essentially independent of each other, many being one-minute-or-less miniatures and only the last two lasting longer than two minutes apiece. Most of the dances are waltzes, and Owen does a fine job of maintaining the three-quarter-time material while also putting the ornamentation of many movements clearly on display. The six Intermezzi, Op. 4 are more varied in form and duration, and Owen effectively showcases the somewhat larger canvas on which Schumann worked here, with the Presto a capriccio, oddly leaping Allegro marcato, and fantasia-like concluding Allegro coming across particularly well. As for Carnaval, Op. 9, which is actually heard first on this disc, Owen presents its 21 little movements with close attention to its recurring motifs and codes, but above all with musical attentiveness: the deliberate rhythmic awkwardness of some sections contrasts very well with the pure lyricism of others (Arlequin with Valse noble, for example), and the work as a whole neatly evokes not only carnival tropes but also such real-world characters as Clara Schumann and Chopin (who did not think much of Schumann’s music). The performance is a pleasant and largely unassuming one, and in that way fits the music very well indeed, without overstating anything or trying to turn the piece into one of grand gestures. These early Schumann piano works do not show Bach’s influence as clearly as do some subsequent ones, but all use techniques – including ones derived from Bach – that Schumann would later develop and refine as he discovered more ways in which “old Bach” remained relevant to Schumann’s own time, just as Busoni would later find him relevant to a still-later era.

(++++) GENTLY JOYFUL

Brambly Hedge Festive Coloring Book. By Jill Barklem. HarperCollins. $10.99.

     Rarely does a coloring book have a chance to appeal to children and adults alike: kids’ books tend to be simplistic and formulaic, while those for adults are usually very elaborate and packed with adult-style themes drawn from fields such as dark fantasy and science fiction. So the Brambly Hedge Festive Coloring Book is a rarity – but then, so are Jill Barklem’s eight Brambly Hedge books, which were officially aimed at children but which managed to entrance and enthrall adults as well from their first appearance (1980) through their last (1994). In fact, their enjoyability for young and old alike extends well beyond the original books, thanks to various collections, spinoffs, toys, and series continuations by well-meaning authors paying tribute to Barklem (1951-2017).

     The Brambly Hedge Festive Coloring Book is one such series extension, and it is quite a pleasant and unassuming one – indeed, “pleasant” and “unassuming” are perfect adjectives for Barklem’s milieu and are key to the ongoing charm and delights of her creations. The first four Brambly Hedge books followed Barklem’s community of mice living in a hedgerow in the British countryside through the four seasons – and established a world in which everything is tranquil, loving, caring and community-focused, without predators or any acts of deliberate unkindness of any sort. This setup could easily have become simplistic and treacly, but Barklem’s skill at handling minor instances of nature-focused difficulties, explorations and seasonal enjoyment was such that the pleasantries did not wear thin – and, indeed, offered adults a calmer and more-cooperative world than the real one.

     The Brambly Hedge Festive Coloring Book, with its mostly black-and-white cover decorated with splashes of color in the form of holly leaves and berries, specifically celebrates winter and its holidays, and although there is no overt verbal reference to Christmas, it is certainly present at the time of the Snow Ball in the Ice Hall – for example, in the form of a suitably decorated tree topped by a mouse angel. “Step into the enchanting world of the hedgerow,” say the words as the book opens, on pages displaying Barklem’s drawings of various characters – but it is not really necessary to know the individual mice or understand their family comings-and-goings to find the illustrations throughout the book thoroughly charming even before coloring them. There is no real attempt at storytelling here – the coloring book just shows a number of scenes from Barklem’s created world and invites anyone so inclined to turn those scenes into pastels, watercolors, crayon creations, or whatever may render them even prettier and give them an even stronger flavor of pleasurable unreality.

     The brief snippets of text throughout the book place the illustrations in context but are scarcely necessary for enjoyment of the pictures. One page, for example, features a central oval that shows Wilfred Toadflax poring over a book; along the upper and lower page margins are shelves of books of all kinds, in all sorts of bindings, along with a few jars of this and that. The relevant text about the “damp and chilly” weather and Wilfred “spending the day inside with the weavers” is scarcely necessary, although it does help explain the facing page, which shows the weaver mice at work on their craft. Similarly, a scene of horseplay (actually mouseplay) in which two mice take snow from just outside their cozy home and chase their sisters with it does not really require verbiage about how they “chased their sisters…with pawfuls of snow scooped from the windowsill.” The text is a pleasant adjunct to the pictures, but even someone who knows nothing about Brambly Hedge and its resident mice can thoroughly enjoy the illustrations without reading anything.

     The to-be-colored pages provide a wide variety of scenes and a wide variety of opportunities to bring them to multicolored life. One page is packed with the details of quotidian hominess: foods and serving dishes and candles and bottles and baskets and everything that makes a small Brambly Hedge house a home. Another simply shows Clover Toadflax using a toasting fork to toast bread at a fireplace wherein is a toasty-looking fire. One page, whose text is about a key, shows that key no fewer than 33 times – it is an old-fashioned skeleton-type key with intricate workings. A two-page spread of mice dancing with delight as “Basil struck up a jolly tune on his violin” shows Basil doing just that – with a crowd of dozens of mice, dressed in winter finery, twirling and whirling about the room. The Brambly Hedge Festive Coloring Book has sufficiently complex pages to intrigue adults who are inclined to put a touch of their own on some tales that have justifiably become classics. But the underlying simplicity of the narrative material, and the pleasantries that peek through every one of Barklem’s illustrations, make the book quite apt even for very young colorists – indeed, it is noted as being “suitable for ages 3+,” which seems about right. In the spirit of all sorts of winter holidays, it offers a chance for adults and children alike to point to this-and-that especially pleasurable detail of the world of Brambly Hedge, with everyone finding his or her own way to add some color to a milieu that always sparkles, even as it glows from within.

(++++) VOCALS OF FAITH AND POETRY

Vivaldi: Musica sacra per coro e orchestra I—Dixit Dominus, RV 807; Confitebor tibi Domine, RV 596; Sanctorum meritis, RV 620; Vos invite, barbaræ faces, RV 811; Magnificat, RV 611. Carlotta Colombo, soprano; Margherita Maria Sala, mezzo-soprano; Valerio Contaldo, tenor; Alessandro Ravasio, bass; Coro e Orchestra Ghisleri conducted by Giulio Prandi. Naïve. $16.99.

Schubert: Schwanengesang; Schumann: Dichterliebe. Randall Scarlata, baritone; Gilbert Kalish, piano. Bridge Records. $16.99.

Dominick Argento: Three Meditations; A Few Words about Chekhov; Three Sonnets of Petrarch; Cabaret Songs. Bridge Records. $16.99.

     The 72^nd release in the long-running Vivaldi Edition from Naïve includes a couple of firsts: it is the first offering of the composer’s sacred music for chorus and orchestra, and the first from Giulio Prandi and his Coro e Orchestra Ghisleri – yet another of the exceptional ensembles participating in this extraordinary undertaking, which began in 2001 and is due to continue until 2027, the 350^th anniversary of Vivaldi’s birth. Vivaldi’s music from the collection held at the Italian National Library in Turin contains some material already available from other sources and a great deal that is little-known or in some cases is otherwise not known at all. The sheer extent of Vivaldi’s musical oeuvre is such that even listeners who know a good deal of his work surely have not heard all of it. In this new recording, for example, listeners who know about Vivaldi’s penchant for setting Psalm 109, Dixit Dominus, may not be aware of this setting, RV 807, which is the third and last he composed. It is a setting that is highly sensitive to the nuances of choral writing while also containing some effective instrumental touches (notably a representation in one movement of water rippling) and a concluding choral fugue that shows Vivaldi’s abilities in a form rarely associated with him. The next psalm, 110 (Confitebor tibi Domine), was set only once by Vivaldi, and is his only sacred work for three solo voices. The vocal handoffs and the blending of the three voices are handled with great skill, and the underlying warlike material of the psalm (“make your enemies a footstool for your feet”) is well-accentuated by the organ part. The contrast is considerable with the short hymn Sanctorum meritis – one of only four known hymns by Vivaldi. The straightforward simplicity of the alto voice projects a feeling of sincerity throughout. The motet Vos invite, barbaræ faces also features the alto, this time in a much more dramatic and intense work requiring very considerable vocal pyrotechnics. The CD concludes with the final (1739) version of Vivaldi’s Magnificat, a work in G minor that was enormously popular in the composer’s lifetime. This too requires considerable vocal acrobatics, but here the sincerity and emotional depth of the music overshadow any matters of technique: this is a deeply felt and emotionally trenchant work that remains insistently in the minor for much of its length, with some sections – notably Et misericordia – plumbing considerable depths of feeling. Even the concluding Gloria Patri preserves the sense of unrelenting intensity. The performances, as has been the case throughout this remarkable series, are exemplary, with conductor, soloists, chorus and instrumentalists cooperating to an exceptional degree in producing readings that are historically informed, carefully balanced, and sensitive to the many expressive nuances of Vivaldi’s music.

     Sensitivity is also a hallmark of the performances of Schubert and Schumann song cycles by Randall Scarlata and Gilbert Kalish on a new Bridge Records recording. The 14 songs of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, published after the composer’s death, were apparently intended as two separate cycles – one to seven poems by Ludwig Rellstab, the other to six poems by Heinrich Heine. The final song, with words by Johann Gabriel Seidl, does not appear to have been planned for either cycle. In addition to being capital-R Romantic in the extreme, the songs are reflective of themes explored by Schubert in the earlier song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. The sheer melodiousness of the songs stands in contrast with their often melancholy themes – one element this final set shares with the earlier cycles – and Scarlata is quite sensitive to this. The songs contrasting the singer’s feelings with the natural world around him, such as Liebesbotschaft, Frühlingssehnsucht and Aufenthalt, fare particularly well here, with Kalish’s piano complementing and underlining Scarlata’s well-conveyed emotions, which are intense without seeming overdone. Abschied, the seventh song and the last to words by Rellstab, is especially effective, the vocals calling into question the jaunty piano part. In the six Heine songs – four of which are in minor keys – Scarlata is a touch less convincing, the generally dour nature of the material seeming to hold him back a bit. The 16 songs of Schumann’s Dichterliebe are also by Heine, but the lyricism and fairy-tale elements of these particular songs seem more congenial for this singer. The musical lightness of songs such as Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne and Und wüßten’s die Blumen, die kleinen comes through to particularly good effect here, the underlying sadness of the words certainly not ignored but taking something of a back seat to the comparative ebullience of the music. Aus alten Märchen winkt es, which is almost rollicking here, is particularly well-presented. This pairing of Schubert and Schumann is by no means uncommon, but it works quite well here in establishing the similarities among the texts of all the songs and the complementarity of the approaches of the two composers when setting material that, in the case of Heine, is by the same poet. And Kalish is a major asset to the recording, never being a “mere” accompanist but always coming across as a genuine partner to Scarlata in exploring the songs’ meanings and conveying them with strength and understanding.

     The four much-more-recent song cycles by Dominick Argento (1927-2019), heard on another Bridge Records release, are not among Argento’s better-known works. But they are interesting examples of ways in which song cycles have and have not developed since Schubert’s and Schumann’s time. Argento, probably best known for his operas and choral works, here proves fully capable of effective writing for solo voice. Three Meditations (2008) is for unaccompanied mezzo-soprano (Adriana Zabala) and sets words by Walt Whitman, Walter de la Mare, and Alun Lewis. Argento’s medium is essentially tonal, but he stretches elements of the vocalizing for expressive purposes, and Zabala conveys the poets’ feelings to good effect. A Few Words about Chekhov (1996) is an extended seven-song cycle for mezzo-soprano (Zabala), baritone (Jesse Blumberg), and piano (Martin Katz). Consisting of solos and duos, its words adapted from Chekhov’s letters rather than his literary works, the cycle has operatic elements combined with declamatory ones – it is a rather rarefied piece, even with the comparative accessibility of its musical language. Three Sonnets of Petrarch (2007) is for baritone and piano (Blumberg and Katz), gives the words in English, and is somewhat more dissonant than Three Meditations and the Chekhov-focused cycle. The moody piano setup of the second song is quite well done – and contrasts very well indeed with the near-fury of both piano and voice at the start of the third. All these cycles are more-or-less in a direct line with groupings such as Schwanengesang and Dichterliebe, but the last five-song Argento work heard here is something different. Cabaret Songs (2011) is for mezzo-soprano (Zabala) and piano (JJ Penna). To the extent that this cycle reflects earlier works, it is a bit reminiscent of the sweeter side of Kurt Weill (to the extent that one exists) combined with Broadway-musical tunefulness and a touch of the blues here and there. There is a modicum of the bittersweet mixed with a bit of the defiantly upbeat, with the overall effect being distinctly modern – not in a musical sense (the songs remain in Argento’s tonal mode) but in the emotional one of a laughter-and-tears balancing act. This is a particularly interesting cycle, and one that shows ways in which contemporary composers with a penchant for vocal expression can update and adapt longstanding tropes of vocal music, keeping it within the general field of classical song cycles while equipping it with some modern sensibilities that can reach out effectively to listeners whose familiarity with works such as those of Schubert and Schumann may be distinctly limited.