(++++) TWICE TOLD TALES – CUENTOS REPETIDOS

The Very Lonely Firefly / La luciérnaga muy solitaria. By Eric Carle. Penguin Random House. $11.99. 

Baby Ballena. By Ben Gundersheimer. Illustrated by Marcos Almada Rivero. Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House. $18.99. 

Crocodiles Everywhere / Cocodrilos por Todos Lados. By Estelí Meza. Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Random House. $18.99. 

     Oscar Wilde’s famous remark about England and the United States, that “we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language,” rings true in a different way – and one nowadays sometimes laced with animosity – when it comes to the primary language spoken by people within the U.S. Whatever the merits of deeming English (that is, American English) the official or at least standard language of communication within the nation, the fact is that Spanish is the primary language for about 15% of Americans – and that percentage is far higher in some areas of the country. It certainly makes sense, in terms of fostering neighborliness (if that is not too outmoded a notion), for English speakers to know at least a little Spanish, and the earlier in life people familiarize themselves with that language, the more comfortable they will be with hearing and speaking it. And of course it is eminently sensible for Spanish speakers in the U.S. to be able to communicate, to at least some degree, in English. 

     The ideal time for initial exposure to a new language is childhood, and Penguin Random House has a whole slew of first-rate kids’ books that parents can use to entertain children while giving them a chance to see English and Spanish narratives in juxtaposition. Eric Carle’s 1999 The Very Lonely Firefly, for example, is available as an English/Spanish board book that is ideal for the youngest readers and for pre-readers. In fact, it is also a good way for English-speaking adults to immerse themselves in Carle’s world in bilingual form. The board book contains the entire original Carle text and illustrations – the story of a newborn firefly searching for others of its kind by flashing its light, only to find again and again that the lights it sees are not those of other fireflies after all. Carle’s gentle humor pervades the text and illustrations as la luciérnaga flits along, encountering a lightbulb (un bombillo) and a candle (una vela), a flashlight (una linterna) and a lantern (un farol), and more. In this board book, the text in Spanish appears first on each page, with the English text in identical format and spacing below, so kids can compare the story word-by-word if they wish. There are even dual-language dog bow-wows (¡Guau, guau!), an owl hoot (¡UUU!), and other sounds. Eventually, after encountering fireworks – an especially charming Carle illustration – the firefly sees lights just like its own, joins a group of other fireflies, and is no longer lonely. The simple, charming tale is equally effective in English and Spanish – a fact that the board book makes very clear indeed. 

     Books for older children work equally well in dual-language format. The hardcover Baby Ballena gets a cover, wraparound book jacket, and flap notes only in English, but the text of the story is presented entirely in bilingual form. This Ben Gundersheimer book is an ecologically focused tale about gray whales, told through the eyes of newborn whale baby Juana – who, as is explained in both English and Spanish, is as big as a boat even when just one day old, and drinks 50 gallons of milk a day to grow even bigger and stronger. As usual in nature-focused books for kids, the animals are anthropomorphized as to thoughts and to some extent appearance in the illustrations by Marcos Almada Rivero, although their basic shapes and the environments they encounter as they make their way from Mexico (where Juana is born) to Alaska (where the pod spends the summer) are depicted with reasonable accuracy. The realities of whale migration are explained in simple but, again, accurate fashion: “We have to be careful of big ships, fishing nets and orcas” appears just below “Debemos tener cuidado con los barcos, las redes de pescar y las orcas.” The careful text layout makes following the narrative in either language, or both together, very simple and straightforward, and the personable elements of the whales’ lives come through to good effect: “I can eat a thousand shrimp. Good thing I have a big mouth!” That is, “Puedo comer miles de camarones. ¡Por suerte tengo una boca grande!” Other animals that make incidental appearances in the whales’ story are rendered with equal charm, and the tale ends suitably when Juana is one year old, has migrated back from Alaska to Mexico, and is meeting newborn cousin José – thus, the cycle continues. Taking the book as a whole, there is more English than Spanish, including an Author’s Note that is English-only. But having the story appear in both languages is what matters here: that is what takes young readers on a two-language journey as well as the narrative one on which they accompany the whales. 

     The journey is inward rather than across a vast geographical area in Crocodiles Everywhere, and the dual-language approach works equally well. The book’s title may initially make adults think of Wanda Gág’s wonderful 1928 Millions of Cats, but in fact the “everywhere” here does not mean crocs are all over the place: there are only two of them. But those two are ubiquitous in the life of the little girl who narrates the story, which begins with heartbreak on “one terrible day” (un día terrible) when her very best friend, Ana, moves to another city. The girl misses Ana a lot, so much that the days feel endless (interminables), and nothing in life seems the same anymore. Then the crocodiles show up: a gray one that “would weep for hours” (lloraba por horas) and a loud one that constantly causes chaos. Once the crocs appear, they are with the little girl all the time, and although nobody else can see them, we do see her worried mother looking at the girl with concern in some of the illustrations. Even the family vacation is spoiled for the girl by the ever-present reptiles, which by now young readers will know to be imaginary or some sort of invisible-to-everyone-else fairy-tale creatures. The turning point of the story is the girl’s decision to talk to the gray crocodile: “He told me his name was Sadness” (Él me dijo que su nombre era Tristeza). Not wanting the croc to be sad, the little girl hugs him, and soon they are both crying a river of tears – deeply felt ones, not the “crocodile tears” said to be insincere – until both of them feel better. Then the girl talks to the loud crocodile, whose name turns out to be Anger (Enojo). And the two of them scream together – the illustration of the dual temper tantrum is one of the best in the book – until “our fury was gone” (nuestra furia se fue). And that night, the little girl feels peaceful for the first time since Ana moved away, and a lovely scene shows her and her little brother sleeping in their shared room as their mother looks lovingly at them and the crocodiles lie curled up on the floor, resting like oversize scaly dogs. After that the crocodiles go away: the girl has let all her sadness and anger at losing Ana out into the open, and now she can enjoy life again; and her mother even promises that the family will visit Ana on the next vacation. Sensitively written with a fine, age-appropriate understanding of a typical child’s feeling of being overwhelmed by a major life event over which she has no control, Crocodiles Everywhere – whose author/illustrator, Estelí Meza, lives and creates art in Mexico City – is psychologically sensitive and presented with care and understanding, teaching its lesson of “let the sadness and anger out instead of keeping them bottled up” without any hint of preachiness. The crocodiles are never an actual threat to the book’s narrator, but they are big and intrusive and get in the way of everything – just as strong real-life emotions such as sadness and anger do. Crocodiles Everywhere is a book that succeeds on multiple levels, helping parents show young children the importance of finding ways to handle emotions, reassuring kids that those emotions are normal and understandable, and – in this excellent bilingual edition – showing that English speakers and Spanish speakers share common response patterns when big things happen and can benefit from handling their responses in the same way.

(++++) BITS AND PIECES

Christoph Graupner: Quartet in G Minor for strings and continuo, GWV 724; Trio Sonata in B Minor for flute, violin, and continuo, GWV 219; Sonata in G Major for flute, obbligato, harpsichord, and continuo, GWV 708; Concerto in D Major for flute, strings, and continuo, GWV 310; Johann Friedrich Fasch: Sonata à Quattro in G Major for flute, two violas, and continuo; Telemann: Quartet in D Minor for flute, violin, viola, and continuo; Ernest Louis, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt: Symphony No. 1—Chaconne. Musicians of the Old Post Road (Suzanne Stumpf, traverso; Sarah Darling, violin and viola; Jesse Irons, violin; Marcia Cassidy, viola; Daniel Ryan, cello); Benjamin Katz, harpsichord. OPR Recordings. $18. 

Scott Wollschleger: Lost Anthems. Leilehua Lanzilotti, viola; David Kaplan, piano. New Focus Recordings. $18.99. 

Schumann: Waldszenen; Arabeske in C; Clara Schumann: Impromptu in E; Quatre Pièces Fugitives; Brahms: Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119; Poulenc: Trois Novelettes; Germaine Tailleferre: Sicilienne; Mozart: Gigue in G, K. 574. Sarah Beth Briggs, piano. AVIE. $19.99. 

     There is plenty of music out there that is not so much lost as misplaced: it turns up in odd corners of libraries and private collections and proves to have at least modest historical and/or entertainment value. The same applies to composers: some are relegated to obscurity not because of any inherent weakness in their music but simply because their works do not stand out in any significant way from others of their time. This is largely the case with Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), a well-thought-of musical figure in his era but one whose works faded rather quickly afterwards because, although well-made and pleasant to hear, they were not especially distinguished – with other composers of his era creating equally well-wrought pieces that were more distinctive. An exceptionally well-played period-instrument performance of four rediscovered Graupner chamber works by the Musicians of the Old Post Road pretty much confirms the notion that Graupner was a workmanlike composer of well-made but rather stolid material that fit well into the expectations of his time without pushing any boundaries or exploring new concepts. Everything is pleasant, unassuming, well-balanced, and carefully constructed – and not particularly memorable, except to the extent that the performances make it so. Graupner’s G minor Quartet is a highlight of the disc, its two slow movements somber in the Baroque manner and its concluding Presto providing a pleasantly upbeat conclusion. His other minor-key work here is a nicely balanced Trio Sonata that also features a bright finale. The G major Sonata shows the composer writing idiomatically if not very distinctively for flute, while the D major Concerto has more lilt for the wind instrument and a pleasantly pastoral feeling about it, with a bouncy finale requiring considerable breath control. The Graupner works are interspersed with various others in no particular order and to no particular effect, giving the CD the feeling of a personalized program reflecting the interests of the performers – which is, of course, fine. Telemann’s four-movement Quartet contrasts interestingly with Graupner’s minor-key works, its two pairs of Adagio – Allegro movements handled adeptly, with interesting rhythmic touches, propulsive forward motion in the fast sections, and well-handled blending and contrast between the flute and other instruments. It shows, in microcosm, why Telemann remains a towering figure of his time, while Graupner does not. The Sonata by Fasch (1688-1758) is also in four movements and features an especially pleasant flute part in the second-movement Allegro. And the pleasant little Chaconne by Ernest Louis, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1688-1758), serves mainly to show that there were other composers of the era, including some in the nobility, who were quite as capable as Graupner was of producing well-balanced if not especially memorable musical entertainments. The CD is certainly worth having for a cross-section of little-known music of a specific time period, in uniformly top-notch performances – but it is only the Telemann work that most listeners will likely find themselves wanting to hear again and again. 

     The idea of something lost and found again appears in very different guise on a New Focus Recordings CD of Lost Anthems by Scott Wollschleger (born 1980). This is a (+++) disc of very limited appeal, not only because of the music itself but also because it is a full-price offering for just 25½ minutes of material – the value will be there only for listeners already committed to Wollschleger’s music and/or the aesthetic from which it arises. The 15 sections of Lost Anthems are intended to convey a sense of alienation, which some of them do fairly well, and one of introspective thoughtfulness, at which they are rather less successful. The sound world of this two-instrument work is one that will be highly familiar to anybody acquainted with the techniques and auditory expectations of contemporary music. The inherently rich sonority of the viola is largely absent, abandoned in favor of frequent use of the instrument’s highest register, persistent ostinato passages and tremolando sections, and extended techniques that elicit sounds intended to set listeners’ ears (and perhaps their teeth) on edge. The piano is heard most often in its upper and lower registers – an effect that can be highly dramatic (as in Alkan’s La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer of 1847, for anyone who thinks this sort of conceptualization is anything new) but that here is used mostly to create a rather vague aura of the sinister. The prepared-piano elements and extended keyboard performance techniques are unsurprising and to be expected in modern works of a certain type. The instruments play at rather than with each other, their contrasts evocative of shifting tonal (actually atonal) worlds reflective, at least by intent, of the divisions within modern society – expressions of alienation that are pretty much unsurprising but that audiences attuned to sounds and approaches like Wollschleger’s will find apt, if scarcely congenial. 

     The pleasant, pleasantly played works on a new AVIE disc featuring Sarah Beth Briggs are from an entirely different tonal and expressive universe. All use the piano in far more conventional ways – not surprising in light of the dates of the compositions – and all are offered in juxtapositions that are, if anything, even more highly personal than those underlying the Graupner-and-others presentation by the Musicians of the Old Post Road. Briggs’ chosen pieces exist in very different time periods and have very different sensibilities; what is almost the sole thing that unites them is Briggs’ own feelings about their contrasts and interrelationships – hence, presumably, the CD’s title, Small Treasures. For a listener, a further point of unity is the uniformity of conceptualization and execution of Briggs’ interpretations: she knows just what she wants to say with each piece and just what she wants to extract from the composers’ thoughts. So the dominant sense of pastoral pleasure of Schumann’s Waldszenen and the almost lullaby-like rocking motion that Briggs brings to his Arabeske are as carefully thought-through as are the delicacy of touch and gentle melancholia that she finds in Brahms’ final solo-piano work, his Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119. However – and this is where the CD falls short despite the top-of-the-line pianism – the arrangement of the material is all over the place, personal to the point of being quixotic. Waldszenen opens the disc, but Arabeske is the fourth of the eight pieces on the release; and the Brahms set appears seventh. Between the two Schumann offerings are two works by Clara Schumann: a delicate, swaying Impromptu, which is essentially high-class salon music, and Quatre Pièces Fugitives, whose lightness of sensibility and quiet warmth occupy a world quite different from that of the Brahms miniatures. These small works’ small pleasures lead to the Arabeske, and then we are suddenly wafted to the world of Francis Poulenc and his Trois Novelettes, another multi-piece set that Briggs handles with aplomb. But these are pieces of a different century and different musical culture, and their appearance is, if not exactly jarring, certainly a trifle outré, especially when it comes to the second of them, Très rapide et rythmé. After the Poulenc, Briggs offers what seems to be an encore, a Sicilienne by Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983). This has a certain level of kinship with the Poulenc, albeit in a somewhat different harmonic universe, but its main reason for being here seems simply to be that Briggs feels like playing it in this context. And it is not an encore after all – the Brahms pieces are placed after the Tailleferre, creating a rather jarring worldview whipsaw despite, again, the excellence of the actual pianism. Then Briggs does finally offer an encore, reaching back to Mozart to do so: his Gigue in G, K. 574 occupies worldspace and earspace quite different from anything else on the CD, cementing the feeling that listeners have sat through an enjoyable hour-and-a-quarter-long intimate piano recital whose contents, if presented in rather helter-skelter fashion, are at least united through the skill of the performer. Listeners for whom that skill is enough reason to own this a-bit-of-a-mishmash disc will revel in Briggs’ way with the music and will, presumably, find their own tastes reflected in her choice of material. For a more-general audience, though, this will be a (+++) CD, a recording whose loveliness of expression and quality of pianism do not quite make up for programming choices that are so individualized as to limit their enjoyability to audiences that are fully in tune with the performer herself.

(++++) MINOR MONSTROSITIES

Little Monsters Rule! By David Walliams. Illustrated by Adam Stower. HarperCollins. $9.99. 

     Sometimes all it takes is a party. David Walliams’ new foray into the Little Monsters world, a followup to his book called simply Little Monsters, is the usual scary-but-not-really-scary-at-all story about sort-of-monstrous-looking critters who are really adorable and who don’t want to scare but only to have fun. Like the previous book, this one leans heavily on the delightful Adam Stower illustrations to prop up a thin story that (from an adult perspective) has a number of monstrous plot holes. Stower uses the traditional trappings of modern monsterdom depiction – green scaly skin dripping something that is presumably slime, projecting teeth and a Dracula-style cape, head-to-toe mummy bandages, etc. – to create diminutive characters who are entirely too adorable to be monstrous in any way. But they are expected to be monstrous, which is the point: they are having their first day at Monster School, where older-monster students, teachers and administrators alike play cruel (ok, not that cruel) tricks on the new kids who are there, presumably, to learn to become scarier and scarier as they progress. 

     The new monster kid on the block here is “the littlest, cutest one, a yeti named Furball,” who looks like a cuddly plush toy (Walliams even describes him that way) but is all excited about monster lessons that will teach him how to be scary. A lot of the teaching at Monster School, though, simply involves tricking the new students (presumably to put them in a suitably bad mood), so things do not go well for Furball on the school broomstick or in the frigid waters of the school lake or, well, anywhere. Eventually catapulted (because of a trick played on him by Mr. Ogre, the headmaster) to a school nearby, Furball meets Howler, the little werewolf who starred in the first Little Monsters book, in which he decided he would rather be friendly than fearsome. 

     Then, together, Howler and Furball hatch a plan to “turn a nasty school nice,” which basically involves sneaking into Monster School, setting up a party, and playing music and serving treats until each Monster School monster has a “scowl turned upside down” and is engaging in dancing, fizzy-pop-induced belching, and general merrymaking. That is all it takes for the headmaster to declare that “from this day forward…Monster School will be the nicest school in the world!” 

     Oh, if it were only that easy. Walliams clearly wants the very young children who will enjoy this book to think it is, even laying on a rather heavy-handed moral to underline the point: “Sometimes it takes little ones like you to make the world a better place.” Of course, the prolific Walliams it too smart to write himself out of further Monster School books, revealing that all the happy partygoers have neglected to consider the frigid-lake-dwelling, still-scowling Mr. Kraken in their celebrations. But on balance, there is nothing but lightness and an upbeat tone to Little Monsters Rule! And the notion that loud-but-basically-tame parties turn grumps into happily bouncy celebrants forevermore is as amusingly superficial as readers of this book (and the adults in their lives) can expect. Kids and adults looking for a suitably superficial celebration of the pleasures of partying, as demonstrated through those unceasingly adorable Stower illustrations, will have a lot of fun with this book. But maybe, just maybe, grown-ups should keep a little residual grumpiness in their pocket while awaiting Walliams’ and Stower’s next foray into the Monster School series.

(++++) BY THREES AND FOURS AND FIVES

Bruce Wolosoff: Matisse Fragments; Blues for the New Millennium; Blue Mantra. Narek Arutyunian, clarinet; Deborah Buck and Michelle Ross, violins; Clarice Jensen, cello; Bruce Wolosoff, piano. AVIE. $19.99. 

Elena Ruehr: String Quartets Nos. 9-11. Quartet ES (Anton Miller and Ertan Torgul, violins; Rita Porfiris, viola; Jennifer Kloetzel, cello). AVIE. $19.99. 

Daniel Strong Godfrey: String Quintets “Ricordanza-Speranza,” “Toward Light,” and “To Mourn, To Dance.” Cassatt String Quartet with Ursula Oppens, piano; Eliot Fisk, guitar; Nicole Johnson, cello. New Focus Recordings. $16.99. 

     The illustrative and expressive possibilities of small-group music continue to engage contemporary composers, both the ones looking for new combinatorial possibilities and the ones finding new ways to use more-traditional instrumental mixtures. A new AVIE disc finds pianist/composer Bruce Wolosoff (born 1955) creating works from multiple sources of inspiration – each of which results in a piece for a small ensemble. Matisse Fantasies, as the title indicates, has its origins in specific works by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). It is for a quartet: Narek Arutyunian, clarinet; Michelle Ross, violin; Clarice Jensen, cello; and the composer on piano. In keeping with Matisse’s era, the work is largely Romantic in conception; in keeping with Matisse’s art, it tends to the languorous in the first of its three movements, Femme assise en robe longue; initially to the somewhat disconnected and almost playful, then to the instrumentally expressive, in the second movement, La Violoniste à la fenêtre; and to the warm and swaying in the concluding La Danse. Heard as a whole, it is a thoroughly engaging piece, far more content in its somewhat old-fashioned aural environment than are many other works by modern composers. And even listeners unfamiliar with Matisse in general or the specific inspirational works in particular will have no difficulty being absorbed into the worldview that Wolosoff creates – and then absorbing it into themselves. The concept of Blues for the New Millennium is also clear from the work’s title: the sound is that of the blues, the concept that of a new millennium (the work commemorates the turn of the 21^st century). This piece is a trio for clarinet (Arutyunian), violin (Deborah Buck), and piano (the composer). Given the underlying concept, listeners will likely expect some sort of stylistic duality here, and that is pretty much what Wolosoff delivers, the more-acerbic, more-pointed material earlier in the piece giving way later to greater lyricism and more melodic engagement. The piece is a tad on the obvious side, but it is well-constructed and features some pleasantly bluesy writing that contrasts well with a non-blues-focused conclusion that seems to point toward a differing but unknowable future. The third work on the CD, Blue Mantra, is another piece inspired by visual art – in this case by a painting by Margaret Garrett, who is Wolosoff’s wife. It would be unreasonable to expect listeners to know anything about the specific painting that led to the creation of this trio for the same instruments used in Blues for the New Millennium. But as in the Matisse-focused work, Wolosoff manages to create music that is engaging and enjoyable on its own terms, in this case producing a piece with a more-modern aesthetic than in the Matisse-inspired work – greater dissonance, more repetitive elements, more-insistent rhythms, an overall sense of disquiet rather than lyricism, more focus on individual instruments’ contributions and less of a sense of ensemble cooperation. The work is not as easy to listen to as either of the others on the CD, with some of the extended dissonant passages wearing thin well before they end. But within the overall context of this recording, it serves as a kind of palate cleanser for those who may have had a surfeit of lyrical warmth from the rest of the material on the disc. The CD not only provides interesting insights into Wolosoff as composer but also – and more importantly for a general audience – shows how well-crafted contemporary chamber music can reach out beyond a hardcore group of aficionados who would be attracted to material that is new for its own sake. 

     Elena Ruehr (born 1963) sticks to traditional string-quartet design in three new works available on another AVIE disc – but her inspiration is different from Wolosoff’s. Ruehr, like many other recent and far-from-recent composers, draws in these pieces on the outdoors, specifically from cold climates that she has experienced: the works are collectively labeled The Northern Quartets. All were written for Quartet ES, which performs them here. Ruehr strongly advocates and expertly explores the string-quartet milieu, and these are her ninth through eleventh works in the form. No. 9 is called “Keweenaw” and is the most personal of the pieces, its title referring to the small rural town where Ruehr grew up. The five movements illustrate specific scenes, from the quiet desertion of ghost towns in Michigan’s isolated Upper Peninsula to the grandeur of Lake Superior to individual occurrences that Ruehr deems emblematic of the region, such as the concluding Wolf Chase movement that forgoes any sort of easy “pursuit” music in favor of intense passages that imply stealth as well as speed. No. 10, “Long Pond,” spreads the partial water focus of No. 9 throughout its entire canvas: it offers Ruehr’s reminiscences of a small lake in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where she has spent considerable time. A somewhat more-superficial work than No. 9, this tenth quartet includes the sort of scene-painting that listeners will likely have encountered in other composers’ works about similar waterside tranquility: rising sun at the start, setting moon at the end, a nicely bouncy dog walk, the enjoyment of sailing. There is a concluding portrayal of a big storm, called a “nor’easter” in the Cape Cod area, and it is effective enough – but it soon passes, allowing a return to the placidity and underlying prettiness that Ruehr has experienced at and taken from this location, and tries to share with listeners. The three-movement No. 11 is a more-interesting work and is built around a location outside the United States. It is called “Reykjavík,” which is the name of the capital of Iceland, and portrays seasonal changes in and around the city. Iceland’s long winter nights are a defining characteristic of the country and are given their due here, being represented by a first movement that is longer than the other two put together – an eminently suitable musical design. Then the rest of the quartet presents the emergence of sunshine (in a movement lasting less than two minutes) and, finally, the joy felt in Iceland when the lengthy and intense cold is releasing its grip at last. This is an unsurprising sequence: deeply felt cold and darkness (although not exactly gloom), snippets of instrumental sunshine peeking through, and eventual celebratory singing and dancing to welcome the return of warmth. But although the underlying material is unexceptional, Ruehr does a good job of creating musical passages that engage the audience without requiring slavish adherence to a specific program or set of scenes, and she understands the dynamics and interactions of the string quartet so well – here and in the other music on this CD – that she produces involving and convincing works that transcend their visual and geographical inspirations even as, for those knowledgeable about the areas, they offer specific points of familiarity. 

     A larger instrumental complement – five players – is used by Daniel Strong Godfrey (born 1949) in the three pieces on a New Focus Recordings release that, unlike the Wolosoff and Ruehr CDs, requires greater understanding of its inspirations for listeners to enjoy the material fully. The three quintets here have slightly different instrumentations and performer makeups even though all are built around the Cassatt String Quartet. That ensemble includes Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower as violinists in all the music. In Ricordanza-Speranza (2006), the violist is Sarah Adam and the cellist is Nicole Johnson; this piece includes piano (Ursula Oppens). In Toward Light (2023), the violist is Rosemary Nelis, the cellist Gwen Krosnick, and the work includes guitar (Eliot Fisk). In To Mourn, To Dance (2013), the violist is Ah Ling Neu, the cellist is Elizabeth Anderson, and the music requires a second cellist (Nicole Johnson). No matter how the players are sorted and re-sorted, all are fully committed to the music and all handle their roles with skill and a clear sense of involvement in Godfrey’s aesthetic. The first two works on the CD, Ricordanza-Speranza and Toward Light, are both intended to be look-toward-the future pieces, the first of them also including a look back (hence the first part of its title). These quintets, both of which were Cassatt String Quartet commissions, have no particularly evident connection with their underlying concepts – the first of them, for example, does not use a backward-looking musical style that eventually evolves into or is replaced by a forward-looking one (however defined). It is true that the last movement of Ricordanza-Speranza has a fairly quick pace and sense of forward motion, but that is so common in works of so many types that it carries no particular meaning here. And although Toward Light might be expected to start in a dark place, then move through the crepuscular toward the bright, that is not what really happens in its four movements, the first three of which meander rather than progressing – with the fourth having more bounce (and a more-interesting use of the guitar) but ultimately no substantial sense of a future orientation that would contrast with what has come before. In both these pieces as well as To Mourn, To Dance, the tonal language is mostly of the mid-to-late 20^th century (despite the works have been created in the 21^st), which means dissonance and atonality dominate. The cello-focused To Mourn, To Dance is aurally much the same: it does include some longer lines and occasional dips into warmth (if not true lyricism), but the harmonic underpinnings are somewhat too harsh to take advantage of the inherent warmth of the cello – much less two cellos. Here too the title does not really reflect the musical structure: the work’s early portions are not especially mournful, although the third of its four movements does include episodes of sadness. The fourth movement actually begins with a kind of dour pronouncement that soon turns into a rhythmically drunken section that could be a dance, albeit a rather lurching one. But anyone expecting some sort of joyousness or upbeat contrast between this movement and the prior ones will likely be disappointed. This is a (+++) CD that will be of interest mainly to listeners who enjoy music in a modern idiom that showcases Godfrey’s ability to handle quintets of three slightly different types but that – at least for a more-general audience – has a whiff of the formulaic throughout.