(++++) PIANISTIC ELEGANCE

Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87. Yulianna Avdeeva, piano. Pentatone. $26.99 (2 CDs). 

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3; Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1. Joshua Pierce, piano; Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bystrik Rezucha (Beethoven); Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paul Freeman (Brahms). MSR Classics. $14.95. 

     Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 were scarcely the first pieces composed to explore the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier did it twice (1722 and 1742); Chopin produced 24 Preludes, Op. 28 in the 1830s; Alkan wrote his Op. 35 and Op. 39 sets – which go well beyond the scope of other works of the type – in 1848 and 1857; and Shostakovich himself produced a work called 24 Preludes, Op. 34 in 1933, almost 20 years before writing his Op. 87 music. Shostakovich’s Op. 87, although clearly inspired by Bach, proceeds differently through the keys: Bach’s paired preludes and fugues move up the chromatic scale in major/minor pairs, while Shostakovich organizes his pieces around the circle of fifths, from zero accidentals for Nos. 1 and 2 to one sharp for Nos. 3 and 4, two sharps for Nos. 5 and 6, and so forth. Beyond this, the harmonic language and keyboard approach of Shostakovich’s Op. 87 differ in many ways from those of Bach, who of course was not writing for the piano. Still, knowledge and understanding of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is very helpful for performers and listeners to have in the back of their minds (or the back of their ears) while listening to the Shostakovich work. And it is evident from Yulianna Avdeeva’s careful, controlled, poised and elegant performance on Pentatone that she has studied both Bach and Shostakovich with considerable attentiveness and emerged with a thorough understanding of what Shostakovich sought in his Op. 87. It takes two-and-a-half hours to perform these 24 Preludes and Fugues, and it is to Avdeeva’s credit that her readings never seem to drag or become impatient: she explores each prelude-and-fugue pair knowledgeably and on its own terms, allowing each its individual pacing, flow and perspective. This is clear from the very start, when Shostakovich begins his C major prelude with the identical notes chosen by Bach for his prelude in the same key: on the one hand, Avdeeva explores the similarities, but on the other, she shows herself well aware of the differences – notably in the Shostakovich prelude’s harmonic complexity. Throughout the Shostakovich cycle, Avdeeva remains on firm footing, picking up the many individual touches of the components of Op. 87, with some highlights being the staccato notes underlying Fugue No. 5 (D major), the difficult scurrying of Fugue No. 9 (E major), the Bachian chorale opening Prelude No. 10 (C-sharp minor), the waltz form of Prelude No. 15 (D-flat major), the moto perpetuo Prelude No. 21 (B-flat major), and the sheer complexity of the extended (and Bach-referencing) concluding Fugue No. 24 (D minor). Like fine recordings of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Avdeeva’s reading of Shostakovich’s Op. 87 reveals new details and new depth on each rehearing: she is not only technically proficient but also musically thoughtful about the structure of individual pieces and the way the parts of this work fit into its totality. And there is a small but interesting supplement to Op. 87 offered by Avdeeva as an encore: a separate Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Minor that Shostakovich sketched but abandoned – which Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer (born 1943), who knew and was a friend of Shostakovich, completed, and which here receives its world première recording. It is scarcely a substantial work, lasting less than three-and-a-half minutes, but it is interesting to hear in a what-might-have-been way and as a chance to experience a bit more of Shostakovich’s thinking regarding what would become his monumental Op. 87. 

     First-rate pianism is at the service of much-more-familiar material on an MSR Classics CD featuring Joshua Pierce performing two standard-repertoire concertos with his usual élan. The disc includes a 1998 studio recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, paired with a 1993 live performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, with both performances remastered and generally sounding fine. Pierce takes a somewhat speedy, if not actually over-fast, view of both concertos, more strongly so in the Brahms, which could use a bit more heft. The finale, in particular, is somewhat lacking in gravitas: it is, after all, marked Allegro non troppo, but the non troppo gets short shrift here. The overall aural ambience of the Brahms is also somewhat on the echo-y side, likely the result of the acoustics at The Reduta in Bratislava, where this performance took place. The two orchestras are comparable in sound: the Slovak Philharmonic, based in Bratislava, was founded in 1949 and is generally considered the region’s top ensemble, but the Košice-based Slovak State Philharmonic, founded in 1968, is equally effective in this frequently performed material. Both conductors are workmanlike in their handling of the music: sections-within-orchestra and orchestra-against-solo balance are fine, and if there are no particular insights into the concertos or enlightening emphases in the orchestral portions, there are certainly no unpleasant surprises either. In fact, there is really nothing wrong with these performances, and the minor critiques of them can justifiably be thought of as nitpicking. But the reality is that when music is as hyper-familiar and as frequently played and recorded as these two concertos, tiny differences of approach and sound loom larger than they would in less-commonly-heard material. It is, in fact, difficult to determine the potential audience for this disc. Neither reading is so innovative or technically outstanding as to be a must-have supplement to the complete sets of Beethoven and Brahms concertos that at-home listeners are extremely likely to have. The remastered sound is fine, but it is not exceptionally good, and the live 1993 reading of the Brahms, no matter how carefully adjusted and tweaked, is not quite at the quality level that listeners are likely to expect 30+ years after the recording was made. Pierce’s playing is the main attraction here: even if there is a certain sense of once-over-lightly in these readings, especially that of the Brahms, there is undeniable beauty, warmth and thoughtfulness in his interpretations to go with his undoubted technical ability. So the CD would seem most likely to appeal to listeners who are already fans of Pierce and would like to hear how he handles thrice-familiar works – or how he did handle them in the 1990s. That audience limitation, and the slight but noticeable less-than-stellar elements of these performances, make this a (+++) CD that is more a chance to experience one first-rate pianist’s handling of well-known material than it is an opportunity to gain any new insights into the music itself.

(+++) ILLUMINATING LESSER LIGHTS

Heinrich Marschner: Overtures and Stage Music, Volume 3. Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dario Salvi. Naxos. $19.99. 

Carl Teike: Marches, Volume 2. The Royal Swedish Navy Band conducted by Alexander Hanson. Naxos. $19.99. 

     The byways of music history are packed – it would be cruel to say “littered” – with composers and compositions that are admirable in many ways, that may even have enjoyed considerable success for a time or under specific circumstances, but that are considerably less than compelling when rediscovered. That does not make the rediscovery itself any less worthy – there are some little-known musical jewels out there, after all, and even semi-precious gems can glow with beauty of their own. So it is admirable when conductors and producers go beyond the obvious from time to time and seek out material whose composers may now be little-known, whose reputation may be small or time-bound, but whose overall effect can be more than pleasant – especially for listeners seeking a divergence from the works of music’s acknowledged masters. Thus, Naxos is providing a genuine if somewhat limited-interest service in its ongoing recorded explorations of the music of Heinrich August Marschner (1795-1861) and Carl Teike (1864-1922). 

     Marschner is more significant for his place in music history than for his actual music. He was the most important German opera composer between Weber and Wagner, and in fact Wagner’s first opera, Die Feen, is essentially his “take” on the Marschner operatic world (as his second, Das Liebesverbot, is more-or-less a Wagnerian encapsulation of Rossini, a circumstance that was not as weird at the time as it appears to be retrospectively). Wagner was influenced to a considerable degree by Marschner’s use of melodrama centered on powerful antiheroic central characters, his expanded use of the lower range of the orchestra, and his development of supernatural protagonists with mortal failings. And on their own, two Marschner operas – Der Vampyr and Hans Heiling – remain impressive. But the conductor who is largely responsible for the ongoing Naxos releases of Marschner’s music, Dario Salvi, focuses primarily on the composer’s many less-known (and generally less successful) stage works, offering orchestral excerpts thrown more or less willy-nilly together. The result is a scattershot presentation of Marschner’s music that never really shows his skill at evoking atmospheric drama: there are plenty of pleasantries but no great sense of organizational skill in presenting them. Nevertheless, there is a lot to enjoy in Salvi’s Marschner recordings, the third of which includes the overture to a work whose very form is long since obsolete: a so-called “vaudeville,” Der Verlobung von der Trommel, which is a mashup of music by three other composers (Adolphe Adam, Karl August Krebs, and Adolf Müller) – with the overture itself being Marschner’s adaptation of Adam’s overture to Le Roi d’Yvetot, and the original stage production as a whole being designed to cash in on the popularity of Donizetti’s La Fille du regiment. The complexities of its provenance notwithstanding, the music itself is an effective curtain-raiser whose brightly upbeat conclusion nicely sets the scene for the now-forgotten entertainment it was designed to introduce. The remaining works offered by Salvi and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra are from Marschner operas of various times and types. From Das Schloss am Aetna, a three-act “grand romantic opera” premièred in 1836, there is an extended and effectively orchestrated overture plus five brief bits of disconnected musical excerpts that are only intermittently expressive when out of context, as they are here. Lukretia, a two-act work first heard in 1827, is here represented by an entr’acte and a suitably grand march. From Der Bäbu, a two-act comic opera first presented in 1838, there are three short pieces consisting primarily of cleverly orchestrated music representing the antics of a group of dwarfs. And from Marschner’s final opera, Sangeskönig Hiarne, a four-act work not produced until 1863, two years after the composer’s death, Salvi offers the overture, which effectively mixes mystery with solemnity and shows the composer’s skill at brass writing, plus three excerpts – also with important material for the brass section – that delineate specific scenes in the first, second and final act. Marschner was above all a composer for the stage, although he did write effectively in other forms, notably that of the piano trio. Hearing highlights from his operas and other stage works is considerably more meaningful in context than in the rather arbitrary presentation of Salvi’s series. Still, any chance to explore a bit of Marschner, and find out through direct experience of his music why he was for a time quite influential, is welcome.

     Teike, unlike Marschner, was not particularly influential on anyone, and the second release in a planned three-volume series of his marches confirms that these pieces do not really bear comparison with works by Sousa, the Strauss family, or Tchaikovsky. Yet Teike’s marches, structurally well-made and well-orchestrated for military band, are of considerable interest to listeners intrigued by the march form in the 19^th century – a time when German marches were strictly separated into concert, street and explicitly military types (those last being “parade marches” and not necessarily aggressive). Teike’s works are self-limited to the street and parade ground: they are generally foursquare pieces, scored with care and skill (Teike himself served in a military band) but without any particular inclination for out-of-the-ordinary use of instruments or for any expansion of the traditional complement of military ensembles. What Teike’s marches require to overcome their self-imposed limitations is strong, sensitive and elegant playing, and that is exactly what they receive from the Royal Swedish Navy Band conducted  by Alexander Hanson – resulting in a whole disc that is greater than the sum of its parts. Of the 18 works on this CD, fully half have been arranged, or at least tweaked, by hands other than the composer’s; but in all cases the music come across to equally good effect, indicating that the arrangers (Hans Ahrens for five marches, Anders Karlsson for two, and Erich Gutzeit for two) were sensitive to Teike’s writing and understood as well the exigencies of military-band performance. Little is known of the background of most of Teike’s marches or even of the reasons for their titles, which are often patriotic (Für Thron und Reich), sometimes evocative (Die Welt in Waffen), occasionally expressive (Treue um Treue), at times a bit puzzling (Frisch auf, one of the best here, with an unexpectedly warm introductory section), and frequently geographical (Hoch Braunschweig and Heil Potsdam). In the absence of “backstories” for the works (details of Teike’s life are themselves scarce), the music must stand on its own, and it certainly does – at attention. And if there is nothing in this Teike series that is likely to supplant marches that are already well-known and popular for both concert and military purposes, there is also nothing here to diminish Teike’s rediscovered reputation as a march composer of considerable ability within a comparatively straitened set of circumstances. All these pieces are forceful and forthright, not particularly innovative but undeniably effective in putting across a specific set of martial feelings through the skillful deployment of the forces of the military band.

(++++) NUMBERS AND NUANCE

Mozart: Sonatas for Violin and Piano, K. 296, 304, 481 and 526. Berofsky Duo (Aaron Berofsky, violin; Charles Berofsky, fortepiano). MSR Classics. $14.95. 

Brahms: Piano Trios Nos. 1-3; Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano; Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano. Gustav Trio (Francesco Comisso, violin; Dario Destefano, cello; Olaf John Laneri, piano); Lorenzo Guzzoni, clarinet; Boštjan Lipovšek, horn. Brilliant Classics. $14.99 (2 CDs). 

     Mozart wrote a whole bunch of violin sonatas, and if that statement seems a trifle imprecise, at least it does not get into the issue of how many there really are: one recent “complete” recording included 16, another offered 26, and a third served up 28. There are also a few fragments here and there and some not-quite-sonatas (variations and such) for the same two instruments – both of which Mozart played more than serviceably. Performers enamored of these works but not insistent on completeness certainly have a number of gems from which to choose, and the father-and-son Berofsky Duo has chosen very well indeed for an MSR Classics recording that provides enormous enjoyment by actually using the keyboard instrument for which Mozart wrote these pieces: a fortepiano, not a modern concert grand. The fortepiano sound is something of an acquired taste for many listeners: the keys have less travel than those of modern pianos, the cabinet produces much less resonance, the keyboard compass is considerably less than today’s eight octaves (instruments of Mozart’s time typically spanned five octaves; six-octave pianos did not begin to be produced until about 1810), and the pedals function differently and affect the sound in different ways. The inherent balance between violin and fortepiano is thus different from that between violin and modern piano, and hearing a smattering of the Mozart violin sonatas played on a fortepiano plus a violin of Mozart’s time (dating to 1754) is a wonderful aural experience that really shows the intimacy and intertwining of two-player chamber music in the composer’s time. There is considerable variation among the Mozart violin sonatas, and this recording explores some of that: three works here are in three movements and major keys, while one, K. 304, is in the minor (specifically E minor) and consists of only two movements. The performers’ handling of all four pieces is exemplary. K. 296 in C strides forth with strength and brightness from the beginning, turns tender in the second movement, then concludes with unfailing good humor. K. 304, although scarcely deep, pairs an extended movement that never strays far from seriousness with a Tempo di Minuetto that has a tentative, rather halting sound that comes across particularly effectively on the correct instruments. K. 481 in E-flat is good-natured at the beginning, thoughtful in the central Adagio, and beautifully rhythmic in the finale. K. 526 melds the instruments interestingly at the start in a movement filled with subtlety, continues with an Andante that plumbs considerable emotional depth without requiring a super-slow tempo, and concludes with a pleasantly puckish Presto that, in the piano part, has many characteristics of a perpetuum mobile. These are well-thought-out and thoroughly idiomatic performances, nicely paced and sensitive to the sonatas’ varying moods, and the rightness of the sound of the violin and fortepiano adds a great deal to the pleasure of the listening experience. 

     The count of Brahms’ piano trios is not quite as complicated as that of Mozart’s violin sonatas, but it too is not entirely straightforward. There are three or four works specifically labeled by Brahms as piano trios – the reason for the ambiguity is that the two versions of Piano Trio No. 1 (1854 and 1889, the latter labeled Neue Ausgabe, “new edition,” by the composer) are so different as to be, in effect, two separate works (in this respect rather like the two versions of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4). In addition, there are two pieces that Brahms wrote for three instruments, including piano, but they are not generally referred to as “piano trios” – they are labeled based on the inclusion of horn in one and clarinet in the other. So in all, there are five or six trios by Brahms, each in four movements; and all except the earlier version of Piano Trio No. 1 are offered in fine performances by the Gustav Trio and guest artists on an exceptionally well-priced two-CD set from Brilliant Classics. This company frequently packages older performances into complete sets of this or that, but not so here: these readings all date to 2024. And they are all quite accomplished. The latter Piano Trio No. 1, here dated 1891 (the year it was published), is the longest of these five works, although it is considerably shorter than the trio’s original version. Written in B but spending considerable time in B minor (even ending in that key), this trio opens with a very extended and expansive movement – the longest in any of the pieces heard here – that the Gustav Trio sustains very well throughout; contrasts among and within the remaining movements are all well-handled. Piano Trio No. 2 is in C, with its middle two movements in minor keys (A minor and C minor respectively). The fluidity of this work’s themes is complemented by greater fluidity of form than is usual in Brahms: there is a sense of the fantasia in some elements, along with some unusual approaches – the finale, for example, has four distinct themes, each scored differently. Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor is a shorter work and an intense one, with three of its four movements in the home key (although the finale does end, traditionally, in C major). The complex rhythms that pervade this trio are well-handled in this performance and help accentuate the rather uneasy feeling that the music repeatedly generates. In the Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Boštjan Lipovšek’s horn blends very well with the other instruments while consistently providing coloration that gives the music a highly distinctive sound – this is early Brahms (dating to 1861, when he was 28) that already presages the later sonic environment so often referred to as “autumnal,” thanks to the skillful interweaving of the horn with strings and percussion. The latest piece of all among Brahms’ forays into compositions for three instruments is the 1891 Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, whose unusual and quite deliberately dark instrumentation makes for a crepuscular or, yes, autumnal sound throughout, but there is nothing pervasively dismal here – indeed, Brahms thoroughly explores the clarinet’s wide range of both notes and expressiveness, resulting in a work that is often somber but includes enough cheerful and sometimes folklike elements to avoid ever becoming dreary. Lorenzo Guzzoni does especially well with the lower and darker realms of the clarinet – the instrument used by Richard Mühlfeld, for whom the piece was written, was known for its very dark tone – but also does a fine job of lightening the mood when Brahms invites some respite. The overall performance, like those of all the other trios presented here, is knowledgeable, carefully considered, and delivered with emotional heft as well as fine playing. However one counts the Brahms trios and the Mozart violin sonatas, it is always highly satisfying to hear them presented as engagingly and with as much sensitivity as they receive from the performers on these two very worthwhile recordings.

(+++) WHENCE INSPIRATION COMES

Stephen Sondheim/Eric Stern: Chamber Music—arrangements from A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Evening Primrose, Stavisky, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, and Merrily We Roll Along. Opus Two (William Terwilliger, violin; Andrew Cooperstock, piano); Elena Shaddow, soprano; Andrew Garland, baritone; Beth Vanderborgh, cello. Bridge Records. $16.99. 

Music for Vocal Quartet by William Byrd, Ivan Moody, John Tavener, Becky McGlade, Akemi Naito, Paul Moravec, Andrew Smith, Nico Muhly, and Orlando Gibbons. New York Polyphony (Geoffrey Williams, countertenor; Steven Caldicott Wilson and Andrew Fuchs, tenors; Craig Phillips, bass); LeStrange Viols (John Mark Rozendaal, Loren Ludwig, Douglas Kelley, Zoe Weiss, Kivie Cahn-Lipman). BIS. $21.99 (SACD). 

     It is not difficult to identify Eric Stern’s source of inspiration for the music on a new Bridge Records CD – or half of that inspiration, anyway. The material clearly comes from the works, including Broadway shows and one film, of Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021). But that is only half of what lies behind the recording. The other half comes from William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock, who style themselves Opus Two and are commissioning a series of arrangements of Broadway music – of which this is the third. Stern (born 1952) is a first-rate choice for this hybrid of popular theatrical and classical chamber music: he is an experienced arranger who actually worked with Sondheim on several shows and even had the chance to discuss with him the Suite from “A Little Night Music” that opens this recording. That suite, for violin and piano, comes across in this arrangement with its devilish charm nicely displayed and even accentuated through a violin part whose eeriness somewhat echoes that of the solo violin in the second movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Terwilliger and Cooperstock set the tone for the entire disc with this suite, taking the music very seriously and bringing to the fore Sondheim’s characteristic melodic individuality along with his ability to hint at devilish doings through music that practically oozes irony. That is especially true in Sweeney Todd, a suite from which – called Fleet Street Suite – provides the other bookend for this CD, and comes across with just the right mixture of overt levity and underlying grotesquerie. Between these two more-extended works are eight shorter ones, in all of which Stern shows a sensitivity to Sondheim’s musical world and an ability to distill the essence of individual elements of various works to very good effect. In addition to the suites, Sweeney Todd is represented by a violin-and-piano arrangement of Not While I’m Around; and A Little Night Music gets a treatment of Every Day a Little Death for violin, cello and piano. The way Stern varies the instrumentation, and includes vocal elements in a few cases, helps underline the differences among Sondheim’s scores, although pretty much all the music here is recognizable as to its source. Violin-and-piano arrangements are offered of Broadway Baby from Follies and the main title from the film Stavisky. There is a solo-violin version of Sorry-Grateful from Company, from which Terwilliger extracts considerable emotion, and a solo-piano arrangement of Now You Know from Merrily We Roll Along that Cooperstock plays with plenty of bounce. As for the vocal works, Elena Shaddow sings I Remember from Evening Primrose stylishly, and Andrew Garland does a good job with the rhythmic challenges of Finishing the Hat from Sunday in the Park with George. In both the voice-violin-piano arrangements, though, there is a greater sense of something missing than in the purely instrumental pieces: somehow the presence of voices draws attention to the spare accompaniment in a way that is not felt in the works that have been fully reduced to non-vocal chamber-music proportions. Well-played and pleasantly presented, the CD will bring considerable enjoyment to listeners already familiar with Sondheim’s music in general and with these specific pieces in particular. The disc is not a very good introduction to Sondheim, but more a matter of providing audiences already familiar with his music with an alternative way to experience a modest selection of works they already know and enjoy. 

     If the performers are themselves a partial inspiration for the Sondheim-focused CD, they are essentially the entire reason for being of a new BIS recording of vocal music composed over a period of nearly five centuries. The four-male-voice group known as New York Polyphony, which will soon mark its 20^th anniversary, sees this disc as a way to revisit highlights of its two-decade journey, mixing works it has performed over the years with newly commissioned ones that the group’s members consider complementary to those they previously performed and recorded. There is a degree of navel-gazing to the concept, and certainly this rather rarefied CD is most likely to appeal to listeners who already know this specific ensemble and appreciate its musical approach and performance techniques. That does not, however, mean that the music heard here is unworthy – only that in its combinatorial aspects, it reflects the singers’ specific predilections and history and does not have any inherent cohesiveness of its own. The first and last pieces on the CD, which is to say the ones that bracket the overall presentation, are two of the disc’s three oldest, both dating to the early 17^th century. The recording opens with Ecce quam bonum (1605) from the first book of Gradualia by William Byrd (1540-1623), and closes with The Silver Swan (1612) by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625); and in both cases, the sensitive vocal balance and careful phraseology of the singing lead to moving and elegant performances that fully convey the words’ meaning. The third work from long ago is another by Byrd, the Agnus Dei from his Mass for Four Voices (1592-1593), and here as in the Gibbons song, New York Polyphony is complemented by the ensemble called LeStrange Viols, which effectively and unobtrusively underlines the vocal material. The viol group is also heard in the penultimate and longest work on the CD, My Days (2012) by Nico Muhly (born 1981). This piece is about Gibbons – his work, his death, his autopsy – and although it is somewhat overdone and overextended, it gives the singers plenty of opportunities to hold forth both as individual voices and as a group in music whose contemporary harmonies do their best to be at the service of four-centuries-old sensibilities. All the remaining works here are from the 20^th century or the 21^st, but not all are insistent on sounding up-to-date. Canticum Canticorum I (1985) by priest and theologian Ivan Moody (1964-2024) is a three-movement setting, in Latin, of portions of the Biblical Song of Songs, and its simplicity and forthrightness echo the feelings and approaches of a much earlier time – to very good effect. The Lamb (1982) by John Tavener (1944-2013) beautifully sets William Blake’s familiar poem from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the simple harmonies of the vocal line neatly encompassing the focused naiveté of Blake’s poetry. The sources, poetic or scriptural, are varied in the remaining works on this disc. Of the Father’s Love Begotten (2021) by Becky McGlade (born 1974) uses words by Prudentius (348-ca. 413), and is followed here by Tsuki no Waka (2019) by Akemi Naito (born 1956), which uses a poem from Buddhist priest and poet Saigyō (1118-1190). It is through juxtapositions such as this, Christian and Buddhist, ancient and more ancient – and through contemporary music written within a short period of time but approaching its vocal communication in differing ways – that the entire disc proceeds. Naito’s work is followed by two written by Paul Moravec (born 1957): The Last Invocation (2020) and Darest Thou Now, O Soul (2023) – both using poetry of Walt Whitman in a way that bridges the sacred and the secular. The most-recent piece on the CD is Katarsis (2024) by Andrew Smith (born 1970). It is a setting of the Old Testament Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which the full flavor of the combined voices of the members of New York Polyphony comes through with heightened effectiveness. Although this disc will scarcely have universal appeal, it will be a must-have for audiences already familiar with and enamored of New York Polyphony’s musicality and the group’s determined efforts to juxtapose vocal works hundreds of years old with analogous ones created in very recent times, and in some cases composed specifically for this very polished group of singers.