(++++) THEMES AND VARIATIONS

Let’s Fix Up the House. By Robert Pizzo. Schiffer Kids. $9.99.

Let’s Fix Up the Yard. By Robert Pizzo. Schiffer Kids. $9.99.

     Clichés become clichés because there is a kernel of truth in them. Sometimes more than a kernel. It is a cliché of children’s books, especially board books for the youngest readers and pre-readers, that their visuals must be sweet and simple and unworldly, their content educational in only the most simplistic sense possible, their ability to teach largely limited to such foundational concepts as the numbers 1-10 or formulaic illustrations of objects beginning with specific letters of the alphabet. Not all board books are formulaic, but enough of them are so that families looking for new ones can quickly become dismayed by the sameness of far too many of the offerings.

     But then there are Robert Pizzo’s books. Pizzo has the rather revolutionary idea that children, even the youngest children, are interested in the everyday world around them, and can be taught about it even if they are too young to read detailed explanations about real-world objects and tasks. They can, he asserts, familiarize themselves not only with the latest version of “K is for Kangaroo” and “Z is for Zebra” but also with elements of the world that they are far more likely to encounter in their own lives than all the intriguing-looking creatures with whom they are highly unlikely ever to interact.

     Thus, in Let’s Fix Up the House and Let’s Fix Up the Yard, Pizzo uses geometric precision and a clear understanding of how things work to present, in board-book form, quotidian tools and the ways people use them – very likely including young children’s own parents and, perhaps sooner rather than later, the children themselves. The result is to-do lists in highly visual, semi-realistic form: not fully realistic in illustration, since the tools and tasks are boiled down to their essences for purposes of clarity, but quite realistic in showing just what those tools and tasks involve and how they are done.

     In each book, the left-hand pages, which open with the words “We’ll need,” show a specific stylized tool of some sort, while the right-hand pages show the tool in use and illustrate what it accomplishes. Pizzo’s art has clarity and precision that make the whole process look simple, although it is anything but: he manages to boil down to its essence every task and technique, so even very young children can see what a real-world item looks like and how it manages real-world accomplishments.

     So Let’s Fix Up the House shows, on one left-hand page, a hammer – stripped to its essence and drawn so it is instantly recognizable. The right-hand page shows a stylized adult – think of a very colorful version of the figures used to illustrate warning signs or public restrooms – about to use the hammer to drive a nail into a strip of wood above a window, with the words “to nail the wood trim.” Another page says “We’ll need a level” – and it is a beautifully rendered one, with three different bubbles allowing leveling at different angles – opposite a page that says “to straighten the shelf,” on which the use of a level to do just that is shown with straightforward exactness. And there is the left-hand age featuring a saw, with a right-hand one saying “to cut the lumber” and making it abundantly clear just how that happens. To wrap up the book with a slight twist, the final pages say “We’ll need a vacuum” – a shop vac, to be precise, and yes, it is precisely drawn and looks nothing like a standard in-house vacuum – “to clean up. All done!” That is a great summary lesson: cleaning up thoroughly after completing a project is a crucial step that all too many adults neglect. Kids won’t, after they absorb Pizzo’s presentation: they will know that cleanup is integral to fix-up.

     Let’s Fix Up the Yard follows the same narrative and presentation pattern with equal effectiveness. On one two-page spread, “We’ll need a leaf blower – to collect the leaves,” and the handheld blower is shown in just enough detail to make its real-world appearance clear, while the person using it is wearing ear protection and the larger-than-in-real-life and beautifully colored fall leaves are flying around the page. Elsewhere, what is needed is a wheelbarrow “to haul the dirt,” which is shown piled high and, for a touch of amusement, with a bird perched atop the mound and looking at the person pushing the load along. Whether as simple as a pack of seeds “to grow the vegetables” or as complex-looking as a cement mixer “to pour the concrete,” every outdoor tool and item is put on display with admirable clarity and shown in use in ways that children of just about any age will be able to understand. The very end of the yard-focused book is more amusing than the end of the house-focused one, and quite equally accurate. “We’ll need to rest” (the picture shows the two adults, male and female, wiping their foreheads after some very taxing work) – “when we’re all done!” And that last bit of art, with the two hard-working people lounging on chairs in a yard whose spiffy appearance directly picks up on earlier illustrations that showed them performing various tasks, certainly communicates just how well-earned their rest is. Indeed, the clarity of communication in Let’s Fix Up the House and Let’s Fix Up the Yard is always front-and-center, showing Pizzo’s exceptional ability to rethink the basics of illustrative education, demonstrating that even the well-worn format of the board book does not need to come across as if it is worn out.

(+++) THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW

Mendelssohn: Transcriptions by Andreas N. Tarkmann—“Songs without Words” for Oboe and String Orchestra; Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra for Flute, Harp and String Orchestra. Ramón Ortega Quero, oboe; Anette Maiburg, flute; Emmanuel Ceysson, harp; Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim conducted by Douglas Bostock. Coviello. $22.95.

Edward Smaldone: Beauty of Innuendo; Prendendo Fuoco (Catching Fire); Murmurations; June 2011; What no one else sees... New Focus Recordings. $18.99.

Paul Lansky: Patterns (in wood and metal); Metal Light; Hop; Touch and Go. Bridge Records. $16.99.

Dante De Silva: Shibui—a dirge in memory of my mentor, Deborah Clasquin; Four Years of Fog; Katherine Balch & Katie Ford: estrangement. Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano; Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, piano. False Azure Records. $15.

     The mellifluousness of Mendelssohn’s music is so pervasive that its loveliness comes through not only in its original form but also in arrangements that allow instruments other than the originally planned ones to partake of its lyricism. There is no inherent reason to transcribe Mendelssohn – his sense of apt ways to explore the engaging and emotive qualities of the instruments he chose for his works is unerring – but doing so is certainly tempting for arrangers such as Andreas N. Tarkmann. On a new Coviello CD, Tarkmann’s arrangement for oboe and strings of seven Songs without Words proves a highly enjoyable way of hearing these small salon-like piano pieces in a new guise that expands their expressiveness while remaining basically true to their small scale and underlying delicacy. The works in this charming suite are Op. 19, No. 1; Op. 30, No. 4; Op. 30, No. 6; Op. 85, No. 6; Op. 67, No. 5; Op. 67, No. 6; and Op. 30, No. 2. All of Tarkmann’s transcriptions are sensitive and pleasant, and all are played stylishly and engagingly by Ramón Ortega Quero with accompaniment led by Douglas Bostock. Op. 30, No. 6 (Venetianisches Gondellied) is a particular charmer with its pizzicato underpinning, and following it with the sprightly Op. 85, No. 6 was an especially good idea. And the gently rocking Op. 67, No. 6 comes across quite delightfully as heard here. In truth, the entire suite is a very pleasurable experience, remaining basically true to Mendelssohn while shining some new light on the small jewels that are the Songs without Words. The D minor Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra is a larger work, lasting 40 minutes, and quite an early one: Mendelssohn wrote it when he was 14, and it is one of the pieces lending credence to the comparisons made in Mendelssohn’s lifetime between him and Mozart. Likely influenced by a double concerto for the same instruments by Hummel, Mendelssohn’s work lies well on the solo instruments and is especially sensitive to then recently developed violin techniques. Tarkmann’s transcription obviously minimizes that element of the composition, but it actually increases parallels with Mozart, who wrote his own flute-and-harp concerto (K. 299/297c). The original Mendelssohn work is not especially well-known, so many listeners will not have it in mind while hearing this flute-and-harp version – and even those who do know the original will enjoy the setting of different solo instruments against the same string orchestra for which Mendelssohn composed the piece. The delicacy of playing by the Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim is noteworthy here, and the unusual interplay of flute and harp gives the concerto a sound quite different from, yet obviously related to, its original one. Unlike the Songs without Words suite, however, this concerto rearrangement has more of an experimental feeling about it: there is nothing particularly revelatory about the transcription, which seems mostly like an exercise in what Tarkmann can do with a work of early Romantic sensibility conceived on a substantial scale. Anette Maiburg and Emmanuel Ceysson play the concerto with skill and a good sense of enjoyment of its pleasantries, and Bostock ensures fine ensemble support throughout. But it is only in the shortest movement, a central Adagio whose opening actually foreshadows the later Songs without Words, that the flute-and-harp combination really shines. Tarkmann’s transcription is a contemporary reimagining of this early Mendelssohn gem, but this is not a work that in any way cries out for a new approach: it deserves to be better-known in its original version, to which this arrangement, although certainly well-made, ultimately adds very little.

     Today’s composers may be influenced not only by their contemporaries and the works of the recent past, but also by differing types of music – as well as nonmusical material. Edward Smaldone (born 1956) is one composer who casts an especially wide net, as is shown on a New Focus Recordings release of five of his works for various sizes and types of ensembles. Beauty of Innuendo and June 2011 are orchestral pieces, both here conducted by Michael Toms, the first featuring the Brno Philharmonic and the second the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Beauty of Innuendo is a rather intense, brassy, proclamatory work with contrasting lyrical touches and an overall sound of emphatic intensity. June 2011 is more jazzy and less Coplandesque, with pointed xylophone and glockenspiel elements. Toms and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra also perform Prendendo Fuoco (Catching Fire), an extended piano-and-orchestra work requiring the soloist (Niklas Sivelöv) to engage with a wide variety of styles and some decidedly over-the-top passages showing the influence of multiple compositional approaches. This is an impressively spun-out piece that is perhaps a touch too breathless for its own good but that, as it progresses, certainly will have listeners wondering what is coming next. Another solo-and-ensemble work here, Murmurations, is more modest in scope: it features clarinetist Søren-Filip Brix Hansen with the wind orchestra Den Kongelige Livgardes Musikkorps conducted by Giordano Bellincampi. Somewhat self-consciously imitative of avian communication, the piece is interesting for some of its wind-against-winds settings. Winds are also the focus of What no one else sees… (spelled that way, including ellipsis). This is a pleasant, largely lighthearted three-movement work for woodwind quintet (played by a group called Opus Zoo). The movement titles – “Playful,” “Serious,” and “Free Spirited” – sum up the moods of the work rather well, although there is a somewhat sly hint of the not-too-serious in the central movement. These disparate pieces show Smaldone’s interest in a wide variety of compositional techniques and influences and highlight the varying effects of his focuses on different organizational principles, musical structures and stylistic approaches.

     The commonality of the four works on a new CD featuring music by Paul Lansky (born 1944) is the pieces’ focus on percussion, in various forms and combinations. Lansky writes a wide variety of music – this is the 18^th Bridge Records release of his work – and has some interesting combinatorial ideas. For example, instead of an all-strings or all-woodwind grouping, Lansky creates a mallet quartet for his 2011 Patterns (in wood and metal). Performed by Gwendolyn Dease, Ji Hye Jung, Jisu Jung, and Ayano Kataoka, the piece is an evocative one in which the percussive elements are frequently downplayed in favor of the production of a kind of sound cloud from which individual instruments emerge periodically and into which they are then subsumed. Dease is the featured performer on the other works here, being the sole player of Metal Light (2017) for vibraphone and small percussion set. This is a mostly gentle piece with a sense of temple bells and crotales about it, but also incorporating some livelier sections. Hop (1993), for marimba (Dease) and violin (Yvonne Lam), does indeed bounce about here and there, without any particular sense of forward motion. Its most interesting aspect lies in Lansky’s use of the contrasting legato capabilities of the stringed instrument with the staccato propensities of the marimba – and the way each of those blends, sometimes surprisingly, into the other. The most-extended work on this disc is the three-movement Touch and Go (2012) for percussionist (Dease) and wind ensemble (the Michigan State University Wind Symphony conducted by Kevin Sedatole). The movements, of nearly equal length, are labeled “Tap,” “Stroke,” and “Tag,” but in this case the titles give a relative paucity of clues to the musical material. The work actually has a fairly traditional fast-slow-fast structure, the first movement bright and ebullient, the second quiet and atmospheric, and the third rather puckish and playful. More than the other pieces on this CD, Touch and Go is fun to hear and is appealing through its integration of percussion into a larger whole with inherently contrasting sound. Dease plays all the works on the disc with considerable aplomb, bringing forth different sounds from the varying percussion instruments and having a sure sense of when to attempt to blend with other players and when to stand out from them. In addition to a treat for listeners who enjoy Lansky’s music, the CD is an enjoyable way to hear some listenable modern pieces in which percussion is brought to the forefront and shown to have expressive capabilities beyond those with which it is usually credited.

     It is the expressiveness of piano and the human voice that is the focus of a False Azure Records release featuring works by Dante De Silva (born 1978) and Katherine Balch (born 1991) – with Balch’s using poetry by Katie Ford (born 1975). This is a disc of highly personal material throughout, and will really be suitable listening only for those who share the experiences of the creators and have mentally/emotionally processed them the same way. In the case of De Silva’s music, it also helps a great deal to know and be interested in the difference in tuning systems between equal temperament (the standard in most cases for many years) and just temperament (which provides more intervallic purity at a cost of greater performance complexity and melodic flattening). The tuning element is abstruse for most people but is in one sense the most interesting element of the disc, because the first piece recorded, Shibui, opens the CD in equal temperament and closes it in just temperament, providing an unusual chance to hear the clear distinctions between the tuning systems. As for Shibui itself, it is one of those you-had-to-be-there pieces, being a tribute to pianist Deborah Clasquin, who taught both De Silva and performer Ryan MacEvoy McCullough. Elements of the work relate to the specific musical interests of Clasquin, and since the piece was written for McCullough to play at Clasquin’s memorial service, the entire thing bears considerably more weight than its three-minute length would seem able to bear. For most listeners, the chance to hear it played two different ways, or rather in two different auditory systems, will be its primary attraction. As for De Silva’s Four Years of Fog (2016), this is specifically written for just-tuned piano and is intended to reflect the composer’s experiences as an undergraduate. Surely those experiences parallel the ones of others in similar circumstances, but the music is not specifically referential to anything to which listeners will be able to attach their own experiential memories. The four movement titles do give some guidance to the feelings the work is intended to evoke or memorialize: “Blissfully Ignorant,” “Sickness and Exile,” “A New Adolescence,” and “The Local Zenith.” But those titles are scarcely specific enough (or generally applicable enough) to be guideposts for listeners. The clarity of sound made possible by just tuning will be the most salient characteristic of Four Years of Fog for most audiences. As for Balch’s estrangement (the title is not capitalized), it is one of many modern relationship-ending musings, filled with phrases apparently meant to be meaningful but in practice sounding rather stilted (“the wash of the cellular level,” “a coffin of slur,” “it begins in loathing,” “the gore of actual heart,” etc.). Lucy Fitz Gibbon sings, or rather emotes, expressively enough, but the actual settings of Ford’s words make the verbiage often too difficult to hear and process. And as often occurs in similar works, knowledge of the piece’s origin is crucial for a full appreciation of it: it is supposed to be a modern female response to Schumann’s Dichterliebe and the Heine poetry on which it is based, although nothing in estrangement makes that the slightest bit apparent. Certainly the works by De Silva and Balch/Ford are heartfelt, but unless a listener’s heart feels just the same things that De Silva and Balch/Ford felt when experiencing elements of their lives and producing music exploring those elements, the communicative potential of these works will be minimal at best.

(++++) A MUSICAL LIFE JOURNEY

Shostakovich: The Complete Symphonies. Gürzenich-Orchester Köln conducted by Dmitrij Kitajenko; Marina Shaguch, soprano (Symphony No. 14); Arutjun Kotchinian, bass (Symphonies Nos. 13-14); Prague Philharmonic Chorus (Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 13). Capriccio. $47.99 (12 CDs).

     More so than almost any other great symphonist (with the possible exception of Mahler), Dmitry Shostakovich put his own life, its struggles and uncertainties and changing allegiances and fears and inconsistencies, into his symphonic output. His 15 symphonies are in many ways an exceptionally uneven cycle in terms of quality, and finding “progress” from one to the next depends largely on one’s willingness to define the term in a fairly arbitrary way. The symphonies take listeners on a frequently difficult emotional journey, and the best Shostakovich cycles feature conductors who are fully aware of this (or at least subliminally conscious of it throughout the sequence) and whose performances are thoroughly reflective of the very personal nature of this music. The lengths of the various symphonies mean that recordings do not offer the works in order of composition, but this is one symphonic cycle that really is heard best in numeric sequence, no matter how many disc changes that necessitates.

     The Capriccio re-release of Dmitrij Kitajenko’s Shostakovich cycle is thus extremely welcome despite the ups and downs of performances, recorded sound, and on-disc sequencing. These readings date from the period of 2002-2004. Nine of the symphonies are studio recordings, while six (Nos. 1, 4, 7, 8, 11 and 15) were recorded live. The cycle is spread out over 12 discs, with one symphony (No. 7) split between two CDs – an oddity, given that other complete sets fit on 11 discs without any works being subdivided. The recording quality is first-rate throughout, but some of the symphonies appear at significantly higher volume than others: for example, Nos. 7 and 8 are rather distant, while No. 4 is so immediate and intense aurally as to require a reduction in volume settings. One disappointment in presentation is the 64-page booklet, which is filled with typos – especially in the texts of the vocal works (Nos. 2, 3, 13 and 14), which in addition to the typesetting errors are unfortunately given only in English.

     These matters of unevenness and imperfection aside, though, Kitajenko’s cycle is astonishingly perceptive and presented with consistent power and understanding, showing that this conductor not only comprehends the individuality of each Shostakovich symphony but also sees clearly how they reflect the composer’s life, thinking and outward and internal struggles over almost five decades (No. 1 was completed in 1925, No. 15 in 1971). Kitajenko beautifully displays the individual elements of every symphony while also drawing attention to the characteristics that Shostakovich evinces throughout the series: sardonic, often morbid wit mixed with a certain amount of crudity and triviality. And while the soloists and chorus are not quite at the summit of vocal performers, the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln is absolutely superb throughout, with snarling and crackling brass that is a continued source of astonishment and unmatched by just about any orchestra that has recorded this repertoire.

     Interpretatively, Symphony No. 1 has considerable bite and crispness, showing the work to be quick-witted with a thumbing-its-nose-at-the-world attitude that is darkened somewhat in the just-so-slightly-puzzling finale. No. 2 is unusually interesting in Kitajenko’s reading, its early portions clearly reflecting experimental compositional methods of the 1920s and showing some genuinely innovative thinking – until the final Soviet patriotic chorus combines expressiveness with banality to the point where the latter wins out. No. 3 has better-written vocal material than does No. 2, but is musically less interesting despite some excellent touches on Kitajenko’s part, notably in the strongly felt brass fanfares and the atmospheric handling of the tam-tam in one Andante section.

     Symphony No. 4 is a high point of this cycle, turning this funereal and downright peculiar piece into a series of beautifully proportioned and thrillingly assembled details that eventually coalesce into a genuinely chilling coda that fades away into a nothingness that contrasts strongly with the earlier, Mahler-influenced portion of the finale. Tidbits of jauntiness flit here and there while morbidity pulls constantly in the opposite direction, and Kitajenko makes the whole thing fit together in an impressively unsettling manner.

     The more-straightforward No. 5, which here starts very slowly indeed, is somewhat laid-back in the first two movements, but the Largo is heartfelt and provides a strong contrast with the problematic finale, which Kitajenko allows to flourish with a kind of crude triumphalism that implies an underlying meaninglessness of whatever victory may be achieved. Symphony No. 6, which like No. 4 has distinctly funereal elements, is deeply engaging in its drawn-out first movement, which is longer than the other two put together. The lighter and sometimes comedic touches of the second and third movements never quite dispel the gloom of the first, with the result that Kitajenko’s reading proffers a symphony unsure not only of answers but also of what questions it is asking. It is a puzzling work whose contradictory elements are well-highlighted here.

     The three “war” symphonies, Nos. 7-9, all get vivid and convincing readings, with each one’s intricacies and crudities nicely brought to the fore. A high point of this cycle is Kitajenko’s handling of No. 7 (“Leningrad”), a symphony that, with its famously banal and therefore frighteningly inexorable first-movement march, opens with a level of gentleness that makes the soon-to-come intensity all the stronger. The quietly thoughtful third movement eventually leads to a finale that sounds only superficially triumphant, as if the victory (the movement is actually called “Victory”) leaves loss and desolation in its wake – a message that subtly, in an unsubtle symphony, amplifies the communication of the finale of No. 5. Symphony No. 8 is a more refined work, the reading rather cool and controlled in places but quite tense and unsettling in the Largo, where the percussion is outstanding, and elsewhere. The peculiar No. 9 is here exceptionally witty and sarcastic, notable for tremendous attention to detail, excellent tempo choices, and an overall feeling of barely restrained anarchic proclamations.

     Symphony No. 10 shows that the orchestra’s strings and woodwinds can be just as convincing as its brass section – and that Shostakovich can, from time to time, produce orchestrations with the same odd chamber-music quality that Mahler used regularly. The swiftly changing moods of this reading are impressively contrasted, and the finale is particularly atmospheric and effective in summing up the work as a whole. No. 11 shows how far Shostakovich has come emotionally and orchestrally since the comparatively crude Nos. 2 and 3: No. 11 also celebrates socialism and the harrowing events of “The Year 1905,” but here the music is focused, strongly accented, and very effectively contrasted between the combative elements and the grief-stricken ones. The work comes through with a feeling of controlled narrative throughout, and the finale is crisp and strong rather than merely insistent. On the other hand, No. 12, “The Year 1917,” emerges under Kitajenko as something of a throwback to the emotional world of Nos. 2 and 3, sounding more straightforward and less substantial than No. 11. The bombast of the concluding The Dawn of Humanity is given full rein here, contrasting well with the preceding Aurora movement, but No. 12 as a whole comes across as lesser Shostakovich despite Kitajenko’s careful handling of its elements.

     No. 13, “Babi Yar,” on the other hand, gets an emotionally compelling performance, sensitive and heartfelt and in places – notably the Fears movement – bleak and chilling. In the Store is also outstanding in its portrayal of unending queues, unceasing weariness. The performance is somewhat disconnected, more a series of scenes than a unified whole, but that is actually a legitimate approach to the music, and the vocals are suitably pointed and trenchant even though the chorus is not always as weighty as it could be. Symphony No. 14, using only a chamber orchestra, has a sense of immediacy and emotional connection despite being one of the studio recordings. The two soloists thoroughly explore Lorelei to fine effect, and bass Arutjun Kotchinian is especially impressive in O Delvig, Delvig! Soprano Marina Shaguch’s strongest delivery comes in The Death of the Poet, but both she and Kotchinian manage all the death-focused imagery of this symphony with sensitivity and understanding – abetted by Kitajenko’s highly attentive handling of every element of the orchestration. Kitajenko’s cycle concludes with yet another exceptional reading: Symphony No. 15 is quirky and oblique, dragged down at one point into dreariness and uplifted at the next into beauty. Crisp and beautifully played, with outstanding percussion, this is a sophisticated performance whose consistency in this oddly witty, captivating work makes for a thrilling but suitably puzzling conclusion. The highly personal nature of Shostakovich’s symphonic oeuvre comes through with clarity and understanding throughout Kitajenko’s cycle: these are recordings that are immensely impressive in the way they explore and elucidate the complexities and self-contradictions not only of the music but also of the man who created it.

(++++) THE EXPRESSIVE PIANO

Franz Xaver Mozart: Polonaises Mélancoliques, Opp. 17 and 22; Two Polonaises, Op. 26. Robert Markham, piano. Grand Piano. $19.99.

Schubert: Piano Sonatas Nos. 14, D. 784, and 18, D. 894. Young-Ah Tak, piano. Steinway & Sons. $17.99.

Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy, D. 760; Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 3; Louise Talma: Alleluia in Form of Toccata; Debussy: L’Isle joyeuse; Ernő Dohnányi: Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song; Ligeti: Études, Book I—No. 5, Arc-en-ciel. Orion Weiss, piano. First Hand Records. $14.99.

William Bland: Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 15. Kevin Gorman, piano. Bridge Records. $16.99.

     The piano’s ability to evoke emotion was noticed in its earliest days, when its predecessor, the fortepiano, allowed nuances in performance and sound that were not available to the harpsichord and clavichord. As the piano steadily progressed toward its modern form, which it reached in the mid-to-late-19^th century, composers delved ever more deeply into its emotive capabilities and produced a wider and wider range of music designed to connect emotionally with audiences – and, not incidentally, to bring new and expanded expressive challenges to pianists. One of the less-known early transitional figures in pianistic warmth was the sixth and youngest child of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Franz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844). A new CD featuring Robert Markham provides a very welcome chance to make (or perhaps renew) this composer’s acquaintance and hear the ways in which his music helped pianistic technique and emotional connection advance. F.X. Mozart was especially adept at a kind of salon music known as polonaises mélancoliques, two sets of which take up almost the entire Grand Piano disc. The Op. 17 set (1811-1814) contains six pieces; the Op. 22 grouping (1815-1818) includes four. All 10 works share distinct similarities of style, mood and pianistic requirements: each opens and closes in a minor key and has a central major-key section marked Trio that provides a contrast with the seriousness (which is not really depth) of the start and finish. The sets are arranged as cycles in ways designed to heighten their overall impact on audiences, and there is some sense of emotional progress through both sets despite the formulaic nature of the individual pieces within each group. The right hand inevitably carries the melody, while the left provides foundational support and helps extend the feelings evoked by the right. Among the points of interest in Op. 17 are No. 3 in C minor, whose main sections are marchlike, and No. 5 in F minor, whose elaborate writing looks ahead to the works of Chopin. In Op. 22, the drama of No. 1 in C minor is notable, as is the intimacy of No. 3 in F minor. Markham plays the two sets skillfully and without overdoing their emotional content or making them out to be more expansive (emotionally or otherwise) than they really are. The minor-key pieces are separated on the disc by a pair of polonaises from 1824, both in major keys (D and C). The first has an attractive pastoral atmosphere, while the second has a notably bright central section. There is no great music here: F.X. Mozart was himself a pianist, but seems scarcely to have wanted to challenge himself or anyone else through compositional depth. But there is much that is pleasantly engaging, and the occasional hints of music by better-known composers are intriguing – for example, Op. 17, No. 4 in G minor has the sorts of mood swings associated with Schubert, whom F.X. Mozart met a number of times.

     Schubert was born six years later than F.X. Mozart and died 16 years earlier, but he broadened and expanded the piano repertoire in ways far beyond anything that F.X. Mozart ever produced. His piano sonatas – many unfinished, Schubert’s habit being to leave a large number of works partly completed, possibly with the never-realized intention of returning to them later – have scale and emotional scope extending far beyond the poise and prettiness associated with salon music. Some of his sonatas, including the two played by Young-Ah Tak on a new Steinway & Sons CD, are significant contributions to the solo-piano genre and continue to challenge performers and delight audiences today. The three-movement No. 14 (D. 784) in A minor dates to 1823 but was not published until 1839, which was 11 years after Schubert’s death. Its first movement is unusually sparse in texture and has few of the modulations of which Schubert was generally fond. It is a bleak movement that leads to an Andante with a straightforward theme that is handled in some unusual ways – and then to a finale that seems to inhabit an altogether different world, being complex, virtuosic and thoroughly unsettling in mood. The difficulty for performers lies in integrating the three movements into a unified whole – something that Schubert himself did not really succeed in doing. Tak’s approach is to focus on the singing quality that all the movements share and to use the gently rocking sections of the finale as, in effect, auditory throwbacks to what has come before. She does not downplay the fireworks that dominate the finale, but she pays equal attention to the lyrical elements and thus maintains a sense of expressiveness throughout. This results in an interesting contrast with No. 18, D. 894, which dates to 1823 and was the last of Schubert’s piano sonatas published during his lifetime. It is a much larger work than D. 784, running 35 minutes to 19 for D. 784. And D. 894 is in four movements, not three. Instead of featuring varying moods that can be difficult to capture and contrast, D. 894 is mainly peaceful, with its relatively rare moments of darkness sounding more poignant than tragic. The challenge with this sonata is to retain its generally sunny mood without trivializing any of its gently contrasting feelings as they emerge in various guises and then ebb. This sonata is in G, and from the start of its opening movement – the longest in the piece – there is a sense that the mood will be Molto moderato e cantabile throughout, not just in the opening movement, which bears that designation. Indeed, everything in D. 894 is moderate: the second movement is Andante, the third Allegro moderato, and the fourth Allegretto. The subtle distinctions among the tempo indications require pianists to find ways both to connect the movements and to allow their individual characteristics to flow forth. Tak does a fine job with the music, keeping it moving at a reasonable pace while using its warm flow to carry the listener along gently through an aural landscape that is mostly pleasant and serene. These are well-considered performances that delve into Schubert’s expressiveness sure-handedly and with fine attention to the works’ emotional impact.

     Schubert makes an appearance as well on a First Hand Records CD featuring pianist Orion Weiss – although in this case Schubert’s music is not featured in and of itself, but as part of a program designed to make specific nonmusical points. This does no favors to Schubert or the five other composers whose music appears on the disc, and for that matter does little for listeners who are not thoroughly versed in and supportive of Weiss’ approach to the material. The CD is designated “Arc III” and is intended to be heard in the context of two earlier releases: “Arc I” included works written shortly before World War I and moving in a generally gloomy direction; “Arc II” focused on feelings of grief and loss occasioned by that war and World War II; and now “Arc III” is intended, in contrast, to provide positive emotions and uplift. Well, maybe. But it is scarcely reasonable to expect audiences to own the two earlier volumes (both released during 2022) and to be ready and willing to connect the works on them (by Granados, Janáček, Scriabin, Ravel, Brahms and Shostakovich) to the pieces on the new disc. If the music requires so much scaffolding that it cannot stand by itself, then it is less than consequential as music and is required to be seen in the context of a “cause.” Certainly listeners who do own the earlier Weiss releases and who wish to follow his thinking regarding this music and the world at large will find this new CD attractive, but the gloss required to connect the musical material with other elements of life will be off-putting to anyone interested in the music for its own sake. This is nevertheless a (+++) disc simply on the strength of Weiss’ performances and despite (rather than because of) his attempts to force the works into juxtapositions reflective of his overarching “Arc” ideas. Weiss gives the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy an especially bright and upbeat reading, downplaying its darker elements and emphasizing its many lighter ones – and it scarcely matters if this is done in the service of a nonmusical argument, because the performance is effective in its own right. The approach is less congenial with regard to Brahms’ Piano Sonata No. 3, however. This is a passionate work in the key of F minor, and although it eventually finds its way to F major – as prescribed by sonata form – it is scarcely a brightly upbeat piece, giving instead an impression of considerable struggle that eventually leads to hard-won triumph. That may indeed serve Weiss’ thematic proclivities, but positioning this work as a joyful and celebratory one is something of an overstatement and leads to an underplaying of the deep conflicts within the music. The Brahms is by far the longest work on this CD, the Schubert being second-longest. The remaining pieces are smaller and easier to view unidimensionally. Alleluia in Form of Toccata (1945) by Louise Talma (1906-1996) is quite a find: bright, energetic, pianistically challenging, and decidedly upbeat within a midcentury musical idiom. Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse is pleasantly evocative of outdoorsy scenes and is played by Weiss with notable delicacy of touch and phrasing. Dohnányi’s Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song is peaceful and rather sweet, the underlying carol (The Angel from Heaven) not being especially well-known but not being necessary for listeners to know in order to enjoy what is, in the main, a pleasantly unprepossessing treatment. And Ligeti’s Arc-en-ciel, whose harmonic language is as up-to-date as befits a work from 1985, is essentially a display of delicacy, meandering through disconnected aural elements that appear and disappear hither and thither until they simply stop. It is not really optimistic or buoyant, but it is certainly not dour or dull, and thus it allows Weiss to say it connects with his overall thematic concept. Whether it does or not, his playing of the piece, as with his renditions of the other works, is assured, well-controlled and convincing. The Brahms sonata does not quite work in this hodgepodge of not-really-related music, but the other pieces blend and contrast well enough, and listeners interested in some finely honed pianism will enjoy the disc even if they do not unthinkingly accept the framework within which Weiss wants it to be experienced.

     The framework of William Bland’s piano sonatas is a time-honored and strictly musical one rather than one focusing on any extra-musical context: Bland (born 1947) started composing a set of 24 sonatas, one in each major and minor key, in 1998. Kevin Gorman made his recording debut with a Bridge Records release of Bland’s Sonatas Nos. 17 and 18 in 2021; his recordings of Nos. 9 and 10 followed in 2023; and now Volume 3 of what may well turn into a full set of the Bland sonatas is available, offering Nos. 6 and 15. There is obviously no particular order in which the sonatas are being released, and the CD lengths vary quite a bit: Volume 1 runs 58 minutes, Volume 2 (which also includes the brief Nouveau Rag) lasts 70, while the new Volume 3 runs a mere 47. The recordings will have obvious appeal to those who know Bland’s works and are interested in his way of interpreting the challenges of the sort of major-and-minor-key composition cycle that dates back at least to Bach. However, for an audience not already familiar with and committed to Bland’s music, these are (+++) CDs that present some well-made piano music that is, in the main, tonal, but that includes elements of atonality and some scarcely unusual dips into jazz and pop material. Sonata No. 6, in C minor, dates to 2001 and is titled “Bestiary – Con Amore.” It is a strong (and perhaps, in its own way, loving) five-movement string of Impressionist tone painting with movements called Bear Dance (suitably strong, lumbering and awkward); Song of the Great Hawk (surprisingly gentle and delicate); A Panther with His Head Turning to the Right (also delicate in its own way, with poise but without apparent connection to its title); Dragon (suitably dark, deep in the piano’s nether regions, and with a sense of controlled power); and – a real mouthful – “Regard” on the Painting ‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ by Edward Hicks. This last does require familiarity with the referenced painting for full effect, but even without it, the gentle undulations and mild dynamics of the movement paint a suitable picture of lovely (if thoroughly unrealistic) coexistence within the animal kingdom. Bland’s Sonata No. 8 in E-flat minor (2004) is more traditional in layout, having three movements marked Waltz, Lento and Fantasy. It is, as a whole, rather thick-textured. The first movement is a bit more elaborate, emphatic and dissonant than might be expected, although it does retain the dance rhythm. The second also has something insistent, even demanding, about it, and assiduously avoids any significant amount of warmth. The finale has a somewhat self-consciously contemporary feeling in its contrasts of leaps around the keyboard with more-extended, modestly lyrical passages. Gorman plays both sonatas convincingly, and even if the works are somewhat self-limiting in their appeal, they are solidly constructed and well-presented, doing credit both to the composer and to the performer.