(+++) PIANISM FOR TODAY AND YESTERDAY

Myron Silberstein: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-5; Four Impromptus; Four Winter Landscapes; Prelude and Fugue; Transformations; Jortunioca. Myron Silberstein, piano. Toccata Classics. $20.99. 

Antonio Soler: Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 15, 19, 24, 39, 42, 84, 85, 87, 88 and 90. Gerardo Teissonière, piano. Steinway & Sons. $20. 

     Listeners determined to build their holdings of modern American piano music – admittedly a rather rarefied group – may well have encountered pianist Myron Silberstein, who has made performance of the works of less-known American composers something of a specialty. Now Silberstein (born 1974) has turned his attention and attentiveness of performance to his own piano music, proving to be just as tireless an advocate of himself as he is of others. Everything on a new Toccata Classics CD is a first recording, and everything explores and re-explores the communicative territory that Silberstein has chosen to stake out as his own. It is a forthright region, filled with dissonance although often hovering on the edges of tonality, emotive by design even if it is not always evocative of the feelings it is designed to express. Although not really a miniaturist, Silberstein favors short forms: for instance, only one sonata movement lasts longer than five minutes, and two complete sonatas last seven-and-a-half apiece. The sonatas were composed in a short time period, No. 1 in 2016, No. 2 in 2018, Nos. 3 and 4 in 2019, and No. 5 in 2020. The fifth is a single-movement work; the first four are all in three movements and share a plainspokenness in labeling that is reflective of their comparatively straightforward rhythmic and harmonic approach (for 21^st-century music, anyway). By designating the movements of No. 1 as Light, Quiet and Bold, for instance, and those of No. 3 as Lively, Gentle and Brilliant, Silberstein gives listeners clear guideposts of his intent without requiring the sort of study of background, influence and inspiration that far too many contemporary composers expect of listeners. The clarity of the labels does, however, create communicative expectations that the music does not always fulfill. Sonata No. 3, for instance, feels more relaxed and somewhat more comfortable in its own musical skin than Nos. 1 and 2, and what is distinctive in the finale of the third sonata is not anything “brilliant” but a notable level of delicacy. Likewise, persistent atonality makes the Calm designation of the second movement of Sonata No. 4 unattainable; the cascades of notes in the concluding Vigorous are more fitting. There is pervasive brittleness in many of the sonatas’ movements, as if real warmth and lyricism are missing by intent and design – but this is mostly a function of the musical language in which Silberstein writes, which is better at acerbity than expressiveness. In fact, outside the sonatas, there is a smidgen of Impressionism lurking. Four Impromptus (2022) may not fully reflect their designations – the titles of No. 2, Lamenting, and No. 3, Contemplative, could easily be swapped – but all seem designed to evoke feelings that are almost present even if they remain just out of reach. And Four Winter Landscapes (2022), all of them essentially brief essays in stasis, are effective in their own way. Also here are two essays in reinterpreted musical formulas: Prelude and Fugue (2018) is a sort of demonstration project suggesting persistence of form, if not memory; and Transformations (2021), in scope a bit like a one-movement sonata, incorporates variation form without adhering to it in anything like a rigid manner. The disc concludes with a very short work that is enjoyable in part because it seems less seriously self-aware than anything else on the CD. Dating to 2020, it is called Jortunioca – a portmanteau of the names of three dance forms – and is both an encore and an encapsulation of Silberstein’s style, from its rhythmic assertiveness to the insistent chords with which it ends. The casual listener will not be converted to a fan of 21^st-century American piano music by anything on this disc, but those already interested in the continuing evolution of pianistic expression will find much of Silberstein’s music engaging – and his performance of it exemplary. 

     In some ways, keyboard expressiveness has not changed nearly as much as would be expected over a period of many centuries. Structurally, for example, Silberstein is partial to the warmth of Dorian mode as a means to boost emotive qualities, and that is also how Antonio Soler (1729-1783) used the mode in 22 of his 120+ keyboard sonatas. Soler was also – also like Silberstein – the creator both of single-movement sonatas and of ones in multiple movements. What has certainly changed since Soler’s time, however, as is clear from a Steinway & Sons release featuring Gerardo Teissonnière, is the disposition of keyboard writing and the requirements of counterpoint and of binary and ternary construction. Teissonnière is sensitive to these, allowing seamless flow of the material in the 10 single-movement sonatas he offers on a modern piano whose excesses he keeps in check but whose sonority certainly does not match that of the instruments of Soler’s time. Actually, the instrument for which Soler wrote is not clear, and he may have intended different sonatas for different ones. They are usually identified as harpsichord sonatas, since Soler was a fine harpsichordist and harpsichord teacher, and in general the harpsichord seems like the best choice for these works. But at least some of them could have been intended for the clavichord, spinet, organ, even the virginal – or perhaps the fortepiano, although certainly not the not-yet-existing modern concert grand. In any event, inauthentic Teissonnière’s performances may be, but expressive they certainly are – without overdoing matters to the point of obscuring the sonatas’ structure. Interestingly, seven of the 10 sonatas that Teissonnière offers are in minor keys, a clear indication of his pianistic disposition where Soler is concerned and a reasonable use of the greater warmth available through a modern piano’s resonance and longer key travel than existed in instruments of Soler’s time. Soler identified himself as a disciple of Domenico Scarlatti, whose 555-or-so keyboard sonatas are clear models for many of those by Soler – who, indeed, may have been Scarlatti’s pupil. Their works share many formal elements, such as modulations to the dominant and, at the end, back to the original key, but Soler’s have some coloristic distinctions that Teissonnière appears predisposed to bring out – likely one reason for his favoring of minor-key material. The Teissonnière CD is scarcely historically informed and may not be the best introduction to Soler for listeners unfamiliar with his music, but for those interested simply in pleasant music-making, skilled pianism, and a sense of hearing material whose structure and emotive nature are readily graspable, the disc provides a myriad of pleasures that, one would hope, may lead at least some audiences to seek out recordings offering more-authentic presentations of Soler’s intriguing sonatas.

(+++) MIX AND MATCH

Zhou Long: Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin; Tales from the Nine Bells for Clarinet, Violin, Viola & Piano; Chen Yi: Xian Shi for Viola, Percussion, and Piano; Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds. Patrick Yim, violin & viola; chamber ensemble conducted by Paul Hostetter. Pentatone. $17.99. 

Ramin Heydarbeygi: Rok-ku no Haiku; Negah; Setayesh az Anahid; Muye baraye Farzin; String Quartet No. 2; Gefangene, Musik hörend (after Käthe Kollwitz); Gusan. Pauline Kim Harris, violin, and Stephen Gosling, piano; Sara Paar, soprano, and FLUX Quartet; Tom Chiu, violin, Max Mandel, viola, and Felix Fan, cello; String Noise; Conrad Harris, violin. New Focus Recordings. $20.99. 

     It is scarcely news that many contemporary composers are less interested in traditional forms and instruments than in combining material from disparate musical areas in new ways. And it is no surprise that some performers join in this endeavor to mingle differing sounds and musical styles in an attempt to offer audiences something new and unfamiliar. What remains problematic is the expectation of the audience: to what extent are composers and performers requiring listeners to do research prior to hearing new works in order to appreciate what the composers and performers are trying to accomplish? After all, when Tchaikovsky discovered the celesta in Paris in 1891 – five years after the instrument was invented – he embarked on a campaign of secrecy to prevent other composers from using it before he brought it to The Nutcracker. And he used it in the ballet in self-evident ways to enhance the story; it was not a matter of exoticism for its own sake. Nor did Tchaikovsky require audiences to learn how and why Auguste Mustel created the instrument and what previously unheard effects it was supposed to evoke. But composers Zhou Long and Chen Yi (both born in 1953), and performer Patrick Yim – like many other contemporary musical artists – do expect the audience to study, learn and absorb before hearing the music on a new Pentatone CD if they are to appreciate what is being attempted here. Thus, Zhou’s 2024 Bamboo Grove, for unaccompanied violin, is inspired by a specific figure from Chinese history and is designed to have the violin emulate sounds of Chinese plucked zithers, the bowed erhu, and other instruments to which the Western one is only distantly related. And Tales from the Nine Bells (2013) draws on an old Chinese legend about bells on a mountain, with Western instruments again evoking the sounds of Chinese ones, such as the double-reed guanzi that is used in temples and known for its loud, buzzing sound. Both these works require considerable stylistic attentiveness from Yim, as well as virtuosity, and he holds forth well in both – with Tales from the Nine Bells being of greater interest because the additional instruments produce a soundscape that sustains better than does the solo-instrument one of Bamboo Grove. Both pieces can certainly be listened to simply for their musical sounds, but on that basis they are somewhat disappointing, since neither has a readily graspable form to which the audience can respond: the scaffolding of the underlying stories and the imitative nature of the instrumental material are the elements that hold the pieces together. And much the same is true of Chen’s works here. Xian Shi (1982) was created as a concerto for viola and orchestra and is a world première recording in this version for viola, percussion and piano. The work not only evokes the sounds of several Chinese instruments but also incorporates approaches of Chinese folk music. However, to a greater extent than Zhou’s pieces on this CD, Xian Shi stands on its own if simply listened to for its musical content: the many touches of exotic-by-Western-standards sounds exist within a discernible framework and are incorporated into some genuinely lovely lyrical material that allows the viola to hold forth within the range and sonic palette for which it was designed. Because this piece does not expect the instruments to sound like things that they are not from start to finish, it allows listeners to enter and explore a sonic environment that goes beyond normal Western boundaries but functions well as a guide to sounds they may not have previously experienced or expected to hear. Chen’s Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds (2012) – here heard as adapted from its original version for cello and string quartet – yet again explores Chinese instruments in a folk-music context, notably the sounds of a mouth organ, bamboo flute, and bells. There is pleasant flow to the musical lines in this work, especially in the gentle second movement, and the energetic finale is effective despite a degree of repetitiveness that goes beyond traditional Western notions of ostinato and spreads from instrument to instrument. Less compelling than Xian Shi, this suite is nevertheless more readily listenable as a totality than either of the works by Zhou, which require greater audience understanding and acceptance of their intent and reasons for being in order to be fully effective. As a whole, this CD will be attractive to listeners looking for something new in the way of sound and exploratory in terms of source material. Whether the music stands on its own as music – and, indeed, whether it is intended to – is the question. Chen’s pieces, especially Xian Shi, do seem to reach for acceptance on their own terms; the expectations for effective engagement with Zhou’s are more extensive. 

     Some contemporary composers seem to want to create a self-generated mystique so as to, in their view, increase a sense of mystery that presumably will make their music more attractive to audiences. Thus, while basic biographies of living composers give their birth years and cities of birth (Zhou in Beijing and Chen in Guangzhou, for example), Ramin Heydarbeygi resolutely refuses to divulge either his age or his city of origin. The idea, presumably, is to draw more attention to his music by diverting it from himself; but this is a false modesty that serves more as self-aggrandizement than as self-effacement. In any event, Heydarbeygi makes it clear that his music is inspired by Persian poetry and painting, and he is resolute in expecting familiarity with his sources if audiences are to engage with his music as he wants them to. Interestingly, despite their exotic titles, Heydarbeygi’s works on a short (43-minute) New Focus Recordings CD almost all have movements labeled with traditional Western tempo and performance indications: the six in Rok-ku no Haiku, for example, are Poco adagio, Allegro ritmico, Calmo, Adagio e con devozione, Sostenuto, and Allegro giocoso. The music itself tends to sound like a great deal of other contemporary music: there is no imitating of non-Western instruments here, but simply a rather standardized use of modern techniques that engage with atonality, constant rhythmic shifts, extended performance methods, and instrumental combinations that are as often competitive as they are cooperative. The brevity of the movements of Rok-ku no Haiku keeps them from overstaying their welcome, and the work does stand on its own musically. But not so everything here. Negah sets six Persian texts, some dating to the 10^th century, with typical vocal lines whose accompaniments tend to be more interesting than the singing, as in the pizzicati of the second setting (Allegro giocoso is its tempo marking). Setayesh az Anahid has eight very short movements – the whole work lasts seven-and-a-half minutes – that are supposed to reflect Zoroastrian and Iranian notions of the divine; this is a good example of the need to know the foundations of the work in order to understand what it tries to do, since any musical connection to the underlying concept is absent. Muye baraye Farzin is an interesting six-movement viola solo focused, in intent if not through any musically apparent connection, on the idea of cutting one’s hair as an expression of grief. Its exploration of the viola’s range – without requiring the instrument to sound like something other than itself – keeps the music engaging, even though, yet again, it does not aurally connect to its underlying topicality. Heydarbeygi’s String Quartet No. 2 further explores the composer’s handling of string instruments through short movements, in this case seven of them; indeed, regarding Heydarbeygi as a miniaturist who creates extended sequences of far-from-extended movements is a more-useful way to listen to his music than attempting to research and thoroughly study his stated reasons for creating it. The quartet actually does not have nonmusical referents, which is interesting in light of the reality that it sounds no different from all the other pieces on this disc, which are based on extramusical matters. Heydarbeygi encapsulates neatly in some movements of the quartet, notably the third (Allegro molto) and fifth (Allegro), each of which lasts less than a minute. Then there is the oddly titled Gefangene, Musik hörend (after Käthe Kollwitz), which starts with movement “No. 0,” a direct quotation from Bach, before delivering two movements intended both as musical responses to Bach and as representations of visual art. That is a lot of freight for this slight piece for two violins to carry, and yet again, the underlying intent is less than clear from the music itself – which is more of an emotional response to Bach than a musical one. The CD concludes with Gusan, which – like Negah – uses a soprano voice to sing and declaim Persian poetry, in this case dating to the ninth century. Notably, one of the seven movements here dominates the other six by far, lasting more than five minutes; nothing else is longer than two-and-a-half. There is solemnity in the more-extended movement, which is marked Sostenuto, and the extended instrumental introduction sets a suitably somber mood. But here as elsewhere, Heydarbeygi comes across to better effect in shorter and usually brighter material, such as the Scherzo that precedes the longest movement in this work. It is never really clear why Heydarbeygi thinks concealing his biographical information somehow enhances understanding and acceptance of his music, but it is clear that the music itself, especially when heard as collections of brief encapsulations of mood, is at least intermittently effective – even for listeners who have not thoroughly studied its inspirational underpinnings.

(++++) NORTHERN LIGHTS

Scenes from Finland: Music by Jean Sibelius, Selim Palmgren, Einar Englund, and Kalervo Tuukkanen. Oulu Sinfonia conducted by Rumon Gamba. Chandos. $21.99. 

Pictures from Finland: Music by Jean Sibelius, Selim Palmgren, Leevi Madetoja, Väinö Raitio, and Robert Kajanus. Oulu Sinfonia conducted by Rumon Gamba. Chandos. $21.99. 

     A good title for the Chandos series of recordings featuring Rumon Gamba and the Oulu Sinfonia might be “Finnish Music beyond Sibelius,” even though the most famous composer from Finland appears, more or less inevitably, on all three recordings released so far. The first was called “Overtures from Finland” and included works by no fewer than eight composers in addition to Sibelius. The second and third recordings in what is clearly a series – although not formally labeled as such – also seem designed to put Sibelius in a wider context while retaining a focus on Finnish classical music from the late 19^th century to the mid-20^th. 

     Unlike the “Overtures” disc, whose title refers to a specific musical form, “Scenes” and “Pictures” are simply catch-alls: any of the pieces on one of these CDs could as readily appear under the other one’s title. “Scenes,” which includes just four works – all of them incidental music of one sort or another – is the better-organized and better-focused release. It opens with excerpts chosen by Gamba from Sibelius’ 1913 music for the pantomime Scaramouche. Sibelius wrote a fair amount of music for the stage, and here shows his ability to illustrate a melodramatic and rather macabre tale of the ultimately fatal encounter between a woman and the hunchbacked dwarf of the title, who has a magically attractive viola that can even call to a victim from beyond the grave. Resisting any temptation to overdo the overdone plot elements, Sibelius produces music of some subtlety, notably in the way Scaramouche’s viola initially penetrates the orchestral texture quietly and only gradually becomes a force to be reckoned with. This is followed by a suite from a play called Tuhkimo and the Princess (1903) by Selim Palmgren (1878-1951). Also labeled Cinderella Suite on the disc, reflecting the fact that the play contains elements of the familiar Cinderella story, the work produces its fairy-tale atmosphere through skillful use of glockenspiel, harp and various instrumental touches that give it an otherworldly feel. Highlights include a short and light Dance of the Forest Fairies and a pleasantly swaying waltz. Next on the disc is The White Reindeer by Einar Englund (1916-1999) – a 1954 suite drawn from music for a 1952 film. This too is a fairy tale – a dark one involving a woman transformed into a murderous reindeer that is eventually struck down by the woman’s husband and regains human form at death. The music is illustrative without being overly dramatic, and is most distinctive in scene-setting involving the vast expanses upon which the story plays out. The final work here is the 1953 Christmas Suite for small orchestra, drawn by Kalervo Tuukkanen (1909-1979) from his incidental music to a 1950 play called The Tale of the Last Shepherd. The six movements are rather monochromatic in sound and similar in pacing – everything is Andante or Moderato – but there is a quiet beauty to the illustration of the peace and wonder of Christ’s birth, broken only briefly by a reminder that Herod, fearing a challenge to his power, has ordered the killing of firstborn children in Bethlehem. It is hard to imagine that any conductor and ensemble could present this material with greater sensitivity than that of Gamba and the Oulu Sinfonia: these performers have clearly lived with this music and these composers for years and know just how to extract the maximum effectiveness from the material. If it is true that material by the less-known composers here often sounds like warmed-over Sibelius, that seems not to be a matter of imitation but, more likely, an instance in which the sensibilities and tone-painting throughout these pieces draw on the same culture and atmosphere from which Sibelius produced his oeuvre. 

     The music is more variegated on the “Pictures” disc but is much less well-organized. Here there are eight works by five composers, the music’s dates offering a squandered opportunity to illustrate the changes over time of Finnish music and to explore the individual characteristics of each composer. The years of composition of these works are all over the place as the disc is sequenced: 1904, 1933, 1938, 1913, 1935, 1906, 1886, and 1917. Two pieces by Väinö Raitio (1891-1945) are separated by a work by Robert Kajanus (1856-1933), after which two non-Kajanus pieces are presented before a second Kajanus work appears. And the two works by Leevi Madetoja (1887-1947) appear second and eighth on the disc – with the earlier piece presented later. There is no explanation offered for any of this, and it is a shame that more attention was not given to the sequencing of the material here, since the music itself contains many very worthy elements. Curiously, Sibelius is here represented only by the very short Scene with Cranes from his music to the play Kuolema. This material is slight enough so that it could have been omitted altogether without noticeably changing the effect of the disc as a whole. More extended and more impressive is Palmgren’s Aus Finland, subtitled Four Symphonic Pictures and presenting seasonal scenes ranging from the Impressionistic to the emotive. The two short Raitio works are a pleasantly atmospheric Idyll and a jaunty scherzo called Felis domestica that captures at least some of the playfulness of a house cat. The two pieces by Kajanus are a broadly conceived but restrained Adagietto and the insistent if scarcely compelling Finnish Rhapsody No. 2. The most effective music on the disc comes from Madetoja. The four movements of his 1933 Suite pastorale, orchestrated from his 1916 Suite for Piano, are a pleasantly evocative Morning, a bright little Caprice, an expansive Legends, and a concluding and rather elegant Waltz. In addition, Madetoja’s setting, in Finnish and for female chorus and strings, of the Stabat Mater, which concludes this recording, proffers a degree of seriousness and emotional connection beyond anything else on the disc. The work is sung with understanding and emotive heft by the Madetoja Music High School’s Girls’ Choir and the Soma Ensemble, and brings the recording to a conclusion far more heartfelt than anything that has come before. The vocal work does fit a bit uneasily with the seven purely instrumental ones, but since the entire organization of this “Pictures” recording is somewhat slipshod, having so telling a finale is welcome. Interestingly, the booklet notes discuss the pieces in chronological order, making the failure to present the music logically all the stranger. The very fine and idiomatic performances, however, make the disc a first-rate entry into this continuing series offering Finnish music that includes Sibelius but is in no way limited to (or by) him. Hopefully there are more releases still to come.

(+++) TO CELEBRATE AND TO CHALLENGE

Contemporary Uzbek Music for Clarinet and Piano. Sayyod Mirzomurodov, clarinet; Mariya Akhadjanova, piano. Clarinet & Saxophone Classics. $13.99. 

Contemporary Music for Brass by Valerie Coleman, Satashi Yagisawa, Barbara York, Katahj Copley, Harrison Collins, Katelyn Petersen, and Félix Mendoza. Brass for Uncommon Times conducted by Brian Kaufman. Naxos. $19.99. 

     World première recordings abound when it comes to contemporary-music CDs, and are even more likely when the discs have a very specific focus – as does one featuring Sayyod Mirzomurodov and Mariya Akhadjanova on the Clarinet & Saxophone Classics label. Every piece on the CD – there are nine of them, by six composers – is a world première recording; seven of the pieces were written in the 21^st century. None of the composers here will likely be known to most audiences; indeed, many listeners would be hard-pressed to locate Uzbekistan (and other Central Asian nations) on a globe or world map. But one thing that music can do, sometimes very effectively, is to reach across borders and function as a unifying force in a world that increasingly feels dislocated and dysfunctional. One avowed purpose of this recording is to familiarize listeners with contemporary Uzbek concert-hall music and, through the music, to bring greater awareness of Uzbek culture and background – on which these pieces draw again and again – to audiences heretofore unacquainted with them. Whether an exploratory venture like this one reaches out successfully ultimately depends on the music itself: however well-meaning the assemblage of material, however reflective the works are of the culture from which they spring, they need to stand on their own as pieces worthy not just of hearing but of re-hearing in order to sustain and retain more than curiosity value. Thus, the success of this endeavor largely falls on the music of Mustafo Bafoyev (born 1946), four of whose pieces are heard here, collectively taking up more than half the CD’s length. The most-substantial work is a piano reduction of Bafoyev’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (2008). This is a multifaceted concerto of considerable scope, requiring not only virtuosity from the clarinet but also great sensitivity to the instrument’s considerable emotionally evocative potential. Rhythms and harmonies range from ones that are generally familiar in contemporary works to ones that evoke and draw upon specific Uzbek musical characteristics, giving the piece pleasantly unusual coloration and a sense of the comparatively exotic. Unfortunately, in the absence of the orchestra, it is impossible to know just how well the music works as a true concerto: Akhadjanova handles the piano part with aplomb, but there is really no substitute for the scope and coloration of a full instrumental ensemble in a work designed to highlight the soloist within a soundworld of greater scope than the piano can provide. Bafoyev’s three other works on this disc are much more modestly scaled. Buxorcha (2024) calls on many of the same elements as does the concerto, highlighting the clarinet’s expressive capabilities within rhythms that sometimes sway gently, sometimes become more declarative, and shade over into density and intensity at the end. Qo’shiq-poema (Song-Poem) (2012) is gentler, more lyrical and warmer, sustaining itself expressively throughout. And Lirik Hikoya (Lyrical Story) (1972) is all warmth and expressiveness at a moderate tempo that allows the music to unfold naturally. The rest of the pieces on this disc all have interesting elements of their own to present. Fantasy (2024) by Sherzod Sobirov (born 1988) is a brightly energetic tour de force that dips briefly into more-lyrical material. Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (2024) by Farrukh Akramov (born 1985) is a single-movement work packed with contrasting elements for both clarinet and piano, and with more-extensive dissonance than in many of the pieces heard here. Sonata-Fantaziya (2024) by Nurali Erkaev (born 1991), also a one-movement piece, is even more dissonant, and pushes the clarinet into a high range where the instrument is not at its best or most expressive – although more-congenial material provides a degree of balance from time to time. Poema-ballada (2016) by Habibulla Rahimov (born 1946) has a more insistently contemporary sound than many other works on the disc, refusing to establish any real sense of flow or rhythmic regularity and instead having both clarinet and piano produce fragmentary material that is sometimes contrasting, sometimes complementary. And Sharq Kaprichchiosi (Eastern Capriccio) (1994) by Anvar Ergashev (1954-2020) ends the disc with a multiplicity of techniques and sounds, its forays into pointed dynamism contrasted with bouts of perkiness, on the one hand, and dips into warmer expressiveness, on the other. As a totality, the disc stands out for the quality of the performances and for the clear evidence it provides of a vibrant contemporary Uzbek music scene. Little seems to separate the individual composers’ styles, however: the distinctiveness here lies more in the fact that they all use material drawn from Uzbek culture than from any significant stylistic propensity setting any specific composers apart from any others. The foundational question of the likelihood of listeners wanting to re-hear any of these pieces is not clearly answered by any individual work on the disc: repeat listening will likely be an all-or-nothing matter for non-Uzbek audiences, since everything here speaks a similar musical language, and no piece stands far enough above the rest to become a work especially worthy of being heard again and again. 

     Most but not all of the works on a Naxos CD of 21^st-century music played by the ensemble called Brass for Uncommon Times are world première recordings, but while this disc certainly intends to showcase the quality of its featured performers, the underlying purpose of the music here is very different from that of the disc featuring Mirzomurodov and Akhadjanova. This is an entire CD of what might be called “cause” music, meaning works written in furtherance of a particular viewpoint or to highlight composers’ sociopolitical beliefs – works that, in other words, specifically exist for reasons beyond the music itself. This begs the question of whether the pieces are successful as music: if listeners are required to adhere to whatever point of view a composer puts forth – or at least to study that point of view carefully before hearing a piece – then the composer wants extramusical matters rather than musical ones to be the driving force for the audience. By definition, this limits the outreach potential of the music: nowadays not even a tub-thumping national anthem is sufficiently universal in appeal to reach out beyond a core group of enthusiasts. Thus, the effectiveness of this disc is tied more closely to societal issues and political stances than to the inherent qualities of the works themselves. There is nevertheless material of considerable interest here. The longest piece is a 2021 arrangement of Concerto for Tuba “Wars and Rumors of War” by Barbara York (1949-2020). Packed with suitably optimistic-sounding, foursquare march tunes that eventually devolve into nostalgic material reflecting a soldier’s wish to be home and far from battle, then concluding with a chaotic finale intended as an antiwar message, the piece is much more interesting for its handling of the tuba solo (played very well by Velvet Brown) than for its thoroughly unexceptional viewpoint. The second-longest work on the disc is Respire (2022) by Katelyn Petersen (born 2000), which is supposed to be about how difficult it is to breathe, both literally and metaphorically, because of environmental degradation and spiritual heaviness. The expressive arc through dissonance and struggle to eventual hoped-for calm is clear enough although scarcely original; the piece does, however, show Petersen’s skill especially in the use of massed brass forces. The other works on the disc are shorter but equally focused on societal matters. Fanfare for Uncommon Times (2021) by Valerie Coleman (born 1970) uses the instrumentation that Copland chose for Fanfare for the Common Man but tries, not particularly clearly, to focus on racial unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic. Listeners may find it interesting to listen back-to-back to Coleman’s work and that by Copland – who was scarcely unaware of the societal challenges of his time. Blueshine Emblem, An Eternal Elegy (2006) by Satoshi Yagisawa (born 1975) is about the world being in conflicts of all sorts, using forceful ensemble sections to contrast with solo-instrument passages intended to indicate fear, timidity, worry and so forth. The solo and full-group portions contrast well, even though they do not really make the points the composer wants to make. Beyond (2018) by Katahj Copley (born 1998) is supposed to home in on victims of gun violence. Interestingly, it structurally does not focus on that topic at all, being expressive and uplifting throughout – the intent is to escort the souls of the victims to a better afterlife. There is nothing particularly original in the musical writing itself, but the underlying notion is at least less formulaic than are the underpinnings of many of the other works heard here. Young Voices (2018) by Harrison Collins (born 1999) is a piece intended to reflect the combination of confusion and determination of today’s youth – as if those feelings are unique to the modern era and the current young-adult generation. Leaving aside the rather silly notion that nobody ever before had difficulty negotiating the world and finding his or her place in it, the piece has a level of forthright boldness that is at odds with its supposedly uncertain and questioning foundations. It is quite well written as music even though it is intended to be supra-musical. The CD concludes in unexpectedly upbeat fashion with Guerra de Secciones (2007) by Félix Mendoza (born 1983). It features vocals by Hiram Diaz, Fran Vielma on percussion, and Daniel Prim on drum kit, and is an ebullient affirmation of the sounds and rhythms of Venezuela, intended to celebrate music – yes, music – and the pleasures that making it and participating it in bring, no matter what the external circumstances may be. There is a life-affirming quality to this piece that stands in strong contrast to the generally downcast outlook of all the other music on the CD, and while everything on the disc is performed with skill and engagement by the ensemble under Brian Kaufman, this piece brings out celebratory qualities that the others seem unable or unwilling to produce. The message here, to the extent that one is intended, seems to be one of hopefulness despite everything – a considerably more attractive conclusion to the disc than yet another dour exploration of real and imagined wrongs would have been.