(++++) LARGE-SCALE VARIETY, SMALL-SCALE GROUPS

Bruckner: String Quintet; String Quartet; Intermezzo in D minor. Fitzwilliam String Quartet (Lucy Russell, Jonathan Sparey and Colin Scobie, violins; Alan George, viola; Heather Tuach, cello); James Boyd, viola. Linn Records. $19.99.

Don Gillis: Suites 1-3 for Woodwind Quintet. Madera Wind Quintet (Amy Thiemann, flute; Jason Paschall, oboe; Rachel Yoder, clarinet; Jorge Cruz, Jr., bassoon; Angela Winter, horn). Ravello. $14.99.

Libby Larsen: Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano; Sifting Through the Ruins; Viola Sonata; Up, Where the Air Gets Thin; Four on the Floor. Curtis Macomber, violin; Norman Fischer, cello; Jeanne Kierman Fischer and Craig Rutenberg, piano; Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano; James Dunham, viola; Deborah Dunham, bass. Navona. $16.99.

Eleanor Cory: Things Are (2011); String Quartet No. 3 (2009); Epithalamium (1973); Violin Sonata No. 1 (2012); Celebration (2008); Fantasy (1991). Jayn Rosenfeld and Sue Ann Kahn, flute; Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen, piano; Momenta Quartet (Emilie-Anne Gendron and Adda Kridler, violins; Stephanie Griffin, viola; Michael Haas, cello); Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar; James Baker, percussion. Naxos. $12.99.

Solitudes: Baltic Reflections. Mr McFall’s Chamber. Delphian. $19.99.

     Bruckner’s only mature chamber work, the String Quintet, is a complex piece and a very difficult one to approach as either performer or (to a lesser degree) listener. Written between the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, it is a surprisingly sonorous piece, considering its use of only five stringed instruments, and it has remarkable parallels to the symphonies as well as some distinctions wholly its own – including the fact that the first movement is the only opening movement that Bruckner wrote in triple time. An expansive work with some of the Schubertian elements common in the symphonies and some unusual juxtapositions of long-breathed lyricism with earthiness, this is a piece that gains a great deal by being played with close attention to the way it would have been performed in Bruckner’s own time, using gut strings and bowing that was then common but in later years became less so. The Fitzwilliam String Quartet does an extraordinarily fine job with this symphony-length (45-minute) chamber work, with a sensitivity to rhythmic changes and understanding of scale and balance born of 40 years of performances of the piece. The quintet unfolds at a leisurely pace that listeners who know the symphonies will recognize immediately, but it has so many structural and sonic differences from Bruckner’s even more grandly scaled, better-known orchestral music that it takes several hearings to separate the unique elements of the quartet from those carried over from the symphonies – or, in many cases, carried to them from this chamber work. This excellent Linn Records disc is a remarkable showcase for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet’s thoughtfulness and interpretative skill, and the quintet heard here is a not-to-be-missed experience for anyone intrigued by Bruckner as a composer who offered more than symphonies and Masses – but not much more. The quintet is accompanied on the CD by two lesser works. One, an Intermezzo, was written by Bruckner as an alternative scherzo for the quintet after violinist Joseph Hellmesberger, who had commissioned the quintet, expressed reservations about the difficulty of the scherzo; but Bruckner ended up keeping the original movement, leaving this longer and somewhat cozier piece as a standalone work. The other piece here is Bruckner’s String Quartet, a student work whose strongly contrasted moods – now dramatic, now lyrical, now passionate – are more striking than its themes and structure, which are redolent of models including Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven and Haydn. It is quite a well-made quartet but is clearly, with hindsight, a piece of juvenilia – worth occasional revivals but not approaching the stature, intensity or seriousness of the five-year-later quintet.

     Chamber music need not, of course, be wholly serious to be successful. The three woodwind-quintet suites by Don Gillis (1912-1978) are bright, light and amusing cases in point. They all date from the late 1930s – the first from 1938 and the others from 1939 – and are all cast as three-movement tonal works whose titles, for each entire piece and for each work’s individual movements, are intended to guide listeners to what is being expressed. Thanks to Gillis’ fine sense of woodwind blending and the first-rate playing by the Madera Wind Quintet on a new Ravello CD, this first-ever recording of these three pieces is a delight from start to finish. The first suite, “The Fable of the Tortoise and the Hare,” recounts the famous “slow and steady wins the race” story with a first movement called “They’re Off,” a second in which the over-confident rabbit sleeps and dreams, and a finale in which the lumbering-but-untiring tortoise is heard quite clearly throughout, passing the sleeping rabbit and triumphantly crossing the finish line. The second suite, “Three Sketches,” offers more-personal music with a focus on the letter S, not only in its overall title but also in each individual movement: “Self Portrait,” “Sermonette (Southern Style),” and “Shadows.” Here the music moves from geniality to mild intensity with perhaps a hint of parody, and eventually to a quiet, attractive and somewhat mysterious conclusion. The third suite, “Gone with the Woodwinds,” draws most directly and heavily on jazz, although all three quartets incorporate it in significant ways. All three movements here – the first designated a combo, the second as a blues number, and the third a “frolic” – have a jazz-band and improvisational feel about them, with the individual players given plenty of chances to put their performance abilities on display front-and-center. None of this music is great or profound, and it could certainly be argued that it is backward-looking for its time; furthermore, the entire CD runs just 43 minutes, making it a rather niggardly offering. But the whole recording is so good-humored, the playing so well-balanced and so filled with verve, that the disc is simply a joy to hear and an example of 20^th-century compositions that are, yes, in the popular vein, but that are as well-constructed as more-somber works – and all the more enjoyable because the recording does not demand that listeners approach it with deep understanding or intense focus.

     The focuses of Libby Larsen’s works on a new Navona CD are more varied and altogether more serious. Larsen (born 1950) is very prolific, with more than 500 works to her credit, and any selection of her pieces is bound to reveal only a small amount of her intent and expressiveness. That is certainly the case in this recording, whose elements have little in common beyond their origination within the same composer’s mind. Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano takes some of the same jazz influences that Gillis uses and incorporates them into a more-traditional piece whose movement titles quite clearly express the work’s moods: “Sultry,” “Still” and “Bursts.” Sifting Through the Ruins is one of many composers’ works written in response to the terrorist murders of September 11, 2001. Words and music are more straightforward than in some comparable memorial works; the emotional content is carried more by mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer’s singing than by the music itself. The Viola Sonata is a rather restrained, or constrained, work, focusing more on the instrument’s tonal qualities (as complemented by and contrasted with those of the piano) than on a wide range of expressiveness. Up, Where the Air Gets Thin is a bit of a sonic experiment for cello and bass, requiring the instruments to play high in their ranges and produce a series of sounds quite different from their usual deep, warm ones – a kind of against-the-grain auditory experience that wears thin rather quickly. Four on the Floor, a strongly contrasting work, adds violin and piano to the two lower strings and has dynamism, rhythmic flair and bounce to spare – a very attractive conclusion to a CD that, as a whole, gets a (+++) rating.

     A Naxos disc of world première recordings of music by Eleanor Cory (born 1943) is also a (+++) release. Cory’s music mixes many of the same elements that other contemporary composers’ works contain: jazz, tonal and atonal portions, and tributary material – Things Are, for example, is a flute-and-piano tribute to Milton Babbitt. Cory’s String Quartet No. 3 veers from almost-lyrical melancholy to playfulness, often highlighting instruments in pairs as well as in a foursome. Epithalamium for solo flute takes the instrument through its paces well enough but not in any especially surprising way, while Violin Sonata No. 1 – for the traditional violin-and-piano combination – adds modal elements to its mixture of tonality, atonality and jazz influences, emerging as a well-crafted but emotionally rather vapid work. Celebration, basically a four-movement, 12-minute piano sonata, explores the range and emotional extent of the piano much as Epithalamium does that of the flute, but Celebration comes across somewhat more effectively in its contrasting tempos, dynamics and rhythms. The final work here, and one of the most pleasant, is Fantasy, written for the unusual combination of flute, guitar and percussion. The unconventional instrumentation seems to have inspired Cory to produce a work that, although light in mood, hints at some depth of communication in the interplay of the instruments – and has an attractively open, airy sound throughout, with Cory showing particular skill in percussion writing that complements the comparatively light sound of flute and guitar without covering up or overwhelming the instruments.

     The determination to be unconventional pervades a new Delphian CD called Solitudes: Baltic Reflections, featuring the chamber group known as Mr McFall’s Chamber – which includes Robert McFall on violin, Brian Schiele on viola, Su-a Lee on cello, Rick Standley on double bass, and various other instrumentalists who join the core group of four on an as-needed basis. The 11 works here are an odd but often intriguing mixture: Olli Mustonen’s Toccata, Zita Bruźaité’s Bangos for solo piano, Aulis Sallinen’s Introduction and Tango Overture, Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Dedication for cello and piano, Kalevi Aho’s Lamento for two violas, Pēteris Vasks’ Little Summer Music for violin and piano, Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina for solo piano, Toivo Kärki’s Täysikuu, Unto Mononen’s Satumaa, and two short pieces by Sibelius: Einsames Lied (Solitude, from “Belshazzar’s Feast”) and Finlandia Hymn. That last work, which concludes the disc, features Lee on musical saw, plus piano quintet – a fair representation of the way this disc is intended to mix the familiar and unfamiliar, the comfortable and outré. Sibelius, Mustonen, Sallinen, Pärt and Vasks may be known to many listeners, albeit to different degrees, but the other composers likely will not be. Certainly this disc offers some wonderful contrasts – having Pärt’s bleak work immediately followed by Kärki’s, for instance, pulls listeners from desolation to somewhat ambiguous relief (Kärki’s piece is a minor-key tango). The six brief movements of Vasks’ work stand at the center of the CD structurally and emotionally, communicating summer sunshine, yes, but only in veiled fashion. All these pieces offer something of interest: Aho’s is scored for two violas, Sallinen’s uses tango rhythm unusually imaginatively, Mustonen’s includes such neat effects as a pizzicato double bass, and so on. McFall is responsible for many of the arrangements here; they range from intriguing to in-your-face unconventional, to greater or lesser effect. It is hard to tell whether McFall is being capricious or wants to be taken seriously – or is seeking to indicate that the two elements can coexist peacefully. Most of the works here are quite short, and the CD comes across as a showpiece for McFall and the other performers rather than any sort of clear musical statement: much here is fun, much is serious, much seems to be both at once, but the overarching message of the CD – if it is supposed to have one – is somewhat muddled. It is a (+++) recording containing some excellent playing and a highly individualistic choice of material, all of it performed very well; but its overall purpose is less then crystal-clear.

(++++) A BIT BEYOND THE EXPECTED

Ollie’s Valentine. By Olivier Dunrea. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $6.99.

Harry Potter Coloring Book. Scholastic. $13.99.

     Take well-known series and move them into new areas and you have what are called “line extensions,” items (books in this case) that clearly belong with others using the same characters and topics but that are different enough to take fans in directions in which they have not yet gone. This is not a simple matter in the “gosling” books by Olivier Dunrea – the short books about various adorable goslings do not seem to have anywhere new to go, although Dunrea has previously enlarged the series by simply introducing new characters. However, Ollie’s Valentine does find a way to do something different from what Dunrea does with most other books about the goslings’ simple, endearing adventures. This board book has little Ollie finding out that all his friends have brightly colored foil valentines – the illustrations of the hearts are especially enjoyable – but he does not. He wants one for his own, but everyone carrying a valentine has just received it from someone else: Gossie from Gertie, Gertie from BooBoo, BooBoo from Peedie, Peedie from Gideon. Everyone, it seems, is someone’s valentine, except for poor Ollie. But fear not! Dunrea comes up with a clever conclusion that makes perfect sense in the context of these stories and that directly involves the reader (or pre-reader, if an adult is reading Ollie’s Valentine to a very young child) in making Ollie’s wish come true and making him happy. The way the book ends ties up the slight tale very neatly, and it is easy to imagine very young children getting to the conclusion, looking up at the adult reading to them, and happily saying, “Again!”

     Older kids – and even some adults – looking again to immerse themselves in the world of Harry Potter now have their own way of getting directly involved in the story. The Harry Potter Coloring Book is just what it says: a series of black-and-white pages showing scenes from Harry’s world and designed to be colored by artists of any age. These are not drawings from Scholastic’s recent and excellent pictorial edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, illustrated by Jim Kay. Nor are the pages based on Mary GrandPré’s illustrations for Scholastic’s U.S. edition of J.K. Rowling’s novels. Instead, the pages are drawn from the eight films that brought Harry and his adventures to the screen – and 16 pages of stills from the films, appearing at the back of the book, provide guidance on the colors used by the filmmakers and also help artists remember the movies and all the amazement they generated in theaters. The line drawings in the book were actually used in the making of the films, so it is no surprise that some of the book’s scenes look familiar – but not all of them do, at least in their black-and-white versions. Part of the fun of this book, in addition to the enjoyment of the coloring, comes from trying to remember which movie each scene comes from and what exactly was happening at the time. There are action scenes here (winged keys flying, the Sorting Hat in use) along with portraits of characters (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dobby, Hagrid, Voldemort) and views of important objects (the Golden Snitch, coats of arms of the competing Hogwarts Houses, wands, even the Weasley brothers’ “Compendium Box of Pyrotechtrix”). Just leafing through the book should be enough to jog the memory of Rowling’s readers and those who enjoyed the films. And while the stills from the movies can be used to provide guidance regarding how the filmmakers saw various characters and elements of Harry’s world, they can also be used to come up with different ways to portray the same things shown on screen. After all, who says the poster advertising the 422^nd Quidditch World Cup has to be colored just as it was at the movies?

(+++) MORE (HO HUM) MAYHEM

The Zombie Chasers #6: Zombies of the Caribbean. By John Kloepfer. Illustrated by David DeGrand. Harper. $6.99.

The Zombie Chasers #7: World Zombination. By John Kloepfer. Illustrated by David DeGrand. Harper. $16.99.

     As long as zombies remain popular – they are currently the go-to supernatural monsters, having displaced those so over that vampires – there will be authors available to, ahem, feed them. Or rather, to feed the young readers who, err, devour them. That is, devour stories about them. Well, The Zombie Chasers certainly fits in there somewhere. John Kloepfer and David DeGrand appear to be having a simply wonderful time with this extended series, in which getting unzombified is as much a plot point as getting zombified in the first place (which is, umm, kind of weird, since to get zombified you are supposed to have to be, like, dead, but in these books you just have to be reversibly infected, which makes as much sense as anything else here). This is as good a point as any to recap the story so far, since the sixth book, Zombies of the Caribbean, is now available in paperback after originally being published last year. In the sixth entry, the anti-zombie brigade has grown to include six kids – Zack, Rice, Zoe, Madison, Ozzie and Olivia – who head for the private Caribbean island fortress of a zombie expert who may be the only one who can help them. Unfortunately, other “only one who can help us” types have all proved less than effective, but maybe this time...but no such luck. In Zombies of the Caribbean, the kids do indeed locate an explorer named Nigel Black, who is as knowledgeable as they had hoped. But it turns out that he lost a leg in a zombie attack and therefore cannot help them on their latest quest, which involves hunting for a gigantic “rare breed of giant frilled tiger shark” that preys on a certain jellyfish that is needed for a new and improved zombie antidote. The kids are careful to bring Nigel up to date when they meet him, with Rice explaining, “I was a zombie for a while, too, because Madison mistakenly lost her vegan antidote powers to a piece of pepperoni pizza. But then I ate the Band-Aid in Central Park and was unzombified. Man, being a zombie was cool.” And now that that clears everything up, readers of the sixth book will find that the kids are, as usual, on their own in their latest adventure, facing down zombie vacationers, zombie spring breakers, zombie pirates (hey, it’s the Caribbean), and the usual cast of ridiculousness, at the end of which they (of course) do capture the elusive tiger shark and it turns out that (of course) that is not enough, so they have to go on an even longer voyage – to Madagascar – to find the really-truly-no-kidding last piece of the puzzle to get rid of the zombies once and for all. Maybe.

     And that brings us to the all-new seventh book, World Zombination. Hmm, the whole world is a sort of “zombie nation” here, isn’t it? But that is not the point of the title, which is about world domination by zombies, hence “zombination.” Anyway, this is clearly a bad thing, which is why the intrepid kids are trying to prevent it. And they do prevent it, apparently once and for all, because World Zombination is – wait for it – the final book in The Zombie Chasers series. What happens here is neatly summed up at the end by Zack himself – and there are no spoilers in this, because what happens in these books has never been as important as how it happens. So, here is the story of the sixth and seventh books. These novels tell “how they had met Nigel Black and tracked down the giant frilled tiger shark. How they had flown to Madagascar and then to China in search of the mayfly larvae and the ancient ginkgo tree root to complete the super zombie antidote. How they had ambushed the super zombies in Florida with their antidote-filled Super Soakers and  water balloons…and then how they had traveled back to BurgerDog headquarters…and remade the popcorn antidote that had reversed the first outbreak. …And how they had spent weeks unzombifying the undead masses across the globe.” Victory!!  Well, really, what did readers expect? But, again, the fact of the eventual triumph matters less than the way it happens, and in this finale as in the other books, Kloepfer makes sure that a lot happens, while DeGrand makes sure to show as much of it as possible in as gross a way as will be acceptable to preteen readers. Among the highlights of the series finale are zombie lemurs, which are not nearly as cute as unzombified ones, and zombie mummies, which give Kloepfer the chance to create a new word: zummies. (“Zummies are yummy” is not, however, a statement here.) Another important element of the series’ conclusion, also carried through from the earlier books, is that the kids have no distinguishing personality traits whatsoever, because the point of this series is that the preteen group as a whole is heroic, and friendship is what matters when fighting zombies or doing, well, pretty much anything. And so all returns to normal and World Zombination does not, after all, occur, but enough things do occur in the book so that readers who have followed the series from the start will be happily sated as they consume the end.

(+++) RECORDS UP AND RECORDS DOWN

Scholastic 2016 Book of World Records Special Edition: Epic Wins and Fails. By Jennifer Corr Morse. Scholastic. $10.99.

     Well, the word “access,” which is a noun, has been turned into a verb, as in “I need to access that data” (which should really be “those data,” but singular and plural are another matter). So it seems only fair that the word “fail,” which is a verb, should be turned into a noun, as in “Epic Wins and Fails” in the subtitle of the latest book of world records from Scholastic. Trivia books (sorry: “factoid” books) have a hard time of it these days, with so many bits of insignificant information available on the Internet and with so many events occurring between the time a book is laid out and the time it reaches readers, which means information in fact-oriented books now has an even more limited lifespan than it used to. In some cases that span can be measured in days, if not hours or minutes.

     So a book such as Scholastic 2016 Book of World Records simply must call itself a Special Edition to attract attention, and if it can create a topic or approach that differentiates it from the flood of Internet information, so much the better. Hence the “Epic Wins and Fails” part of the subtitle. But don’t take those words too seriously, at least not the “Fails” one. Many of the matters mentioned here as “Fails” are anything but, no matter what the book’s layout and words say. “The stonefish is the most poisonous fish in the sea,” the book says on one page, labeling the fish an “Epic Fail.” Two pages later, it notes that the “Smallest Lake” is Benxi Lake in China, but even the book is unconvinced that this is the “Epic Fail” it is labeled as being, since the text goes on to say that the natural lake “though small[,] is considered a place of beauty.” On the other hand, the largest desert, the Sahara, is laid out in the “Epic Wins” section; and for that matter, “actor with the lowest returns per salary dollar: Adam Sandler” is laid out in “Epic Wins” as well. So the book’s layout is itself something of an “Epic Fail.”

     Still, some of the information really is fascinating. Readers who have often heard that McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain will be surprised to find that it is only the world’s second-biggest global food franchise, with Subway being No. 1. People wondering what the best-selling vehicle in the United States is – Toyota Camry is often mentioned – will find out that the best-seller is actually a truck (or group of trucks), the Ford F-Series. Anyone who remembers Titanic as the top-grossing movie of all time may be surprised to learn that it is actually No. 2, behind Avatar. How about figuring out which state has the most lightning strikes? It is Florida – which for some reason is an “Epic Fail.”

     Some items here are so well-known that their inclusion, while understandable, seems superfluous: the elephant is the heaviest land mammal and the cheetah the fastest, the California Redwood is the world’s tallest tree, the Pacific is the largest ocean (although the fact that it is twice the size of the Atlantic is interesting), the Great White is the most dangerous shark, the gorilla is the largest primate, the reticulated python is the longest snake, and so on. These “Epic Wins” are unlikely to change year after year, so the attraction of finding them in this book mostly has to do with seeing the photos of them and looking at the graphics showing how the No. 1 this-or-that compares with Nos. 2-5. What can potentially change annually are sports, film and popular-culture records, with which, not surprisingly, the book is packed. True, not all of those records change frequently: the major-league ballplayer hit the most times by a pitch (287) was shortstop Hughie Jennings, whose career lasted from 1891 to 1918; and the NFL coach with the worst win-loss percentage, Fay Abbott, won exactly zero games from 1928 to 1929. In fact, odd facts like these are a reason that books like this provide information that readers will probably not find online: you have to know what you are looking for on the Internet in order to search for it, while coming across this sort of fact in a book is a form of serendipity.

     Still, most people who want to own Scholastic 2016 Book of World Records probably want to relive and discuss the “Epic Wins”: Justin Bieber is the highest-paid celebrity under age 30; Apple is the world’s most valuable brand; The Phantom of the Opera is the longest-running Broadway show; Tumblr is the fastest-growing social-media site; Amazon.com is the most popular e-reader service; the top-grossing animated movie of all time is Disney’s Frozen; the most-watched video ever on YouTube is “Gangnam Style”; the NBA player with the most career points is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; the golfer with the most tournament wins is Jack Nicklaus; and on and on. Individually, any of these records – whether defined as Wins, Fails or simply interesting facts – is super-simple to find online. The attraction of a book such as Scholastic 2016 Book of World Records is that it pulls all of them into one place and gives readers sidelights they may not know (even if they know the basic facts) – plus the opportunity, while thumbing through the pages, to discover some matters of interest that they could discover online but would have no reason to look for and therefore wouldn’t find.

(++++) PIANO AMAZEMENTS

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (complete, arranged for solo piano). Stewart Goodyear, piano. Steinway & Sons. $17.99 (SACD).

R. Nathaniel Dett: Complete Piano Works. Clipper Erickson, piano. Navona. $18.99 (2 CDs).

Ravel: Complete Piano Works; Alfredo Casella: À la manière de…Ravel; Arthur Honegger: Hommage à Ravel; Kendall Briggs: Hommage à Ravel; Marcus Aydintan: Encore avec Ravel; Anton Plate: Erinnerung an Maurice Ravel; Benedict Mason: Galoches en d’août. Hinrich Alpers, piano. Honens. $20 (2 CDs).

Scarlatti: Sonatas K3, 54 and 502; Messiaen: Quatre études de rythme—No. 4, Île de feu II; Préludes—Les sons impalpables du rêve, Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu; Webern: Variations, Op. 27; George Benjamin: Shadowlines—Six Canonic Preludes for Piano; Debussy: Préludes deuxième livre—Feux d’artifice; Masques; D’un cahier d’esquisses; L’isle joyeuse. Gilles Vonsattel, piano. Honens. $15.

Valentin Silvestrov: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-3; Classical Sonata; Children’s Music I; Nostalghia. Simon Smith, piano. Delphian. $19.99.

     Most of Stewart Goodyear’s performance of his piano arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s complete The Nutcracker is so good that a listener can do little more than sit back slack-jawed at the constant stream of revelatory moments in this exceptionally well-played version of thrice-familiar music that sounds amazingly fresh and new on an outstanding Steinway & Sons SACD. There has simply never been anything like this before: pianists have essayed the Nutcracker Suite, but Goodyear offers the entire ballet, start to finish, in his own arrangement, and the engineers have managed to fit the whole 82½ minutes onto a single marvelous-sounding disc even though the medium is supposed to have an 80-minute limit to avoid quality loss. There is not a scintilla of sonic diminution here, and the performance is, plainly and simply, an utter joy. The scenic connections of the ballet come through better here than in the orchestral version, thanks to perfectly chosen tempos and an arrangement that highlights similarities that are integral to the score even as it brings out far more coloristic elements than one would expect any piano version of a brilliantly orchestrated work to do. Everyone from young would-be ballet dancers to parents oversaturated with The Nutcracker ought to hear what Goodyear does with it, and in fact this would make a marvelous ballet-school rehearsal disc if it weren’t so involving that dancers would likely keep stopping in the midst of their pliés to pay special attention to one touch of elegance or another. There are plenty of those, from the bright yet piquant March to the tremendously vivid The Presents of Drosselmeyer, from a genuinely exciting (and surprisingly dramatic) battle scene to the warm elegance of the Coffee dance. And more – much more. Every number of the ballet gets loving and lovely handling here, and when there are occasional missteps, they are mostly just ones of trying a bit too hard: Galop and Dance of the Parents is a touch too heavy-handed and clumsy; Waltz of the Snowflakes does not really capture the magic of this gorgeous number (although the piano does almost sound like a wordless chorus at the end); the start of Chocolate is a touch awkward and its rhythm slightly flaccid. But it is almost embarrassing to nitpick this arrangement and this performance, because so much in it is absolutely splendid. When Goodyear wants to cut loose, he does so with consummate skill and at a pace that is almost unbelievable: no one could possibly dance this Trepak, but listening to it and then hearing the contrast with the bouncy Dance of the Reed Pipes immediately afterwards is an experience not to be missed. Indeed, this entire recording is not to be missed: it is one of the best piano releases of the year and, even more amazingly, it is simply one of the very best versions of The Nutcracker available.

     The pianism is not as spectacular as Goodyear’s and the music is as little-known as Tchaikovsky’s is familiar, but Navona’s excellent two-CD release of the complete piano works of R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) is a winner in its own way. Dett, who was black, was born in Canada and remains better known there than in the United States; the chapel of the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the city where Dett was born, is named for him – he was church organist there for five years. Dett actually lived in both Canada and the U.S., performing as a pianist and choir leader in Boston and at New York’s Carnegie Hall, as well as at Canadian venues. His piano music nevertheless represents a major discovery, or rediscovery: unlike his near-contemporary Charles Ives, who incorporated hymn and folk tunes into many works but used them as jumping-off points for forays into complex polytonality, multiple rhythms and sonically adventurous pieces, Dett made hymns, especially black spirituals, and folk tunes into the center of entirely tonal, beautifully harmonized works that applied European Romantic musical notions to pieces of American origin. Inspired in part by hearing Dvořák’s works that incorporated New World themes, Dett created piano suites and individual character pieces with striking rhythms and harmonies, a fine flow of musical ideas, and pianistic settings requiring virtuosity but never becoming empty fireworks displays. In fact, there is little that is explosive and much that is expressive in these pieces, all of which Clipper Erickson plays with beauty and understanding. The recording takes most of the works in chronological order, which is a useful approach for showing how Dett’s music developed and how, near the end of his life, he adopted more-contemporary compositional methods while remaining true to his lifelong incorporation of folk and spiritual thematic elements. Magnolia (1912) tries impressionistically to evoke specific settings: “Magnolias,” “The Deserted Cabin,” “My Lady Love,” “Mammy” and “The Place Where the Rainbow Ends.” The music is naïve but skillfully crafted. In the Bottoms (1913) is less specific in its scene-painting but still impressionistic, its movements being called “Prelude – Night,” “His Song,” “Honey – Humoresque,” “Barcarolle – Morning,” and “Dance – Juba.” Enchantment (1922) is more abstract still, offering “Incantation,” “Song of the Shrine,” “Dance of the Desire” and “Beyond the Dream.” The standalone Nepenthe and the Muse (also 1922) is also dreamlike, drifting along pleasantly. The four movements of Cinnamon Grove (1928) show Dett fully comfortable with classical-music style, being marked only with tempo indications such as Adagio cantabile and Allegretto. This work also has forward propulsiveness and a certain stylistic elegance that mark it as a mature piece. Tropic Winter (1938) returns to specificity in movement titles but combines the words with music of considerable sophistication and more of a 20^th-century feel than Dett’s earlier piano pieces. It includes “The Daybreak Charioteer,” “A Bayou Garden,” “Pompons and Fans (Mazurka),” “Legend of the Atoll,” “To a Closed Casement,” “Noon Siesta,” and “Parade of the Jasmine Banners.” Dett’s final piano suite, Eight Bible Vignettes (1941-43), goes as far into contemporary techniques as Dett was ever to go, which is not very far – but here the somewhat extended harmonic language lends a piquancy and vibrancy to pieces drawing their themes and seriousness of manner from the Bible. After these chronologically presented works, Erickson offers three encores from early in Dett’s career: After the Cakewalk (1900), which is as high-stepping and exuberant as anyone could wish; Cave of the Winds (1902), which features a somewhat Joplinesque bounce and straightforward rhythms and harmonies; and Inspiration Waltzes (1903), which in truth are less than inspired musically but do show Dett’s ability to produce pleasant pieces in three-quarter time. The slightly harsh piano tone throughout the recording is actually fitting: it seems to place Dett and his music firmly in their time and transport listeners there as well, giving them the chance to meet a pianist/composer whose music neatly straddles the line between American classical and folk/spiritual idioms.

     Whether the Dett recording truly includes his complete piano music depends on one’s definition: his American Ordering of Moses suite (1937) is absent, but since it is based on his oratorio The Ordering of Moses, it could be argued that it need not be included in a Dett piano survey. The picture is more complicated, however, when it comes to Ravel, whose supposedly complete piano works are played with a finely honed mixture of sensitivity and virtuosity by Hinrich Alpers on a new Honens release. The two-CD set is attractive in numerous ways, for its clever inclusion of supplements to Ravel’s works (commissioned by Alpers) as well as for those pieces themselves. But in this case, calling it a “complete” recording is simply incorrect. There is a lot of Ravel piano music here, more than most listeners will likely have heard, and there are some genuine rarities as well as familiar works. Alpers plays Sérénade grotesque (1892-93), Menuet antique (1895), Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899), Jeux d’eau (1901), Sonatine (1903-05), Miroirs (1904-05), Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn (1909), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), À la manière de…Borodine and Chabrier (1912-13), Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17), Menuet in C-sharp minor (1904), and the solo-piano version of La valse (1919-20). However, he omits a number of brief early works, a series of unpublished fugues (including one interestingly designated as Fugue à quatre voix on a theme of Napoléon Henri Reber), and the Danse gracieuse de Daphnis suite. The omissions do nothing to diminish the importance and high quality of this release, and Alpers’ fine handling of Ravel’s difficult-to-balance piano music (which must be played on the fine line between simplicity and virtuosity to have its full effect) makes this a first-rate recording even though it should not really be called a “complete” one. Particularly interesting here are the piano versions of works more familiar in orchestral guise, not only La valse (which sounds rather pale on piano, although Alpers handles its rhythms adeptly) but also Le tombeau de Couperin and Pavane pour une infante défunte. One of the enjoyments of this recording is the chance it offers to hear high-quality piano readings and consider how differently Ravel’s particular sensibilities come through on keyboard and when orchestrated – the disparities are surprisingly significant, and they are revelatory in a very different way from that of Goodyear in his handling of his arrangement of The Nutcracker. Alpers’ finely honed technique is particularly well-suited to Ravel, whose music, even at its most virtuosic, tends to sound pale or shapeless if not handled with genuine insight and well-thought-out balance between its technical demands and its expressiveness. Gaspard de la nuit, which comes across quite well here, is a perfect case in point. Alpers’ inclusion of multiple composers’ short tributes to or musical comments on Ravel makes this release even more interesting. The works by Casella (1883-1947) and Honegger (1892-1955) reflect their composers’ styles as much as Ravel’s, and the three more-modern works by Briggs (born 1959), Aydintan (born 1983) and Plate (born 1950) include some very interesting contemporary compositional elements that reflect on post-Ravel music as well as on Ravel himself (Aydintan’s 38-second piece is about as minimalist as it is possible to be). And the final work here, evocatively titled “Galoshes in August,” shows that a modern composer such as Mason (born 1954) can channel some of Ravel’s sensibilities in very intriguing and fitting ways. Ravel continues to speak to 21^st-century composers and listeners not only through these tributes and interpretations but also through his piano music itself, when the performances are as adept as are those by Alpers.

     Another new Honens release features another fine pianist, Gilles Vonsattel, in a varied program that unfortunately does not hold together particularly well when heard straight through. It sounds as if Vonsattel really wants to do a recital of contemporary music with a strong focus on George Benjamin (born 1950): in addition to Benjamin’s own Shadowlines (2001), the disc includes several pieces by Messiaen, whose final work Benjamin was involved in orchestrating. And the inclusion of Webern, the most minimalist composer of the Second Viennese School, enhances the impression of a CD trying to sound as modern (perhaps modernistic) as possible. But the first and last portions of the disc, containing works by Scarlatti and Debussy respectively, point to an attempt to put the “moderns” in a context that is not quite as acerbic as the inclusion of Webern and Benjamin would seem to indicate. There is some justification for this: Scarlatti’s sonatas can in fact be seen as harbingers of modern minimalism – it is a stretch, but not a totally unjustified one. However, Scarlatti wrote for harpsichord, not piano, and whatever forward-looking elements his sonatas contain must be seen within that context: each of the three sonatas included here is about the same length as the third of Webern’s Variations, but the music’s purpose, structure and intent are quite different, and all are tied to the instrument for which Scarlatti composed his sonatas and on which he played them. As for Debussy, there are some intriguing connections between the effects of the pieces Vonsattel performs and those of Messiaen, whose impressionist and coloristic effects, although quite different, overlap in ways that show the two composers to be not as far apart in sensibility as they are in the elements from which they construct their piano pieces. There is much of interest on this recording, and certainly Vonsattel’s pianism is of a high order, but the (+++) CD ultimately has more to offer on an intellectual and analytical level than on an emotionally communicative one: the thoughts underlying the production are stronger than the music selected in an attempt to elucidate those thoughts.

     The piano works of Valentin Silvestrov (born 1937) on a new Delphian CD in some ways serve on their own to showcase the forms of 20^th- and 21^st-century piano communication that Vonsattel displays through the works of multiple composers. Silvestrov – himself a pianist – is sometimes neoclassical, sometimes tonal, sometimes modal, sometimes postmodern (although that word is a slippery one where his music is concerned). What unites his works, including those played with considerable élan by Simon Smith, is their drama and forthright emotion, the latter being something encountered all too rarely in contemporary classical pieces. Silvestrov’s music nevertheless requires some getting used to. There is a pervasive sense of melancholy in much of his output, and even when he writes in what seems on the surface to be a clear form – as he does in the Classical Sonata, which predates the three numbered ones – things are not quite as they appear on the surface (just as Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony is not quite what its title indicates). Silvestrov believes that we are in the “end times” of music itself, and many of his works seem to reflect that depressive proposition: three bear the name of Postludium, two the title Epitaph, and there are a Requiem and a Lacrimosa in addition to a symphonic poem called Metamusic. Much of Silvestrov’s output, including the piano works heard here, combines elements of structural minimalism with yearning but not especially lyrical passages that seem to want to communicate more than they actually do. The title of the concluding piece on this (+++) CD, Nostalghia, could stand for pretty much all the music here: in its short duration, it delivers the yearning and expressiveness, the searching for meaning and emotional connection, that the sonatas seek at their greater length. Children’s Music I fits rather oddly into this grouping: although certainly no Jeux d’enfants or Children’s Corner Suite, it lies in the same tradition, including seven movements (played without pause) with titles including “Gratitude,” “Astonishment” and “Morning Ditty.” Lighter and less fraught with meaning than the rest of the music on this disc, it is a pleasant change of pace placed mid-way through the CD, providing a touch of respite before Smith resumes his pursuit of Silvestrov’s weightier, more-intense pianistic productions.

(++++) NEW SYMPHONIC DIRECTIONS

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique; Lélio ou le Retour à la Vie. Gérard Depardieu, narrator; Mario Zeffiri, tenor; Kyle Ketelsen, bass-baritone; Chicago Symphony Chorus and Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. CSO Resound. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Walter Saul: A Christmas Symphony; Kiev 2014—Rhapsody for Oboe and Orchestra; Violin Concerto; Overture for the Jubilee; From Life to Greater Life; Metamorphosis. Rong-Huey Liu, oboe; James Buswell, violin; Walter Saul, piano; National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by Theodore Kuchar. Naxos. $12.99.

Fredrick Kaufman: Symphony No. 2 for strings & percussion; Stars & Distances; Seven Sisters; Seascape; Concerto for Clarinet & Strings. Navona. $16.99.

David Arend: Voyager—Three Sheets to the Wind; Sequoia Sempervirens. David Arend, double bass; Salim Washington, tenor saxophone; Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Vronský and Jiří Petrdlík. Navona. $14.99.

     Thinking of the Symphonie Fantastique as Berlioz’ First Symphony, which it was, makes the composer’s astounding creativity and willingness to experiment with forms all the more amazing. No First Symphony that had come before had represented so radical a break with those of earlier times, nor would any that would come later in the 19^th century, except perhaps Mahler’s. Yet Berlioz himself considered this astonishingly innovative symphony to be only half of a grandiose evening-long work known as Episode in the Life of an Artist. The other half was a work whose form Berlioz, in yet another burst of extreme creativity, essentially invented: part melodrama (words spoken through music) and part stage soliloquy (monologue), it was a mélologue known as Lélio ou le Retour à la Vie. The pieces were not conceived together or for the same purpose: the first dates to 1827 and the second to 1831. But once Berlioz decided to write Lélio, which he assembled in only a little more than a week, he also decided that the two pieces belonged together, and he structured Lélio as a followup to Symphonie Fantastique. Yet the two works are very rarely heard together – that occurred only twice in Berlioz’ lifetime. So the 2010 Chicago Symphony performance led by Riccardo Muti and recorded live for the orchestra’s own label is a genuine rarity, perhaps not a once-in-a-lifetime experience but surely an extremely uncommon one. Muti is not particularly associated with Berlioz, but the chance to lead the entire Episode in the Life of an Artist appears to have inspired him, because the performance of both works (or the two parts of the one large work, depending on how you look at things) is absolutely first-rate. In the Symphonie Fantastique, Muti nudges the music from the start into an ever-growing tone poem to lost or unobtainable love, bringing out, again and again, Berlioz’ numerous felicities of orchestration and his structural brilliance. The second-movement waltz flows gorgeously, the Scène aux champs is one of pastoral charm rather than a still life, the march to the scaffold (in which Muti, thank goodness, takes the repeat) is intense and chilling, and the finale is as grotesque as Night on Bald Mountain and features especially clear bells.

     All on its own, this is a first-class performance, but there is more to come on the second CD of the set, with the sonorous-voiced Gérard Depardieu declaiming the narrative, which the composer wrote himself. Here Lélio (representing the traumatized lover of the earlier symphony and, thus, Berlioz) returns to the pain of the everyday world from his drug-induced fantasies and gradually decides to live, if not for his unattainable love object, then for his art. Episode in the Life of an Artist would stand as the most Romantic of Romantic-era musical productions even if it were not the case that Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, who inspired Berlioz, met him for the first time after the first performance and did indeed become his lover and then his wife (although, unfortunately for the Romantic temperament, the relationship degenerated and then disintegrated in later years). Lélio is a disconnected work – the music Berlioz incorporated into it included material he had already written – so the believability of the narrator is all-important. Depardieu is suitably passionate, although not nearly as close to an emotional breakdown as Berlioz seems to have intended Lélio to be. Some transitions, notably that to Chanson des brigands, seem forced, and the emotions expressed by Depardieu are at times arguable: at the very end, for instance, when Lélio proclaims, “Encore, et pour toujours,” Depardieu speaks more in resignation than in hard-won triumph. Still, the sonorousness of Depardieu’s voice serves the material well, and in the always-amusing section before the final musical element, in which Lélio tells the musicians the right and wrong ways to perform, Depardieu shows a pleasantly puckish sense of humor. The musical elements within Lélio are all handled beautifully by soloists, chorus and orchestra, with Muti giving the whole production an operatic quality that fits the material exceedingly well. CSO Resound gets points for including the complete words for Lélio, without which the work would be quite unintelligible, but loses points for presenting those words and the rest of its booklet in type so tiny and so lightly printed that a strong magnifying glass ought to be packaged with the CD set. Still, the chance to hear the entirety of Episode in the Life of an Artist makes the packaging irritations of small moment; and the chance to appreciate, again and again, the extraordinary creativity that Berlioz brought to the symphony, is one that any lover of classical music will delight in having.

     Later composers may not have anything approaching Berlioz’ symphonic creativity in their symphonies – never mind in their first ones! – but many have looked and continue to look for new things to say in symphonic form, often redefining the form itself along the way, although not to the extent that Berlioz did. Walter Saul (born 1954) uses A Christmas Symphony (1992) as a sort of extended tone painting – in the Berlioz mode – but for the specific purpose of exploring four aspects of the season: “Gabriel,” “Star,” “Simeon” and “Gloria.” Saul creates music primarily for sacred purposes, trying to use musical forms to further his notions of Christian spirituality, and A Christmas Symphony makes perfect sense on that basis, although the music itself is not sufficiently distinctive to paint more than a very general picture of reverence. Like the other works on a new Naxos CD, the symphony is a world première recording; all the pieces get well-played and sensitive readings from the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under Theodore Kuchar. The most-intense reading is reserved for Kiev 2014—Rhapsody for Oboe and Orchestra (2014), a short and strongly felt work that follows a fairly standard arc from despair (caused by the Russian presence in Ukraine) to hoped-for victory, and that is less overtly religious than the other music here. The Violin Concerto (1980) is more traditional in length and structure and uses numeric symbolism, favored by some Biblical interpreters, in its construction. Overture for the Jubilee (1997) has a primarily secular purpose: the celebration of John Quincy Adams and the eventual abolition of slavery in the United States. From Life to Greater Life (1978), on the other hand, is avowedly religious in content, equating immortality with the profoundest state of peace. Metamorphosis (1974) is about peace, too, in a personal context: here Saul, as pianist as well as composer, celebrates the inner peace he says he has attained through his own faith. Throughout the pieces on this disc, the music’s nearly unremitting focus on Christian themes and a certain similarity of approach and orchestration over the decades mean this CD will be of somewhat limited appeal, so it gets a (+++) rating – but those as committed to orthodox Christianity as Saul is will certainly find a kindred spirit here.

     Symphony No. 2 by Fredrick Kaufman (born 1936) has a strictly secular purpose, and one right in line with many symphonic creations: it was written on commission. In 1971, composer/conductor Lukas Foss had Kaufman write it as homage to Foss’s onetime teacher, Paul Hindemith. Although not a long work – it runs just over 13 minutes as performed by the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra under Carlos Piantini on a new Navona CD – it is a packed one that, like much of Hindemith’s music, is filled with material that communicates more strongly on an intellectual level than on an emotional one. The third and last movement, featuring especially prominent percussion, is the most effective. Kaufman’s Concerto for Clarinet and Strings, featuring Richard Stolzman on clarinet and the same orchestra and conductor as the symphony, is a more straightforward contemporary work, inviting the clarinet to a series of interjections and occasional melodious passages and including some jazz-inspired inflections. Also here is Seascape, played by the Czech Symphony Orchestra under Richard Hein. It is a work in which the sea flickers rather than flows, with many percussive touches – Kaufman does a great deal with percussion – beneath a kind of shimmering sound generated primarily by strings. The CD also contains two works focused away from Earth. Seven Sisters, featuring musicians from the Czech Philharmonic and the Czech Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Bisantz, is a representation of the Pleiades star cluster, using three separate but interacting groups of instruments impressionistically. And Stars & Distances, in which Bisantz leads Florida Grand Opera, is a choral piece for 16 voices that is intended to re-create the experience of stargazing. It tends to sound like warmed-over Ligeti in its mixture of vocalise and almost-discernible spoken elements. This is a (+++) recording for existing fans of Kaufman – many people were impressed by his Holocaust composition, Kaddish – but the disc is somewhat too thematically scattered to be generally appealing.

     Another new (+++) CD from Navona also has a focus on outer space – or half a focus. One of the two pieces featuring music by David Arend and performed by him on double bass is Voyager—Three Sheets to the Wind (2013-14), which celebrates deep-space probes Voyager 1 and 2 through the form of a double concerto for tenor saxophone and double bass. That unusual instrumental combination is the most interesting thing here. The music itself is a fairly typical combination of jazz and traditional classical elements – not as involving as the subject matter it is intended to illustrate. It often sounds like middle-of-the-road film music, mildly emotional at times and traditionally celebratory at others. The second section, Escape Velocity, which sounds like a combination of Lumbye’s Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop and a TV commercial for children’s toys, is just silly, and although later sections are devoted to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, there is nothing in particular in the music to associate with one planet rather than another. The final section, Interstellar Space, partakes somewhat of the conclusion of Holst’s The Planets, but without anything very distinctive in the instrumentation. The other work on this short CD (only 43 minutes) is far more Earthbound: Sequoia Sempervirens (2010) is a tribute to or portrayal of California redwood trees. The first and longest of its three movements predictably paints a picture of majesty, the second movement offers a largely static nighttime scene, and the very short finale proves to be the most interesting part of the work in its percussive use of the double bass, which is set against upward-striving orchestral sounds. Arend’s own playing is quite good, as is that of Salim Washington in Voyager, and the orchestral support is fine if not particularly distinguished. Both works here have some interesting moments, but neither really sustains throughout its entire length or communicates its professed subject matter convincingly, and there is nothing particularly new or unusual in Arend’s interweaving of jazz and classical structural elements.

(++++) ALMOST UN-BEAR-ABLY CUTE

Goodnight, Grizzle Grump! By Aaron Blecha. Harper. $17.99.

Who Needs a Bath? By Jeff Mack. Harper. $17.99.

Officer Panda: Fingerprint Detective. By Ashley Crowley. Harper. $17.99.

     Real-world bears have none of the endearing characteristics of the ones that appear so often in books for ages 4-8, but the whole idea of a huge fuzzy animal seems especially appealing for this age group, resulting in all sorts of bear-ly there adventures and amusements. Hibernation (or attempted hibernation) is always a good touchstone for a work that can be used as a bedtime book – such as Goodnight, Grizzle Grump! The problem here is a simple one: big ol’ grouchy Grizzle Grump needs a place to hibernate, but every time he thinks he has found one, it is TOO DARNED NOISY! Grizzle Grump has his very own pre-sleep routine: he “SCRATCHES and he SNIFFS, then he TEETERS and he TOTTERS. Next he WIGGLES and he WOBBLES, he FLIPS and FLOPS!” And then he falls asleep – or tries to. Aaron Blecha’s pictures of Grizzle Grump’s bedtime antics, varied slightly each time the bear thinks he has found just the right spot for a long snooze, are hilarious, and Grizzle Grump’s devotion to his pillow and blanket are endearing. Unfortunately for the grouchy bear, but fortunately for the story, an apparently perfect spot in the trees proves attractive to woodpeckers, a peaceful-looking stream bank is just the spot for noisy dam-building beavers, and even a “dark, gloomy swamp” turns out to be unsatisfactory for sleeping: frogs everywhere loudly proclaim “Eeerp MEERP”! Eventually Grizzle Grump makes his way to a mountaintop cave where, “tired out and trembling,” too exhausted even for his usual scratching, sniffing, teetering, tottering and all the rest, he collapses in a heap with “a great big flopping” and slams the cave’s convenient front door shut to keep out all the other animals and their noises. So Grizzle Grump gets to sleep at last – but then his noisemaking, in the form of enormous snores, is so loud that it drives all the other animals away. And that seems to be just fine for the start of a long winter’s nap.

     Equally put-upon is the bear in Jeff Mack’s Who Needs a Bath? But the problem here is very different: Bear wants to give Skunk a surprise birthday party, but none of the other animals will come unless Skunk stops being so, well, stinky. “Even Bear had to admit it: SKUNK STUNK.” So Bear sets himself the task of inducing Skunk to take a bath – which Skunk absolutely, positively, totally refuses to do. Bear comes up with plan after plan: have Skunk slide down a slide into the water, have him jump into the pond from a swing, try a trampoline. But each time, Skunk evades the water and tells ever-cheerful Bear that “that bath does not look like fun!” Eventually, Bear says Skunk has to take a bath or no one will come to his party! Oops – so much for Bear’s plan to make it a surprise! But the other animals overhear Bear’s slip of the tongue, and they decide it must be a pool party, since Bear is in the pond after his latest misadventure with Skunk. So everyone comes to join Bear, and Skunk, feeling left out, soon finds himself in the water as well – not on purpose, really (he slips on soap and ends up using the slide, swing and trampoline), but very enjoyably. And a good time is had by all – making it possible for parents to use this as a bath-time bear book, then move on for a bedtime story to Goodnight, Grizzle Grump!

     There is neither bath-time nor bedtime connection to Officer Panda: Fingerprint Detective, but that’s all right, since pandas are not really bears, even if they look a bit like them and kids and parents alike sometimes call them “panda bears.” In any case, Ashley Crowley’s clever book is purely for amusement, even though Crowley does offer “fun facts about fingerprints” at the end. The real fun here is in the story – and specifically the illustrations. Page after page has fingerprints on it! The haystacks at Farmer Barnes’ farm have them, and so do the clouds above a playground where kids tell Officer Panda they think they saw a shadow in the forest. Officer Panda goes there to investigate, finding a deer with a large fingerprint on its side. It is getting late, and the moon comes out – with a fingerprint on it. The mystery deepens as Officer Panda rides his bike along, looking for clues. Soon he sees that some of the trees have fingerprints instead of branches, and there are even fingerprints at his own home when he gets back to it! What could be going on? Well, it turns out there is nothing sinister happening: the mystery has an amusing solution that kids in the target age range will enjoy, and Officer Panda is able to say “another case solved!” by bedtime. The fingerprint facts at the book’s end give kids the chance to look at their own fingerprints and figure out what sorts of patterns they have – an intriguing little adventure of its own that goes well with a story whose ins and outs are not at all hard to bear.

(++++) AMUSEMENT OR SERIOUSNESS

The Naughty List. By Michael Fry and Bradley Jackson. Illustrated by Michael Fry. Harper. $12.99.

Nancy Clancy, Book 6: Soccer Mania. By Jane O’Connor. Illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser. Harper. $9.99.

Balance Keepers 2: The Pillars of Ponderay. By Lindsay Cummings. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $16.99.

     Preteens seeking adventure can find it in many forms, seasonal and otherwise, funny and serious. The Naughty List is obviously a Christmas story, but is so amusing and offbeat a romp that it transcends winter-holiday time and ends up being just plain fun. Silly fun. Very silly fun. The tropes of preteen novels are played for laughs here: separated parents (father away working, mother at home with kids but working as many shifts as possible at her job), money problems, strange relatives, brother-and-sister issues. True, the underlying job and money matters are far from amusing, but Michael Fry and Bradley Jackson keep them in the background except when they are needed for a little tear-jerking (as when little brother Tad, who supposedly wrote Santa asking for the latest thing in video gaming, turns out to have written that the only thing he wants for Christmas is to have his dad come home). Most of the tears here are tears of laughter, though. A lot of them come from big sister Bobbie, who narrates the story, loves the color black, and was attacked by a zombie Santa and broke her wrist. Actually, the Santa was the blow-up kind, and it was on the roof, and it deflated and banged against the window of Bobbie’s bedroom and was driving her crazy, but when she tried to do something about it, she and the Santa fell off the roof. And that’s just the opening of this story, which gets steadily weirder. One reason it does that is Uncle Dale, who is clearly battier than the bats in the attic (if there are bats in the attic) – his wearing a spaghetti strainer on his head to protect his thoughts, and his texting with elves, are among his milder idiosyncrasies. But it turns out that all the weird things Uncle Dale says are actually, like, really for real, which is important because Bobbie accidentally steals the game console Tad wants because a couple of Santa’s elves put it in Tad’s sack, and that lands Tad on the Naughty List, which is maintained by the Watcher rather than by Santa because Santa is – well, not what you would expect him to be, except he is just what you would expect in a book like this, and if that makes little sense, remember that Uncle Dale also makes little sense but really does know how the world and magic and Christmas work. So Uncle Dale and Bobbie soon find themselves aboard a submarine heading for the North Pole, where Bobbie intends to use the never-before-used appeals process to get Tad off the Naughty List and make sure her little brother has a great Christmas even if no one else does. This means, among other things, getting past the “Figgy Pudding Swamp surrounded by the Missile-Toe grove,” which really is a grove of toes firing missiles (Yule logs). This makes sense because, when Bobbie and Uncle Dale and their accompanying elves (the nice ones named Gumdrop and Phil, not the evil robot kind) get where they are going, Bobbie comments, “And then I saw it. The North Pole. Or Cleveland. I wasn’t sure.” Yes, things are a tad messed up way up there, and if the words are not enough to describe how messed up, the flood of hysterically funny illustrations, the comic-strip sequences and the giant exclamations of “KA-BOOSH” and “AYEEEEEEE” certainly are. Of course, the whole book is a save-Christmas story, but doggone it, it doesn’t really feel like one a lot of the time, or rather it does feel like one when you step back and stop laughing, but that’s really hard to do. Fry’s illustrations, many of which look so much like drawings from early Bloom County comic strips that Berke Breathed should get a co-illustrator credit, make the exceptional silliness of the whole production even more delightfully amusing (Fry actually does Over the Hedge, but so it goes). As for what happens when the family is, inevitably, reunited at the end of the book, well, let’s just say it fits quite well with the rest of The Naughty List, which means it is not quite the super-sappy conclusion of a typical save-Christmas story. Nope – not much that’s typical here – merely a lot that’s hilarious.

     The adventures are far more mundane and the characters far more traditionally endearing in the sixth Nancy Clancy novel, Soccer Mania. This too is a seasonal book – pretty much autumnal, to the extent that kids’ soccer has a season – but its real reason for being, as in the previous five books in this sequence, is to showcase the life of a slightly older version of Fancy Nancy, one of the most amusingly endearing characters created in recent times for young readers. If Fancy Nancy is five or six years old, Nancy Clancy is a couple of years older and has moved beyond her fascination with all things French and all hyper-fancy clothing to become interested in the sorts of much-more-straightforward things that attract so many kids up to about age 10. Nancy has not quite stopped muttering little French terms here and there – “double ooh la la” here and “voilà” there, to cite a couple of specific examples – but most of what happens in these older-Nancy books is on the mundane side. This time, Nancy wants to become a mediocre soccer player – she is not even at that level yet – and has a series of soccer-related adventures that involve dressing just like everyone else to show team spirit, eating post-game pizza, being temporarily traded to an opposing team, cheerleading for her friend Lionel’s team, helping Lionel after he suffers a sports injury, being injured herself (in a moderately amusing way that has positive consequences but that may still be a bit much for Nancy’s younger fans), and so forth. This is one of the better books in the Nancy Clancy series, deserving a top rating as much for its non-core matters (such as Nancy’s creation of a “spooky soccer story” that she writes entertainingly by using a thesaurus to expand her vocabulary) as for its main events. Young readers who have outgrown the Fancy Nancy books and want a more “grown-up” version of Nancy will enjoy themselves here, especially if they themselves play soccer, since so much of the book does revolve around that sport.

     Speaking of playing, one requirement for authors is that they play fair with readers – or it should be a requirement, anyway. Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser certainly keep the Nancy Clancy books reflective of a consistent personality in a more-grown-up Fancy Nancy, even if the older Nancy is not as quirkily amusing as her younger self. But sometimes authors try too hard to create books with twists and turns, and in so doing pull proverbial rabbits out of their proverbial authors’ hats in ways that diminish the effectiveness of their work. That is the problem with the second Balance Keepers novel by Lindsay Cummings: the author seems to develop things rather neatly in some new directions through most of the book, but at the end takes some distinctly wrong turns that readers cannot possibly figure out in advance and that therefore spoil the flow of the narrative. The whole premise of Cummings’ fantasy/adventure series is absurd, but no more so than that of other would-be-serious sequences of this type. The idea is that there is a magical inside-the-Earth world that must be kept in proper balance so that the surface world will stay balanced as well – and since the balancing job is so utterly crucial to everyone on the planet, it can only be done by preteens (not that Cummings actually says that: it is simply expected in works like this that preteens can do world-shaking – or in this case world-unshaking – things far better than adults can). The first book took Albert, Birdie and Leroy to the realm of Calderon, where they balanced things properly and thus saved New York City. The second has them competing with a team led by Albert’s nemesis – the bully, Hoyt – for the right to help balance things in Ponderay, a land of huge pillars. In the first part of the book, Hoyt’s team is actually outplaying Albert’s, which is a nice touch. Then Albert’s team comes from behind and the rather dull adults in charge of all this send the two teams together, as a single group, to deal with a Ponderay problem that is bigger than originally, ahem, pondered. This is a traditional plot element – enemies forced to work as comrades and learning something about themselves in the process – and Cummings handles it well. The possibility of a traitor among the inner-Earth denizens, another entirely predictable plot twist, is also handled adeptly, if scarcely with a great deal of originality. But things go very much awry as The Pillars of Ponderay heads for, to and beyond its climax: the improved Hoyt not only reverts to type but also does so to such an extreme that he nearly dooms the entire world, within Earth and on it; and an underlying premise of what makes Albert special – his possession of the one and only Master Tile that confers multiple powers on him during the quests – is suddenly yanked out from under readers in a way that spoils the continuity of the entire Balance Keepers sequence. The early part of The Pillars of Ponderay is good enough to gain the book a (+++) rating, but the swerving near and at the end is so pronounced and so impossible for readers to anticipate that it casts a pall not only on this book but also on the sequence as a whole. Hopefully the next Balance Keepers novel will be in better balance between imaginative fantasy in a created world and fairness to readers in the real one.

(+++) A TALE OF THE FROZEN NORTH

White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen’s Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic. By Stephen R. Bown. Da Capo. $27.99.

     A national hero in Denmark but virtually unknown in the United States, anthropologist and polar explorer Knud Rasmussen (1879-1933) engaged in seven Thule Expeditions from 1902 to 1933 that established or confirmed a great deal of what is now known about Eskimo/Inuit life and heritage – including not only ways of coping with some of the harshest climates on Earth but also the cultural and artistic endeavors that, surprisingly, flourish in lands where subsistence existence would seem to be the sole priority of life. Rasmussen was sometimes referred to as a “white Eskimo” by the Eskimo/Inuit themselves, as he explains in Across Arctic America, his 1927 book that is part anthropological analysis and part travelogue. Indeed, he came from both heritages: his father was a Danish missionary and his mother was Inuit-Danish. A short man with an outsize personality, Rasmussen was born in Greenland and died in Denmark, the geography providing apt bookends for his life and accomplishments.

     But real life is messy, and Rasmussen’s was no exception. He lived in the age of polar exploration, but his exploits did not inspire attention along the lines of that given to Norway’s Roald Amundsen or Great Britain’s Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott. There was a 2006 Canadian film called The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, but it was scarcely on the level of Scott of the Antarctic (1948), whose music was used by Ralph Vaughan Williams in his Symphony No. 7. Stephen R. Bown sets out not so much to “right a wrong” in his biography of Rasmussen as to bring his life and career to a wider audience. He does a fine job of showing how Rasmussen could command a room in Copenhagen when seeking funding for his work (he was an actor and opera singer for a time and knew how to connect with an audience), but the focus of the book, as of Rasmussen’s life, is elsewhere. The Fifth Thule Expedition (1921-1924) was his masterwork, resulting in a 10-volume analysis of the origin and spread of the Eskimo/Inuit race. Rasmussen and two Inuit hunters spent 16 months traveling by dog sled, traversing the whole of Canada and journeying as far west as Nome, Alaska, before being stopped from continuing into Russia by a mundane matter: visa issues.

     Unlike Arctic adventurers seeking personal fame or national glory, Rasmussen was a cultural explorer, more interested in Eskimo/Inuit myths and stories of mountain-size bears, human-hunting dogs and flesh-eating giants than in claiming land for the greater glory of Denmark (although the Sixth Thule Expedition of 1931 was designed primarily to cement a Danish claim to part of eastern Greenland). Thanks to his genetic and cultural background, Rasmussen could move easily within native communities in Greenland and then use his European skills to explain and write about traditional culture. Besides, Rasmussen himself seems genuinely to have loved Arctic life, with its freedom and ever-present dangers, not to mention its foods (one of which may have contributed to his death).

     Bown is at his best when describing the extremely detailed preparations to which Rasmussen always had to pay attention in his explorations. White Eskimo is filled with stories of his leadership qualities, his forthright appreciation not only of his human companions on his travels but also of the “patient and uncomplaining dogs” without which none of his extended cross-ice travels would have been possible. Indeed, Rasmussen’s extremely close relationship with his dogs, which he treated as friends and companions rather than pack animals (he never used a whip), is one of the most interesting and revelatory parts of the book, showcasing and paralleling Rasmussen’s interactions with humans – both those who accompanied him and those he interacted with and studied during his expeditions.

     From the perspective of those who do not see him as a national hero, Rasmussen’s primary contributions are cultural. He showed that art can and does flourish even in the midst of what most observers would consider squalor – a finding that raises fascinating questions (which are beyond the scope of Bown’s book) about the purpose of art and its function in human development. This first English-language biography of Rasmussen is not really a book for general readership but one for those who remain fascinated by the age of polar exploration, and those interested in the long history of the Eskimo/Inuit people and their means of surviving, even thriving, in some of the most unforgiving territory in the world. White Eskimo is certainly the story of a life well-lived, an influential one that contributed greatly to an understanding of Eskimo/Inuit customs and thinking, a life lived – like those of the Eskimo/Inuit themselves – in extremely difficult terrain whose outward manifestations, once penetrated by a combination of intellectual curiosity and genuine empathy, reveal a rich inner existence that makes the exigencies of the everyday far more tolerable.