(++++) FORMS OF KEYBOARD MASTERY

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 28-32. Paul Wee, piano. BIS. $42.99 (2 SACDs). 

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 9, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 and 27; Fantasia in C minor, K. 475; Piano Sonatas Nos. 11 and 14. Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $45.99 (6 CDs). 

     If one were to encapsulate the pianism of Paul Wee in a single word, that word would be fearless. Wee seems thoroughly unafraid to tackle anything pianistic whatsoever, and equally unaffected by tradition when it comes to going along with or rejecting composers’ stated desires for their music. This matters a great deal in Beethoven, especially in the complexities of late Beethoven: Wee does not hesitate to do exactly what composers say they want done, while other pianists think "he could not possibly, truly, have meant THAT.” There are perfect examples in Sonata No. 29, to which the label “Hammerklavier” has stuck even though Beethoven also gave No. 28 that designation. Beethoven’s tempo indications for the first and last movements of No. 29, which “everyone knows” are ridiculously fast to the point of being unplayable, are scrupulously observed here, and the familiar music instantly takes on new character and tremendous effectiveness as a result. Similarly, Wee’s second-movement Prestissimo in Sonata No. 30 goes by in a flash, and the music is all the better for it. Yet Wee is just as much at home in the evanescent delicacy of Sonata No. 28 as in the drama in extremis of No. 29. To put it simply, Wee is afraid of nothing in this music, approaching all of it with attentive understanding that, coupled with his formidable technical skill, results in performance after performance being truly revelatory. Wee genuinely absorbs and then proffers the elements of these sonatas that lend them so much gravitas. He makes clear the structural importance of trills, which are not mere ornaments here, and does not hesitate to turn these sonatas into works of exceptional drama – the first movement of No. 29 being a perfect example. Indeed, listening and re-listening to Wee’s way with this sonata, which is Beethoven’s longest, clarifies instance after instance of pianistic insight. True, there is a slight holding back in the third movement, which is a trifle cool and not molto sentimento – it certainly does not wallow. But then the evanescence of the transition between the third and fourth movements is especially good, and the fugue, taken at Beethoven’s indicated speed, is a really amazing experience, verging on the impossible but somehow all kept tightly under control by sheer force of Wee’s will. The complexity-yet-clarity of the final three minutes is simply astonishing, the work ending in what is almost a “fugue of trills.” It is an exhilarating performance to hear and one whose elegance is marvelous to contemplate. And there are similar high points throughout this BIS release. Among them is the end of No. 30, which sounds not like a conclusion as much as an evaporation – a most impressive effect. The remarkable placidity of the early part of the second movement of No. 32 is also noteworthy: the music sounds like a berceuse. Wee is not only a master of the drama in all these sonatas but also is constantly aware of Beethoven’s repeated insistence on expressiveness: the indications espressivo in Nos. 30 and 31, cantabile in No. 32. The final three sonatas have a feeling of surveying the marvelous landscape visible from the top of a mountain scaled (via No. 29) with considerable drama and difficulty. At the same time, the final three sonatas are quite different from each other, and Wee differentiates them to fine effect. His handling of the second and final movement of No. 32 is especially notable. The section that many pianists handle as a sort of proto-jazz presentation is here not “jazzlike” at all – instead, its rhythmic irregularities are reflective of emotional emphases inherent in the music. And Wee definitely has a thing for Beethoven’s use of trills: toward the end of this final sonata movement, the trills become the work’s most prominent feature, as the music glides upward and outward into a realm beyond the earthly – to end in the perfection of utter simplicity. Wee is a thoroughgoing master of Beethoven’s late piano music, as comfortable with its subtleties as with its grandeur. His performances, impressive as they are in themselves, also set an interpretative standard against which other pianists who wish to appear undaunted by late Beethoven would do well to measure themselves. 

     It is worth pointing out that Wee, like other modern pianists, takes full advantage of a modern piano (in his case a Steinway D) whose capabilities are far beyond anything Beethoven had at his disposal: Beethoven did include, in the finale of Sonata No. 29, a bass note not available to him before but made possible by use of a Broadwood instrument he had recently received – but the newly expanded Broadwood still had only six octaves. The depth of key travel and overall resonance of modern pianos give them a sound very much at odds with what Beethoven and other composers of his time would have known – and this is especially important to remember when playing music less heaven-storming than is much of Beethoven’s. And it is this sensitivity to the composer, this ability to get “in tune” (so to speak) with compositional intent, that is a hallmark of so many performances by Idil Biret – including those of 10 concertos and three solo-piano works on a six-disc release in the ongoing Idil Biret Archive (IBA) series. Biret’s readings here were recorded between 1980 and 2019; some are live performances and some are studio recordings. The various orchestras and conductors are all at least serviceable and often very fine, and the renditions throughout show Biret’s strengths as a Mozart interpreter while also highlighting what can be thought of as flaws. She is highly attuned to the emotional content of the music and does not hesitate to bring it out – her handling of Concerto No. 22 (with the Bursa State Orchestra conducted by Ender Sakpinar) is especially compelling in this regard. But she is not interested in historically informed performance practices and does not hesitate to use modern pianos’ expressive capabilities to expand upon and underline the emotions that she finds within Mozart’s music. As a result, many of these readings sound a touch old-fashioned – not in a pejorative sense, but in the way that they unhesitatingly use Romantic-era techniques (swells, crescendo/decrescendo, pedal emphases, strong piano/forte contrasts, etc.) to communicate Biret’s feelings about what she sees as Mozart’s feelings. One good example is Concerto No. 13 (with the London Mozart Players under Patrick Gallois), which is taken throughout at a leisurely pace with very considerable warmth and which features some highly emotional and ritardando-filled sections in the finale. Interestingly, Biret, in her decades of giving concerts, was much less interested in Mozart’s solo piano works than in his concertos. One disc here includes the Fantasia in C minor, K. 475, and the 11^th and 14^th sonatas, and all are handled with aplomb, but there is something a trifle dismissive about Biret’s approach (including in the famous Alla Turca that ends No. 11), as if she would really rather be interacting with an orchestra than delivering Mozart by herself. Indeed, the way Biret manages the ebb and flow of material between soloist and ensemble is one of the great strengths of all the performances here, being especially noticeable in Concerto No. 9 (with the Württenberg Orchestra under Jörg Färber). The minor-key concertos, Nos. 20 (with the Sydney Orchestra conducted by Louis Fremaux) and 24 (with the London Mozart Players under John Gibbons) also come across particularly well, with Biret being sensitive to the works’ drama and pathos but knowing, in these cases, not to overdo any tendency to employ the emotive techniques to which modern pianos invite performers. Nothing in this six-CD set is less than impressive; certainly nothing is disappointing or of less than premium quality. Nevertheless, this is a release more for Biret fans than for devoted lovers of Mozart’s piano concertos: there is enough quality variability among the orchestras and in the sound of the various recordings through the years to make this a collector’s item mainly for listeners devoted to the particular excellences of this pianist. Biret’s blend of a light touch in more-upbeat movements with emotional emphasis in more-serious material is attractive throughout. But her determinedly older-style approach to Mozart, while convincing enough on its own terms, will not be to all listeners’ taste now that so many pianists have absorbed so many elements of historically informed performance practice – even when they continue presenting works of the Classical era on pianos of modern times.

(++++) EXTREMES OF SOUND AND SENSIBILITY

Ástor Piazzolla: María de Buenos Aires. Ce Suarez Paz, Gualtiero Scola, Alberto Maria Munafò; Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria conducted by Filippo Arlia; Cesare Chiacchiaretta, bandoneon; Giovanni Zonno, violin; Salvatore Russo, electric guitar; Nico Fiscaldo and Filippo Arlia, piano. Brilliant Classics. $16.99 (2 CDs). 

Veni Redemptor Gentium: Medieval Music for Christmas. Concordian Dawn (Amber Evans, soprano; Catherine Hedberg, mezzo-soprano and percussion; Nickolas Karageorgiou, haute-contre tenor; Michell Kennedy, soprano; Thomas McCargar, baritone and percussion; Daphna Mor, recorder, ney, voice and percussion; Niccolo Seligmann, vielle and percussion; Christopher Preston Thompson, director, tenor, medieval harp and percussion). AVIE. $19.99. 

Kyriakos Kalaïtzidis: Christmas at the Castle. Vasiliki Nevrokopli, narrator; Psaltikon conducted by Spyridon Antonopoulos; En Chordais chamber music ensemble. Cappella Records. $17.99. 

     Stylish, surreal and suitably strange, María de Buenos Aires, Ástor Piazzolla’s self-styled 1968 tango-operita, is a remarkable exploration of the depth and extent to which nuevo tango can be used to explore life and death, the hereafter that is identical to the now, and the many moods of a complex and vivid and hellishly illuminated cityscape and the mostly unseen multitudes who inhabit it. Piazzolla (1921-1992) created the work in close collaboration with lyricist Horacio Ferrer (1933-2014), who also wrote words for some freestanding Piazzolla tangos. The interrelationship of Piazzolla and Ferrer produces a theatrical work that is unlike any other, steeped both in the sort of magical realism for which authors such as Gabriel García Márquez became famous – and in mid-20^th-century nihilism and social commentary. The Brilliant Classics release of the work features an absolutely first-rate performance by well-versed soloists and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria conducted by Filippo Arlia. The totality results in a recording that is fascinating and thoroughly engaging almost in spite of itself: the story, such as it is, makes it clear from the start that the title character is a metaphor rather than (or in addition to) a person, and the combination of singing and narrative produces an almost hypnotic feeling of being involved in circumstances that are somehow meaningful even when they are virtually incomprehensible. Ferrer’s lyrics are somewhat time-bound and somewhat overly self-referential, but highly effective nevertheless, with (for example) the many references to the meaning of the tango within the story – around which Piazzolla weaves tango music – emerging both as self-serving and as crucial elements of the narrative. María de Buenos Aires is in two parts, in the first of which the title character ekes out a short-lived existence as a prostitute in the unforgiving city, only to reappear in the second part as her own ghost and eventually be reborn to repeat (presumably eternally) the depredations of her life and of an urban hellscape. Somehow this framing tale becomes, thanks to Piazzolla’s music, thoughtful and involving rather than merely depressing: María de Buenos Aires is certainly packed with social commentary, but the insistent surrealism of Ferrer’s lyrics results in a kind of distancing that prevents any sense of a hectoring message and makes the overall scene one of sadness and regret rather than despair. Brilliant Classics does not provide the libretto – a major flaw in this otherwise excellent release – and while the company says the lyrics are available online, it offers no link to them. Listeners will certainly want to search for the words, which are crucial to the communicative power of this not-quite-opera – and anyone not fluent in Spanish will need to find a translation that conveys the peculiarities as well as the power of the verbiage. The performers themselves very effectively put their roles across: Ce Suarez Paz as María and her ghost; Gualtiero Scola as a young writer who is also something of a demonic presence, and who mostly narrates rather than singing; and Alberto Maria Munafò as a payador, a kind of traveling minstrel whose songs punctuate the story – and also as the voice of several minor characters within the tale. The sound of the tango permeates every element of María de Buenos Aires, and that means the sound of the bandoneon (beautifully played by Cesare Chiacchiaretta) is everywhere. But Piazzolla also manages to weave a magical musical spell with other solo instruments: violin, electric guitar and piano all contribute significant elements to the atmosphere. María de Buenos Aires is a brooding, intense, unusual stage work that insists perhaps a bit too strongly on its meaningfulness and importance but, despite that, draws the audience into a gritty and often unpleasant world in ways that are impossible to ignore – all framed by the wondrous ways in which Piazzolla creates and re-creates tango-infused phantasmagoria. 

     Voices and instruments combined for wonders of a very different sort many hundreds of years ago – but the works performed by Concordian Dawn on a new AVIE release are in their own way as fascinating as Piazzolla’s tango-operita. The ensemble here offers 22 Christmas-themed tracks – and actually, despite its devotion to medieval music, includes two world première recordings of works by David Yardley (born 1978). Yardley writes in what can be thought of as a modernized medieval style: both This Holy Tym Oure Lord Was Born and Vox Clamantis in Deserto neatly balance very old thoughts and sensibilities with a certain cleanliness of style derived from contemporary musical sensibilities. Yardley’s pieces fit neatly into the overall tone of this very well-sung recording, most of whose works are anonymous and nearly all of which are very old indeed: there is one by Perotinus, also known as Pérotin (1160-1230), one by Mikołaj Radomski (1400-1450), and one by Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474), in addition to all those whose creators are unknown. The members of Concordian Dawn not only sing unfamiliar music but also play some very-little-known instruments, including the vielle (an ancestor of both the violin and the viola da gamba) and the ney (an ancient end-blown flute). Yet just as Piazzolla manages to make a single musical form, the tango, encompass a very wide range of expressions and emotions, so the composers on this recording – whether from medieval times or indebted to them for inspiration – all manage to entrance the ear and elevate the spirit in multilingual expressions of faith that, while seasonal, are thoroughly suitable for hearing at any time of year. Some instrumental touches are especially notable, such as the medieval harp at the start of Isaiah and Sybil’s Prophecies, the vielle opening of Kuando el rey Nimrod, and the jaunty non-vocal Orientis partibus and Personent Hodie. Among the many vocal standouts are the purity of Ave, regina cælorum, the heartfelt Dum medium silentium, and the quiet beauty of Verbum caro factum est. The sensitivity to period style, to the meanings of the words sung here, and to the underlying significance of the Christian seasonal celebration and its miraculous underpinnings, come together in this beautifully blended ensemble’s renditions of every work on the disc. The result is a CD whose sheer loveliness transcends the time period in which most of the music was created, speaking to a contemporary audience in a manner diametrically opposed to the dark cynicism of Piazzolla and Ferrer – and reflective of an equally prominent and meaningful side of the human experience both in the past and in the modern world. 

     Christmas seems to invite composers, including contemporary ones, to create works that unite the ancient with the modern in such a way as to produce new material that spans the centuries – and joins them. This is true not only for composers steeped in the form of Christianity that is most familiar to Western audiences but also for ones focused on other traditions, as Kyriakos Kalaïtzidis (born 1969) is on the Byzantine. The world première recording of Kalaïtzidis’ 2023 Christmas at the Castle, a sort of dramatic oratorio, very clearly displays the uniting of past and present within a Christ-centered spiritual universe – but one that will be so unfamiliar to most listeners that only those with a yearning for the exotic and for new perspectives on the meaning of Christmas will find this (+++) Cappella Records release compelling. Kalaïtzidis’ piece is based on a work by Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911), an author well-known and highly respected in Greece but quite unfamiliar elsewhere. Vasiliki Nevrokopli (born 1968), herself an author – primarily of children’s books – adapted the story and narrates it, with musical elements provided by the Boston-based Byzantine-chant-specialist ensemble Psaltikon under Spyridon Antonopoulos, plus the chamber ensemble En Chordais. Kalaïtzidis’ piece is in three scenes: "At Papa Frangouli's Home," “At the Castle,” and “At the Temple.” It interweaves elements of the Byzantine celebration of Christmas with a secular story of shipwrecked sailors begging for rescue – a circumstance that will in turn reflect back on the meaning of Christmas, which Papa Frangouli and his flock have been celebrating by observing ancient frescoes at a now-neglected sanctuary. The basic story arc will be easy enough for listeners to follow: many tales have expanded upon the meaning of Christmas by having characters’ lives follow unexpected paths that eventually reflect on Christ’s. But the method of exploring Papadiamantis’ story will be challenging for most audiences not already familiar with Byzantine liturgy and music. Kalaïtzidis is extremely dedicated to use of traditional forms and sounds, resulting in singing in rhyming 15-syllable Greek verse for which the composer employs the eight modes of Byzantine chant – which means, for example, that there is differentiation among set pieces in Second Mode, Plagal Second Mode, and Second Mode Mesos. Audiences are of course not required to have intimate knowledge of the underpinnings of the music – and the booklet provided with this CD is a huge help, including notes by Kalaïtzidis and all the texts in original Greek and English translation. The actual sound of the music is relentlessly insistent on its historical and ethnic roots, and indeed the purely instrumental elements of Christmas at the Castle, including the very first piece, “The Shadow of God: Instrumental,” and “Instrumental Semai: Third Mode” in the second scene, are helpful doorways into the work’s overall sensibility. The heart of the work, though, is the vocal material, both narrated and sung, and listeners attuned to Kalaïtzidis’ sound world – or who wish to become attuned to it – will need to listen carefully not only to what is said and sung but also to the musical flow underlying the vocals, which draws strongly on sacred chant that bears little resemblance to more-familiar Western Christmas-themed music. Thoughtfully produced and carefully assembled to draw audiences into Papadiamantis’ world and the Byzantine liturgy, the CD of Christmas at the Castle will be a fascinating and meaningful experience for listeners seeking what for most will be a hitherto unexplored and somewhat opaque exploration of the meaning of the holiday. Although it is certainly not for all audiences, the disc will be, for those inclined to explore it, a genuine and much-appreciated Christmas gift.

(++++) TALES OF THE SUPERSILLIES

The World’s Worst Superheroes. By David Walliams. Illustrated by Adam Stower. HarperCollins. $15.99. 

     You have to give David Walliams credit: he has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of comedic ideas for the preteen set, so many that some of his stories overflow with capsule descriptions of characters that could be protagonists in their own right but with whom he apparently just couldn’t be bothered because he is too busy making other characters into protagonists. Less attractively, Walliams has an equally seemingly-inexhaustible supply of fascination with the grosser bodily functions, and if that seems age-appropriate for his target audience, it also seems inappropriate for just about everyone else – and, truth be told, for the more-refined members of the preteen age group. Assuming there are some. Which Walliams assumes there are not. 

     All the Walliams character-comedy elements are on clear display in The World’s Worst Superheroes, which bounces from hilarity to ridiculousness to complete stupidity to total grossness to unbounded hilarity with seeming randomness – the excellent Adam Stower illustrations of various and sundry weirdly powered characters pulling everything together, to an extent, while thoroughly exploring elements of Walliams’ fondness for the gross, to an additional extent. 

     Walliams is quite thoroughly British, as he shows in the opening story here, Wonderqueen. This is the tale that will have the least resonance across the pond, since it requires an understanding of the limitations of queenliness, the importance of corgis, and the transformative abilities of royal objects such as the orb and scepter (spelled sceptre since, again, this is British). One thing that will not be at all difficult for readers to grasp, though, is the supervillain that Wonderqueen must battle: Donald Trump (“No one knew he was a SUPERVILLAIN, as he seemed like such a buffoon” – in case you wondered about Walliams’ political views). Trump transforms into a “HALF MAN, HALF JELLYFISH” and wanders around the palace stealing objects until Wonderqueen eventually overcomes him with weapons such as the “Supersceptre laser blaster,” albeit not without occasional mishaps: “A lightly-singed pigeon fell out of the sky and hit her on the head.” Anyway, the evil Stinger ends up in the water with snapped tentacles, and Wonderqueen returns in triumph to Buckingham Palace, and it really, really does help to have some familiarity with British royal customs to gain a full measure of hilarity from this story. 

     Everything else in The World’s Worst Superheroes is more readily accessible. Sometimes too accessible. In line with his grossness preoccupations, Walliams proffers Greeniegirl, the tale of Sibyl, “the snottiest girl in the world,” who “produced enough snot to feed an army. If that army ate snot. Which they wouldn’t, because snot tastes DISGUSTING.” But not to Sibyl – which is the whole point of a story in which she gets sent to “The Maximum-Security School for Revolting Children,” whose headmaster, Bloodcurdle, produces copious amounts of earwax and uses them to control the horrible children. These are some of the secondary characters that could theoretically be primary ones if Walliams bothered. Among them are Miss Whippy, Mighty Mess, Polterghoost, Squiggler, Flobber, and The Destructorer – and there are others, each neatly described in a few suitably disgusting lines. They are in the clutches of Professor Nutflake, Dr. Malodour and – well, you get the idea. And if snot is not your thing, you can turn to The Curious Case of the Fantom Farter, starring Professor Phantom aka the Fantom Farter, and if there was ever a title that perfectly described a story, that is it. And the whole thing stinks just about as much as you would expect it to stink. 

     Thankfully, there is some genuine cleverness in The World’s Worst Superheroes that makes some of the tales much less reliant on poopyness and such. Walliams has a couple of self-referential bits that even adults will enjoy: The Astounding Flea-Man is “a staggering, blockbusting extravaganza” that consists entirely of two pages on which a man who has changed into a flea is squished when someone sits on him. That’s it. Also, in the Greeniegirl tale, one of Bloodcurdle’s “legendary punishments” involves a child, “on pain of death, being made to read a book by David Walliams. Many children chose death.” 

     Assuming that is not your choice, or the choice of the kids for whom The World’s Worst Superheroes was created, there are a couple of stories here that rely on cleverness and exceptionally amusing Stower illustrations for their effects – and are all the more effective as a result. One is War of the Gods, in which Zeus, Poseidon and Thor are eventually overcome by “Clive, the god of Scrabble,” who “was from a family of pointless gods” – his father, Pete, for example, “was the god of crazy golf.” And then there is Thunderhound Versus the World, in which the unbelievably adorable Bamboozle the dog (you have to see Stower’s art to believe it: unbelievably adorable!) is repeatedly victimized by Vinegar the cat, who goes by the name of Catastrocat and is in cahoots with Professor Beetle, Honk-Honk the “goose with two heads,” and other evil types who, again, could be protagonists if Walliams wanted them to be. Bamboozle aka Thunderhound appears to have only one brain cell, more or less (probably less), and never realizes who is responsible for all the evil things surrounding and attacking him. But he nevertheless manages eventually to rescue 10 dachshund puppies (more adorableness!), one of whom discovers the Thundercave, repairs all the Thundergadgets that Catastrocat had previously sabotaged, and christens himself Thunderpup – which is about as good an ending as any story here possesses. 

     There is much more to enjoy here. The tale of The League of Retired Superheroes, featuring The Mighty Noob and Emperor Obnox the Obnoxious, who take their longstanding feud (which has already destroyed two planets) to Earth and its determined but distinctly elderly defenders, is especially clever in its concept of superheroes who are well past their prime (and, again, could be stars of their own stories were Walliams so inclined). The Fantastic Forty-Four pits the title characters (many of whom, yet again, could be protagonists) against a gravy monster; the twist here is that 43 of the characters were originally villains, all captured by Doctor Glue, who eventually melts after the climactic battle – but first gets all 43 to agree to continue to be good when he is gone, a promise on which they promptly renege at the end of the story. As for Walliams and Stower, about all they bother to promise in The World’s Worst Superheroes is a collection of utterly ridiculous good (or more-or-less good) characters vs. a completely absurd grouping of evil (or more-or-less evil) bad ones. And that is a promise on which they deliver in all 10 tales here – whether by offering over-the-top grossness or through occasional hints and bits of cleverness atop the steaming mound of unassailable nonsense.

(++++) THE INSTRUMENTATION’S THE THING

Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, “Trout”; Hummel: Piano Quintet in C, Op. 114a. I Musicanti (Zsolt-Tilhamér Visontay, violin; Robert Smissen, viola; Richard Harwood, cello; Leon Bosch, double bass and director); Peter Donohoe, piano. SOMM. $18.99. 

Smetana: String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life” (orchestrated by George Szell); Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, “Hammerklavier” (orchestrated by Felix Weingartner). The Orchestra Now conducted by Leon Botstein. AVIE. $19.99. 

Christopher Tyler Nickel: Suite for 2 Oboes & 2 Cor Anglais; Symphony for Flute Choir. Roger Cole and Karin Walsh, oboes; Beth Orson and Eric Marks, cor anglais; Sarah Jackson, piccolo; Christie Reside, Rosanne Wieringa, Laura Vanek, and Paul Hung, flutes; Anne-Elise Keefer, alto flute; Paolo Bortolussi, bass flute; Clyde Mitchell, conductor. AVIE. $19.99. 

Alexis Lamb: Murmuration; Bill Clark: Moiré; Carlo Nicolau: Espejismos; Ljova: On the Street Where I Live; Matthew Welch: Variasi Ombak; Dennis Tobenski: Starfish at Pescadero. Percussia (Ingrid Gordon and Frank Cassara, percussion; Margaret Lancaster, flute; Susan Jolles, harp; Ljova, violin and fadolin; Melissa Fogerty, soprano). Neuma Records. $15. 

     Sometimes a change in the expected makeup of a musical ensemble can create a startlingly effective work – no matter what the reason for the atypical instrumental lineup may have been. Schubert’s marvelous “Trout” Quintet is a perfect example of this: the elimination of the expected second violin and use instead of a double bass gives this gorgeously flowing, eternally fascinating music an aural quality all its own. The double bass does not actually deepen the sound of the chamber group – instead, thanks to Schubert’s gift of melodiousness, it anchors the remaining instruments in a way that the cello alone cannot do, and it provides a sense of heft to the proceedings without ever making anything sound heavy or overdone. It happens to be the bass player Leon Bosch who is the moving force behind the ensemble called I Musicanti, and it is no surprise that his participation in the “Trout” is superb – but what ultimately matters here (and Bosch is clearly aware of this) is that this is still chamber music, a work in which all five players give and take, meld and diverge, for the sake of a totality that is greater than the sum of their individual parts. The excellent SOMM recording of the “Trout,” in which individual lines come through just as clearly as do ensemble passages, showcases the way in which instrumental combinations, in and of themselves, can be significant contributors to a work’s effect. And of course Schubert was not the only one to use this particular instrumental grouping. The “Trout” – which happens to be Schubert’s first mature chamber work – was explicitly written to use the same grouping as Hummel’s Op. 87 Piano Quintet. And, interestingly enough, Hummel returned to this chamber ensemble in 1829 (a year after Schubert’s death), after he had written his “Grand Military Septet,” Op. 114, for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello, double bass and piano. Hummel – a veteran arranger and rearranger of his own music as well as that of many others – created a version of Op. 114 for the same instruments he had used in Op. 87. It is this version, numbered as Op. 114a, that is paired with the “Trout” here – and, surprisingly, this is the first recording of Op. 114a. The members of I Musicanti do the Hummel full justice, and it proves to be a fascinatingly un-military work in many ways. Far from a collection of martial tunes (despite its brisk call-to-arms opening), the quintet is highly expressive and leans heavily on the skill of the pianist to bring forth its emotive content. Notably, the third movement, marked Menuetto but clearly a well-proportioned scherzo, suddenly and unexpectedly ends pianissimo – and Hummel then wraps up the fourth and final movement by recalling the conclusion of the third, giving this supposedly military material a distinctly quiet and unanticipated ending. In the Hummel as in the Schubert, the double bass provides an anchor that moors the music in some unusual and very effective ways – and gives listeners an attractive sound world that is no mere gimmick but a genuine alternative to the usual makeup of a piano quintet. 

     Hummel was scarcely the first or only composer whose arrangements amounted to rethinkings of material by wrapping it in different guise. There have been some surprising and revelatory transcriptions of works that are sometimes familiar in their original form, sometimes less so. Two examples are paired on a fascinating AVIE disc featuring Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now. The first work is Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life,” in the sensitive and idiomatic – but rarely heard – arrangement by George Szell. A conductor known for precision and attention to detail, Szell as arranger displays the same characteristics. A composer and composition teacher until he devoted himself full-time to conducting, Szell had a well-honed sense of appropriate sonorities for the deep emotions packed into Smetana’s 1875 work, which concludes with the composer’s heartfelt lament for (and eventual acceptance of) the deafness that he suffered late in life. Szell made the arrangement in 1939-1940 and recorded it with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1941, but it has not often been heard since then. Botstein takes the full measure of the music without forcing any over-the-top emotionalism into it. All four movements have distinct personal qualities, from youth and happiness and optimism through delight in dance to a beautiful celebration of love for the woman who would become Smetana’s wife (and who died of tuberculosis at age 32) – and then, in the finale, Szell aptly displays the tragic elements of Smetana’s later life, and Botstein presents the music with sensitivity and an excellent sense of balance between the earlier part of the movement (which is folklike and upbeat) and the later part (in which tragedy, including deafness, dominates). Szell’s sensitive musical thinking is mirrored in Botstein’s well-balanced performance, and the orchestra plays feelingly without overdoing emotions that both Smetana and Szell were at pains to keep manageable. The Smetana/Szell transcription is paired with Felix Weingartner’s 1925 orchestration of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata (actually one of two that Beethoven labeled that way, but the only one to which the title stuck). Remarkably, Weingartner’s orchestration, which he recorded in 1930 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was most listeners’ first exposure to the sonata: the first commercial recording of the original piano version, played by Artur Schnabel, was not released until five years later. Weingartner was not the first to detect multiple symphonic elements in the Hammerklavier and to have a feeling that the piano was somehow inadequate for the full expression of Beethoven’s intent and thoughts. To that end, Weingartner does not so much rethink the sonata as bring out the beyond-the-piano elements that he detected in it. The orchestration is less subtle than Szell’s of the Smetana quartet, more overtly symphonic in orientation, and highly convincing on its own even when it gives somewhat short shrift to some of the subtleties and delicacies – in the Scherzo, for example – within what is generally a large-scale and grand sonata. The huge third movement comes across particularly effectively here: Botstein and the orchestra take the Adagio sostenuto tempo indication quite seriously and allow the expansiveness of the music to emerge and grow ever more extensive. The extremely complex fugal finale is nicely arranged by Weingartner to highlight individual sections through careful use of specific instrumental sections at specific points (muted strings in one section, strong brass accents elsewhere, and so forth). The overall sense of this transcription is that it is a personalized one, being Weingartner’s “take” on the Hammerklavier rather than merely an attempt to arrange it for a large ensemble. In contrast, Szell – working with a Smetana original that is far more inward-looking than the Hammerklavier – seems concerned with reproducing, in a controlled way, the emotional environment around which Smetana initially built his quartet. The transcriptions are as different as the pieces transcribed, yet both communicate remarkably effectively and enhance the accessibility and enjoyment of the works as originally written. 

     Instrumental choice is also a big part of the attraction of music by Christopher Tyler Nickel (born 1978) on another AVIE release. Both the pieces here date to 2017 and both are woodwind-focused, but the specific instrumental complements that Nickel chooses give the works very different characteristics – and character. The Suite for 2 Oboes & 2 Cor Anglais is a secular work with a strong religious gloss: each of its four movements takes its title from traditional Christian liturgy (Kyrie, Dies Irae, Lacrimosa, Gloria). To some extent, the music is representational – of the feelings associated with each of the titles if not the specific words used in the church. The combination of oboes and cor anglais gives the work an almost-but-not-quite monochromatic sound, full of subtle aural variations created by differentiation of what are essentially very similar instruments (the oboe is pitched in C, the larger cor anglais in F). Nickel creates flowing lines throughout the work, resulting in a certain sense of sameness among the movements even though their underlying inspirational material is quite different. The halting and suitably sad third movement is particularly effective, its liturgical underpinnings clear even for listeners not familiar with them. And the bright, bubbly finale makes its points very directly and without any necessary referent, sacred or secular. The work will appeal strongly to oboe and cor anglais players and audiences familiar with its underlying inspiration, although it will likely come across as a bit overextended and tonally bland for others. The Symphony for Flute Choir, although also in four movements, is a very different and significantly larger work. Lacking the underlying programmatic (or at least semi-programmatic) foundations of the suite, this is a very large-scale work indeed, and it is reasonable to wonder, before hearing it, whether so much material can be carried effectively by a flutes-only ensemble. For the most part, somewhat surprisingly, the answer is yes. Nickel writes for flutes very well, idiomatically, and with clarity for the instruments’ various ranges. He does not engage in common contemporary practices such as range extension and technique alteration to keep the music interesting – instead, he essentially creates a fairly traditional symphonic canvas and uses flutes rather than a wider range of instruments to bring it to life. Flutes actually take the melodic lead in quite a lot of orchestral works, so hearing them in that role here is scarcely unexpected – but having them then carry through developmental material, sections of varying form and structure, and emotionalism of all sorts, is unusual and genuinely intriguing. The episodic first movement of the symphony does sprawl a bit too much, but the more-compact second, which features call-and-response elements, comes across quite well. The third movement wants to convey more emotion than is actually does – it is pretty enough but scarcely profound. The finale has plenty of bounce and joviality despite being, in form, rather scattered and disconnected. As a whole, this is a (+++) disc that is filled with interesting elements and some genuinely creative musical thinking – plus a willingness to experiment with pulling wind instruments into venues larger than those they usually occupy. For performers on these instruments, the CD will be something of a must-have and will be endlessly fascinating. For audiences at large, though, it is of greater interest for what it tries to do than for what it actually accomplishes. 

     The interplay of instruments and interweaving of their sounds is also at the heart of a Neuma Records CD featuring the ensemble Percussia. The disc takes its title, Murmuration, from a three-movement Alexis Lamb work that is based on bird flight but simply sounds like a pleasant concatenation of differing timbres and forms of musical-note generation. It is pleasant rather than deep music, nicely displaying various instruments’ sounds in juxtaposition without making too many aural demands of listeners. Bill Clark’s Moiré, also in three movements, is more rhythmically emphatic but somewhat analogously blends instrumental sounds for the sake of the blending rather than to evoke any feelings in particular. Carlo Nicolau’s extended single-movement Espejismos, here arranged by Percussia, features both regular and irregular dance rhythms and some interesting and extended displays of flute virtuosity. On the Street Where I Live, written by Percussia member Ljova (who plays the viola and six-stringed fadolin), is a four-movement work filled with resonance personal to the composer. For a general audience, it is somewhat combinatorial and unfocused, rhythmically varied (and often rhythmically uncertain) and veering from lyricism to dissonant intensity unpredictably. Matthew Welch’s four-movement Variasi Ombak is a mixed-genre piece that sometimes juxtaposes very different harmonic worlds and sometimes superimposes one on another. It is interesting intellectually but not musically very convincing, and seems to run out of melodic ideas rather quickly, thereafter essentially substituting coloration. The six-movement song cycle Starfish at Pescadero, by Dennis Tobenski, concludes the disc by adding a soprano voice to the unusual instrumental mixture heard elsewhere on the CD. Melissa Fogerty sings the songs well, but her voice is almost a distraction from the underlying instrumentation – for example, in the second song, Cliffs and coves are also gold, the vocal material is distinctly less interesting than its accompaniment. The words for the cycle, by Idris Anderson, are not especially evocative of distinct feelings and emotions, and the vocal settings are unexceptional. The result is a set of songs in which the unsung material sounds considerably more distinctive than the vocal elements – perhaps especially so in the fourth song, I’m being silly on our walk up the beach. In all, this is a (+++) disc that features many interesting elements and some genuinely intriguing aural mixtures – the composers use the instrumental availabilities in widely varying ways. None of the music comes across as especially memorable in and of itself, though – although the pieces by Nicolau and Lamb are worth rehearing from time to time.