(++++) DELIGHTS FOR PRESCHOOL AND UP

Lights Out, Night’s Out. By William Boniface. Illustrated by Milena Kirkova. Accord Publishing/Andrews McMeel. $17.99.

Dark Night. By Dorothée de Monfried. Random House. $14.99.

Princess and Fairy. By Anna Pignataro. Knopf. $14.99.

Princess Hyacinth: The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated. By Florence Parry Heide. Illustrated by Lane Smith. Schwartz & Wade. $17.99.

The Little Dump Truck. By Margery Cuyler. Illustrated by Bob Kolar. Christy Ottaviano Books. $12.99.

Chief Rhino to the Rescue. By Sam Lloyd. Henry Holt. $14.99.

     Kids ages 3-8 – roughly, preschoolers through first-graders – will have a great time with all these books, each of which is quite different from the others. The illustrations are the most fascinating part of Lights Out, Night’s Out, the third book in a series called AniMotion. This is Accord Publishing’s version of the increasingly popular lenticular animation, which makes still pictures – or, in this case, parts of still pictures – seem to move. The rhymed story here is simple enough: it is about nocturnal creatures, from owl and hedgehog to cricket and firefly. William Boniface gives eight well-rhymed lines to each creature: “The spider spins/ Her silky web,/ As evening breezes/ Flow and ebb./ She flits along/ That silken track,/ Just waiting for/ A midnight snack!” Milena Kirkova creates pictures that partake of cartoon simplification but also highlight real-life elements: a close-up view of a baby raccoon, for instance, or of the head of a wolf. And within each picture, something moves as the reader starts to turn the page. Two bats fly; the lights of fireflies flicker in the night sky; a jaguar’s tail moves from side to side; a hippopotamus’ head rises from the water. Boniface and Kirkova cleverly end the book by moving from the exotic to the mundane: the final scene shows a child’s bedroom with a hamster – a nocturnal pet – running in its wheel. The inside back cover offers additional information on all 12 of the creatures in the book (that hamster may run five miles in a single night!), giving Lights Out, Night’s Out an educational element to complement its very entertaining presentation.

     Another nighttime tale – and one that is especially well-plotted – is Dark Night, in which a little boy named Felix is walking home through some scary woods when he hears a loud sound and runs to hide in a hollow tree. Sure enough, a wolf shows up, builds a fire and sits down to warm his front paws – only to be scared off himself by a tiger – which is frightened away by a huge crocodile. Felix shrinks back in the tree and discovers a doorknob, which opens a door that leads to a stairway that leads to the under-tree home of a friendly rabbit who comes up with a very clever way of helping Felix get home safely. In fact, Felix and the rabbit end up scaring the wolf, tiger and crocodile so much that all three of them come to Felix’s house looking for help – so Felix and the rabbit have to scare them again to get them to run away “as fast as their feet could carry them.” The simple story and amusingly cartoonish illustrations keep Dorothée de Monfried’s book from itself being scary for young children, and in fact make it a wonderful way for parents to help kids overcome their nighttime fears: just imagine being rescued by that helpful bunny.

     Princess and Fairy has a more straightforward story but is put together in a particularly interesting way – and it has not one but two bunnies, namely the ones of the title. Princess and Fairy are best friends who share everything: “Midnight treats and secret wishes,/ Toadstool dancing and fairy swishes,/ Hide-and-seek at Ladybird Bend,/ Best of friends to the fairy end!” They get a letter from the Queen inviting them to a party – and this is where Anna Pignataro’s design gets clever. The envelope, which includes a small piece of paper saying “an invitation from the Queen,” is a three-dimensional element of a left-hand-page illustration, while the list the friends make of things they will need for the party is attached to the facing right-hand page. Then, when Princess and Fairy go shopping, every stall at the Three Wishes Market has its own sign and offerings, from purple pineapples to “Never Burn Pots ‘n’ Pans.” Part of the fun here is trying to find specific objects in Pignataro’s elaborate drawings – a pair of cherries and a yellow rose at the market, a blue purse and more at Three Penny Lane (which features “Trillions of dresses in all the right hues,/ Hats and tiaras and sparkly shoes”), and so on. The friends go to Fairyland Fairground and elsewhere as they search for items on their list, eventually getting so dirty that they show up at the party in “freckled frocks and grubby shoes” – but the Fairy Queen is enchanted by their smiles, and everything ends happily. Little girls will love the outfits and the book’s color scheme, which is largely pink. And Pignataro’s use of glitter makes the illustrations shine particularly brightly.

     There is a princess in Princess Hyacinth as well, but unlike a flying, winged fairy princess, she looks like an ordinary everyday little girl: “She had two eyes, with a nose between them and a mouth under that – you know, the usual things in the usual arrangement.” But Princess Hyacinth is anything but usual. She floats. There’s no particular reason for it – she’s just immune to gravity. Of course, she can’t go outside, because she would float away. And even in the palace, there are dangers – unless she is wearing weights sewn into her clothes and the heaviest crown in the kingdom. Then “she didn’t float at all. In fact, she could hardly move.” Florence Parry Heide makes this delightfully offbeat story into a real page-turner, and Lane Smith’s illustrations – showing the princess looking so small in the huge palace, whether weighed down by her clothing or floating in her royal underwear while asleep – add an additional just-right whimsical touch. And there are neat plot twists, too. First, the Princess almost manages to make friends with a boy named Boy, who flies his kite (adorned with a crown) just outside the palace. Then, the Princess – weighed down and dragging herself through the park – orders a balloon man to tie a string to her, takes off her weighty clothes, and floats happily like a balloon….until a dog startles the man and he lets go of the string. Princess Hyacinth ends up having a simply marvelous time in the air, except that she can’t get down – until Boy comes unwittingly to her rescue. Add the way that happens to what happens next and you have a delightful conclusion to a story that does not quite end the way fairy tales usually do – although there is a sort of happily-ever-after to it.

     The happiness is of a different kind, and is decidedly more boy-oriented, in The Little Dump Truck, in which Margery Cuyler’s rhymes chronicle a day in the life of a helpful truck and its driver, Hard Hat Pete. The first line on each page is the same – for example, “I’m a little dump truck/ hauling stones and rocks,/ bumping, bouncing, thumping,/ crossing city blocks.” Some of Cuyler’s rhymes are especially neatly turned: “I’m a little dump truck/ waiting for debris./ Excavator scoops—/ drops dirt into me!” Bob Kolar’s illustrations are enjoyable, too, showing the construction equipment (and all the other vehicles in the city) with bumpers that look like mouths and with headlight “eyes” that glance around and sometimes reflect personalities: one truck has rectangular rather than round eyes, with a focused expression; a limousine looks intensely ahead as its driver navigates through traffic. The dump truck works in the city, then heads onto the highway “to another state,” stopping for fuel along the way, and finally gets to a new workplace to comment, “I love my job – Hooray!”

     Chief Rhino loves his job, too, but in Chief Rhino to the Rescue he loves it a bit too much. Sam Lloyd’s amusing story of Whoops-a-Daisy World (which Lloyd previously visited in Doctor Meow’s Big Emergency) follows the pattern of well-meaning characters making honest mistakes that turn out just fine in the end. After we meet Chief Rhino and find out how strong and brave he is, we watch him searching the town for fires and spying one – to which he promptly races, saying, “It’s time for me to save the day!” But when the chief and his fellow firefighters get to Number One House Row and determinedly get their gear together so Chief Rhino can spray water on the fire, things turn out to be not quite what they seemed – or not quite what Chief Rhino thought they were, anyway. The misunderstanding turns out to be funny – and there is no harm done even though Chief Rhino says, “Instead of saving the day, I’ve ruined it!” But everything ends happily with a big party and some mighty silly drawings to go with the sort of amusing mistake that lies at the heart of Whoops-a-Daisy World stories.

(++++) AN EDUCATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The Best 371 Colleges, 2010 Edition. By Robert Franek, Tom Meltzer, Christopher Maier, Erik Olson, Julie Doherty, and Eric Owens. Princeton Review/Random House. $22.99.

     The silliest thing about this otherwise serious college guide is the implied precision of its title. The number 371 could as easily be, say, 402, or 247, or anything else. Using a number that suggests there is a college No. 372 that somehow didn’t make the grade is as sensible as reading an airline schedule and really believing that a flight will take off at precisely 9:51 and land at exactly 11:13. The precise number is at odds with the Princeton Review’s own statement, “At the end of the day, it’s what YOU think about the schools that matters most.”

     Still, the basic approach of this book makes it an extraordinarily useful guide for high-school students looking for the best match for their individual interests and talents. Yes, the authors provide lists of “great schools for 15 of the most popular undergraduate majors,” and yes, there are lists showing colleges with most-accessible and least-accessible professors, best and worst college libraries, best career services, most-beautiful and least-attractive campuses, and more. But these lists are mere starting points, because the meat of this book is in the form of comments by the schools’ own students – plus a wide variety of statistics that range from the useful (percentage of students admitted from wait list, percentage of professors who teach undergraduates) to the politically correct (“green rating,” which includes such factors as the percentage of food expenditures directed toward “local, organic, or otherwise environmentally preferable food” and whether the school “employs a dedicated full-time [or full-time equivalent] sustainability officer”).

     The best thing to do with The Best 371 Colleges, 2010 Edition, is to use it not as a starting point but as the second step in a college search. That is, after making a preliminary list of colleges that seem attractive because of geography, reputation, majors, cost and whatever other factors you want to consider – using your high school’s college counselor as a primary resource – turn to this book for an excellent overview of each college’s statistics and the opinions of its students. So you will find out that students at Hampshire College (Massachusetts) say they “are normally very good at entertaining” themselves; that “getting involved in the community is second nature” to most students at Ithaca College (New York); that “the party scene at Miami [University of Ohio] is top-notch…[with] tons of bars and off-campus houses devoted solely to us”; that Purdue University (Indiana) is “a place for anyone to completely blend in or stand out”; and so on. And these comments are simply from the section of each listing called “Life.” There are also sections on “Academics” and “Student Body,” plus comments by the Princeton Review on admissions and financial aid, plus remarks by each school’s admissions office. Of particular value is a section called “The Inside Word,” where students attracted by the “Life” description of Purdue, for example, will find out that “the fact that Purdue holds class rank as one of its most important considerations in the admission of candidates is troublesome”; that Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology’s “relatively high acceptance rate is somewhat deceiving because the applicant pool is largely self-selecting”; that “it won’t be long before the academic strength found at Oglethorpe [University in Georgia] attracts wider attention and more applicants.”

     Accompanying the two-page narrative about each school are statistics on selectivity, deadlines, financial aid, academics, most popular majors and more; cost information on tuition, room and board, fees, and books and supplies; the school’s environment; its overall quality of life; and on and on. In fact, the two pages accorded each college in The Best 371 Colleges, 2010 Edition provide far more useful, easier-to-access data – in an easy-to-compare format – than students will find by visiting the schools’ Web sites, whose quality and design diverge widely. Ultimately, of course, no book, including this one, can pick the best school for any individual; Princeton Review in fact strongly advocates campus visits as a way for potential students to get a “feel” for each college in which they think they are interested. There really is a good college match out there for anyone who wants to attend, but the decision on which college that is varies as widely as do students themselves. The Best 371 Colleges, 2010 Edition cannot provide a definitive answer as to which college is best for any individual, but it can and does give everyone plenty of easy-to-understand information to make this highly personal decision as easy (or at least nontraumatic) as it can possibly be.

(+++) KIDS IN THE LIMELIGHT

Slumgirl Dreaming: Rubina’s Journey to the Stars. By Rubina Ali in collaboration with Anne Berthod and Divya Dugar. Delacorte Press. $9.99.

First Kids: The True Stories of All the Presidents’ Children. By Noah McCullough. Scholastic. $7.99.

     It would be unkind to suggest that these books attempt shamelessly to exploit a young star of Slumdog Millionaire and the popularity of President Barack Obama’s children, respectively. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that the books are cashing in on the 15 minutes of fame usually accorded to celebrities – young and old alike. But despite a certain cynicism in the books’ presentations, they contain a lot of interesting information and some material that will make readers really think about their subjects.

     Slumgirl Dreaming, in which the story of Rubina Ali – who at age nine played the youngest version of Latika in the hit film Slumdog Millionaire – is told by French journalist Anne Berthod and Indian journalist Divya Dugar, lets Rubina speak in her own voice in ways that are not typical in biographies of child stars. “I found Nicole Kidman strange but also very charming,” we learn at one point. “Everything was done on the set according to her desires and mood.” We never quite learn what the strangeness was, but the openness of Rubina’s comments shines through. “As for my biological mother, I hate her more than ever,” Rubina says after the woman accuses Rubina’s father of trying to sell Rubina to a sheik from Dubai. Also, “Americans eat different food to [sic] us. There was no dal, no chawal or chicken masala, but odd, strange-tasting things. It was all so tasteless.” This sort of fish-out-of-water comment typifies Slumgirl Dreaming, and can stand for the topic of the book as a whole. The reality is that “life hasn’t changed much for me except that now I’m aware of a world much more beautiful than my slum,” Rubina explains. Despite many offers to relocate the family, Rubina’s father, her beloved aba, refuses to leave the slum, because that is where he works as a carpenter and where he has all his contacts. “I want to become a great actress,” says Rubina. “If not an actress, I would like to be an astronaut.” That juxtaposition is typical of the charming naïveté that permeates Slumgirl Dreaming, in which the stories about stars known to Americans – Kidman, Danny Boyle and others – really are secondary to the tale of a young girl raised to heights of which most people worldwide can barely dream, only to find herself afterwards neither here nor there: living again in the slum where she has always been, but well aware now (as she was not before) of how big a world is out there beyond the boundaries of the poorest parts of Mumbai. Rubina’s world is reflected in her entire outlook on life. For instance, once, on the set, “someone was closing the toilet door and my finger got in the way. But there was a doctor on the set who bandaged it. In the slums, kids keep falling and getting hurt so it didn’t bother me that much.” This, not the glories of an award-winning film, is the reality of Rubina’s life.

     Things are considerably more upbeat for the Obama children, but as First Kids makes clear, many stories of presidential offspring can be as tragic as anything in Rubina Ali’s world. Noah McCullough, a 14-year-old author and political junkie, is entirely matter-of-fact in recounting what happened to some presidential children. “Edward Garfield was born on Christmas Day in 1874. He didn’t get to know his new family very well because he died on October 25, 1876, of whooping cough, just twenty-two months after his birth.” “William Lewis Arthur was born while his dad was in the military on December 10, 1860. He died of convulsions at the age of two, on July 7, 1863.” McCullough includes some interesting trivia in “Fast Facts” sections about each presidential family. “The [Rutherford B.] Hayes family had the very first Siamese cat in America.” “The [Millard] Fillmores were the first White House family to enjoy a bathtub. It was made of mahogany and lined with zinc.” “President Benjamin Harrison once hosted a birthday party for his grandson Baby McKee, who was turning four years old. …The menu was ground-up food (biscuits and bouillon), cake, and ice cream. The Marine band supplied the music.” In fact, the entire book is a trivia feast, simply organized by chronology (Washington through Obama) and with plenty of photos to supplement the text. A more seasoned author could do a great deal more with any number of the stories that McCullough tells in a few words. For example, “Tazewell Tyler…served in the medical corps for the Confederacy. After the war, he practiced medicine in three different states: Virginia, Maryland and California. …He later died of alcoholism at the age of forty-three on January 8, 1874.” But the once-over-lightly approach of this book does have advantages: it lets young readers skim through a lot of presidential family history easily, and avoids going too deeply into matters of politics and policy. Perhaps the book will even inspire some readers to find out more information than McCullough includes. For example, there is surely a story worth exploring in the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who “requested not to be buried with his famous first family upon his death” and who was in Washington not only when his father was assassinated but also when Presidents Garfield and McKinley were killed.

(+++) PAPERBACK WRITERS

Magic Pickle and the Creature from the Black Legume. By Scott Morse. Graphix/Scholastic. $5.99.

Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC. By June Sobel. Illustrated by Henry Cole. Sandpiper. $5.99.

Transformers Animated: Clash of the Constructicons; Starscream Flies Again. By Annie Auerbach. HarperFestival. $3.99 each.

     These books are testimony to the versatility of the redoubtable paperback format. One is more or less a graphic novel – fifth in what has the potential to be a never-ending series; one is a short, oversize and amusing alphabet book; and two are picture-heavy, text-light stories based on a television show.

     Scott Morse’s Magic Pickle series continues its punny and often funny ways in Magic Pickle and the Creature from the Black Legume, which actually has an educational element in explaining – repeatedly – that peanuts are not nuts but legumes. The difference even proves important in defeating the evil creature. Like the previous Magic Pickle books, this one has elements of a graphic novel (page after page told in comic-book style), but also has a good deal of straight narrative (to the extent that anything is “straight” in this always skewed series). The main setting this time is a factory called Pete’s Perfect Peanuts, to which Jo Jo (Magic Pickle’s sidekick and helper) is going on a field trip with her class. A black peanut (“black legume,” see?) hatches a dastardly peanut-butter-powered villain, and the rest is history, and sometimes hysterical. There is also a videogame connection here, involving a game called SCHNOZOLA! with the bad-guy Nostrillain and good-guy Handker Chief. It’s almost too silly for words; hence all the pictures. Fans of the series will especially enjoy the post-story story, which brings the conclusion to a real conclusion.

     It’s obvious where Shiver Me Letters will begin and end – at A and Z, respectively. What is not obvious is the clever way author June Sobel and illustrator Henry Cole get from here to there. The pirate animals – led by a hook-handed crocodile captain who repeatedly roars, “R!” – set sail in search of all the letters of the alphabet, and find them in unexpected places: “They dug for doubloons and scooped up a D.” “From out of the jungle, J jumped sky-high.” “A mysterious map with an M soon appeared.” And so it goes throughout the rhymed adventure – until the exhausted crew delivers a Y and the captain says that is not enough: “Be off with ye, mates./ Go rob me a Z.” So the crew members retire to their bunks and, of course, snore “zillions of Z’s.” Originally published in 2006, Shiver Me Letters is as charming in its new paperback incarnation as it was originally.

     And speaking of incarnations: the whole point of Transformers is that they have multiple ones. That is, they can be one thing for a time, then something else (in case that wasn’t obvious from their name and last summer’s big-budget movie). Transformers can in fact be transformed not only from toys into films but also from toys into animated television series, and it is the Transformers of the animated series that star in two paperback adaptations by Annie Auerbach. Clash of the Constructicons, based on a TV episode called Rise of the Constructicons, is about two construction machines called Mixmaster and Scrapper that come into contact with “the AllSpark, the source of life for all Transformers,” and find themselves torn between friendship with the good-guy Autobots and bad-guy Decepticons. Starscream Flies Again, from a TV episode called A Fistful of Energon, features bad-guy Starscream delivering dialogue such as this: “You’re going to regret the day you were protoformed!” None of this material is to be taken the slightest bit seriously, but there is plenty of action to be imagined in looking at the scenes from the TV series, and writing that will appeal to existing fans of the Transformers in their many multimedia guises.

(++++) CONCERTOS IN RARE FORM

Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Romances Nos. 1 and 2; Fragment of Violin Concerto, WoO 5. Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin; Orchestre des Champs-Élysées conducted by Philippe Herreweghe. Naïve. $16.99.

Clara Schumann: Piano Concerto; Piano Trio; Romances for Violin and Piano. Veronica Jochum, piano; Bamberger Symphoniker conducted by Joseph Silverstein (Concerto); Veronica Jochum, piano; Joseph Silverstein, violin; Colin Carr, cello (Trio); Joseph Silverstein, violin; Veronica Jochum, piano (Romances). Tudor. $19.99.

Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras: Fantasia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra; Samuel Zyman: Cello Concerto; Ricardo Castro: Cello Concerto. Carlos Prieto, cello; Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa conducted by Miguel Prieto (Heras); Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional conducted by Enrique Diemecke (Zyman); Orquesta Sinfónica de Berlin conducted by Jorge Velazco (Castro). Urtext. $14.99.

     Although Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was not especially successful during the composer’s lifetime, it is impossible nowadays to think of it as a rarity. Nevertheless, the new performance by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées under Philippe Herreweghe makes the work seem particularly fresh, partly because of the tempos chosen (which are intended to approximate the ones Beethoven wanted, to the extent that those are known); partly because of the use of period instruments, whose sonic world is different from that of modern ones; and partly because Kopatchinskaja – using a Giovanni Pressenda violin made in 1834 – not only plays with a light (pre-Romantic) touch but also uses variants of some passages included in Beethoven’s autography score. Add to this the soloist’s use of her own arrangements of Beethoven’s arrangements of cadenzas originally written for the piano version of this concerto – a possibility only in a recording, since overdubbing was needed to reproduce the full piano part on the violin – and you have a very unusual performance that enlivens the music while largely returning it to a version of its original form. And to continue the fascinations of this CD, there is a seven-minute fragment of an early Beethoven Violin Concerto, in C, which itself exhibits some very creative elements, such as the use of divided violas. Only the exposition and start of the development of the work’s first movement survive; hearing them makes for interesting speculation about what might have been, since there is evidence that at least the work’s first movement was completed. This CD is actually entitled “Beethoven: Complete Works for Violin and Orchestra,” and is rounded out with the two Romances, which receive lovely, lyrical but not overdone performances.

     Lyricism is only one element that stands out in Clara Schumann’s sole surviving orchestral work, her Piano Concerto – which remains a rarity, although it is not quite as uncommonly heard today as it as a few decades ago. There is an interesting parallel between this concerto and that of Clara’s husband, Robert Schumann: in each, the longest movement (Robert’s first, Clara’s third) was finished first and originally performed on its own, with the other two movements added later. Clara’s concerto does not sound much like Robert’s, having a style all its own that the composer surely intended to reflect her own considerable virtuosity as a performer. There is, not surprisingly, a sense of youthful liveliness here: the concerto was first performed when its composer was only 16, and was conducted at the time by Mendelssohn – whose friendship with Robert played a significant role in both composers’ works. The other Clara Schumann works on this CD show her compositional skill as well. The four-movement Piano Trio has poise and classical balance but retains a Romantic-era sensibility, while the three short Romances for violin and piano – which make an interesting contrast with Beethoven’s two for violin and orchestra – are warm and pleasant pieces of parlor music, musically attractive if not particularly deep. The performances date to 1988, and the CD itself is a re-release of one from 1992. Both the musicality and the sound have held up very well indeed.

     Even more of a rarity than Clara Schumann’s works are the three for cello and orchestra by Mexican composers, presented on a CD called “Three Centuries.” The title is slightly misleading: Ricardo Castro’s Cello Concerto was first performed in 1903, although apparently written around 1895. It is one of the better-known works by Mexico’s first symphonist and the first composer of a Mexican opera written in Spanish (Atzimba), but it is not particularly Mexican in sound despite the use of some Mexican thematic material. It is an effective, very lyrical work with passages of considerable beauty, showing Castro’s familiarity with European Romantic compositional style rather than moving in a distinctive direction of its own. Its warmth and expressiveness, especially as played by the excellent Carlos Prieto, are immediately appealing. Prieto was personally involved in the creation of the other two works on this CD: Zyman’s, first performed in 1990, was written for him, and Heras’, from 2005, is dedicated to him. Zyman’s is a big work, the longest on this recording, and shows a strong command of the orchestra as well as some influence of Zyman’s teachers, Roger Sessions and David Diamond. It uses 20^th-century compositional techniques effectively, but is not bound or limited by them, and has emotional as well as intellectual impact. Heras’ fantasia, in contrast, is short and somewhat drier than the other pieces here, requiring plenty of virtuosity and good cooperation between soloist and orchestra. Prieto plays very effectively with all three orchestras and all three conductors heard on this disc, the CD as a whole being as much a tribute to his considerable abilities as it is a chance to hear some less-known works of the modern and Romantic cello repertoire.

(++++) LYRICISM UNLEASHED

Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2; Symphony No. 5, “Reformation.” Louis Lortie, piano and conducting Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. ATMA Classique. $16.99.

Mendelssohn: String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5; Capriccio in E minor; Fugue in E flat major. New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Douglas Beilman, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello). Naxos. $8.99.

Spohr: Double Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. Forde Ensemble. Naxos. $8.99.

Schubert: Complete Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 1. Julia Fischer, violin; Martin Helmchen, piano. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

     Canadian pianist Louis Lortie shows himself to be a skilled interpreter of Mendelssohn – both at the keyboard and on the podium – on a new CD with an interestingly varied program. The pairing of Mendelssohn’s two mature piano concertos (from 1831 and 1837, respectively) is nothing new, but adding the “Reformation” symphony gives this disc unexpected depth. The symphony, begun in 1829 with the intention of having it played in 1830 for the 300^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Augsburg Confession, was not actually heard until 1832 – and was so controversial (because of Mendelssohn’s family’s conversion from Judaism to Protestantism) that Mendelssohn came to hate it. Yet the work has remarkable richness and sobriety, as well as an exuberant finale based on the chorale Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott. When played with warmth and lyrical sensitivity, on the one hand, and with a light touch and lively tempos, on the other – as the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec performs it – the symphony is wonderfully effective. So, in Lortie’s hands, are the concertos. The more outgoing No. 1 sparkles in this bright, fast-paced reading, while the seriousness of No. 2 (especially its first movement) gets its full due here. All this music is familiar, but not in this combination, and Lortie makes a strong case for everything – including his own skill in the dual pianist/conductor role.

     The New Zealand String Quartet also continues to show warmth and skill aplenty in its second volume of Mendelssohn’s String Quartets. The standout here is Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, a Beethoven-influenced work (drawing on his Op. 95 and Op. 132 quartets) that nevertheless shows Mendelssohn developing his own voice in this medium. The fluidity of the playing, and the ease with which each player hands off material to the next, give the performance fine flow and a strong sense of thematic as well as instrumental unity. In Quartet No. 5 in E flat, Op. 44, No. 3, the scherzo’s fugue and double fugato are well handled, and the energetic finale comes across particularly well. Accompanying the quartets are two movements from a set of four published posthumously as Mendelssohn’s Op. 81: a Capriccio from 1843 and a Fugue from 1827. They are sometimes played as the third and fourth movements of a posthumous quartet, although in fact the work does not hang together particularly well in that form. Here, the New Zealand String Quartet treats them as individual pieces, focusing on the grace and lightness of the Capriccio and the rather staid formality of the Fugue. The top-notch ensemble work on this CD is what makes these performances stand out.

     An equally strong sense of ensemble is an absolute necessity for performing Louis Spohr’s four Double Quartets, the first two of which the Forde Ensemble handles with aplomb. These Spohr works are unique in chamber-music literature: the eight players are treated not as a small string ensemble but as two independent but interconnected groups of four. Thus, the ensemble breaks down into Quartet I (violinists Janice Graham and Helena Wood, violist Andriy Viytovych and cellist Caroline Dale) and Quartet II (violinists Nicole Wilson and Alison Dodds, violist Alexander Zemtsov and cellist Julia Graham). The Double Quartets – No. 1 from 1823 and No. 2 from 1827 – require players to interact both within their respective four-member groups and as members of a larger one. For example, the first work opens with a unison for all eight instruments; then the ensemble splits into two quartets, which enter one bar apart. Spohr was a skilled quartet composer – he wrote 36 regular string quartets in addition to the four double ones – and does a fine job exploiting the sonorities of individual instruments in addition to playing the two quartets against each other. What is less than distinctive, though, especially in the first double quartet, is the musical material itself. The first work pays considerable homage to Mozart, whom Spohr greatly admired and during whose lifetime Spohr was born (in 1784). This double quartet not only follows classical form but also invokes compositional techniques of both Mozart and Haydn, the result being a sonically very pleasing work but one that breaks no new musical ground. The second double quartet is more interesting in this regard. Its second movement, marked Menuetto, is more creative – with its strong contrast between the main section and the Trio – than the corresponding movement of the first double quartet, which is marked Scherzo. The second double quartet’s slow movement also has more heft than the earlier work offers, and the finale is particularly tuneful and catchy. Both these double quartets are in the final analysis of more interest for their form than for their substance, but the Forde Ensemble certainly makes a very good case for them, and this CD provides a fine opportunity to enjoy some little-known and very engaging chamber music. Hopefully a Naxos CD of the Forde Ensemble playing Spohr’s other double quartets is forthcoming.

     Another good case for not-quite-first-class music is made by Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen in the first volume of a planned two-disc set of all of Schubert’s works for violin and piano. The pieces here are melodiously lyrical, frequently virtuosic and occasionally harmonically adventurous – yet they have understandably been overshadowed by Schubert’s more-innovative accomplishments in other forms, and also by the violin-and-piano sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. Fischer and Helmchen do not try to make this music larger or more significant than it is, playing it with straightforward beauty and very little grandstanding – an attractive approach to attractive, if minor, Schubertiana. Most of this SACD – whose sound, as usual from PentaTone, is superb – is taken up by the three Sonatas (Sonatinas), Op. 137, Nos. 1-3 (D. 384, 385 and 408). The double designation of these works’ form is in line with their neither-quite-here-nor-quite-there construction: the first, a very Mozartean three-movement piece in D, is lovely but slight; the second, a four-movement A minor work, is the longest and most substantial of the three; the third, also in four movements and in a minor key (G minor), has tinges of melancholy but lacks significant emotional depth. Schubert was 19 when he wrote these works, and they are certainly pleasant and tuneful enough. But the fourth work offered here, the Rondo Brillant in B minor, Op. 70 (D. 895), is of a different order. The composer created this piece 10 years later, only two years before his death, as a virtuoso showpiece for the Bohemian violinist Josef Slavik. This extended rondo – longer than all of D. 384 – has more Romantic sweep and far more display opportunities for the violin than do the earlier works. Fischer and Helmchen make it sing – without, however, overloading it with overbearing technique. This disc’s interest lies in exposing listeners to one of the less-known sides of a composer, many of whose works have become very familiar indeed.

(++++) TO AUTUMN AND BEYOND

Applesauce Season. By Eden Ross Lipson. Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. Roaring Brook Press. $17.99.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story adapted by Wren Maysen. Illustrations by Gail de Marcken. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $18.99.

     In early fall, when kids are just adjusting to the rhythm of a new school year but the weather has not yet turned nippy, when the days seem to get shorter with increasing rapidity (although, in fact, they have been getting shorter since the first day of summer), when thoughts are just starting to turn from swimming and beaches and shorts and flip-flops to pumpkins and Halloween – this is Applesauce Season. Eden Ross Lipson, children’s book editor of The New York Times from 1984 to 2005, has left behind a wonderful story of apples, applesauce and family traditions – “left behind” because Lipson died of pancreatic cancer in May. This lovely book is all about the different types of apples available to city dwellers: “There are no apple trees, but there are farmers’ markets where there are lots of apples,” says the boy narrator. And then kids ages 4-8 learn all about making applesauce, watching as Mom cuts apples into quarters while Grandma cuts them into sixths (“I don’t know why”); discover the many different types of apples, and how using them changes the flavor of the applesauce; and find out about cinnamon sugar and other additives – a bit of butter, a touch of salt. And when the homemade treat is done, “We eat applesauce plain, or with ice cream, or cottage cheese, or gingerbread, or cookies, or sliced bananas.” And as autumn moves toward winter and the apple varieties change, “the color and the thickness and the taste of the sauce changes every single week,” all the way to Thanksgiving and afterwards – and all the way to an applesauce recipe at the end of the book. Applesauce Season is a simply delightful (and delicious) story – but Lipson’s words are not enough to make it so good. Mordicai Gerstein’s homey, charming illustrations add a great deal to what is already a wonderful book – especially on the inside front and back covers, which show 24 illustrations of different kinds of apples and, drawn the same size and in similar style, the boy narrator’s face and those of his family members. Yum.

     Autumnal stories point toward winter, and few tales are more associated with the season of cold and Christmas than The Nutcracker. But very few readers today know the real story of The Nutcracker, as it was written by E.T.A. Hoffmann nearly 200 years ago. Hoffmann wrote scary, fairy-tale-like stories, and they were intended for adults, not children, so it is no surprise that his Nutcracker tale was Bowdlerized in the 19^th century and became best known in the utterly delightful but (by comparison) very juvenile version used by Tchaikovsky as the basis of his Nutcracker ballet. Really, there are two Nutcracker stories – the one practically everyone knows, which has its own place in seasonal celebrations, and the one Hoffmann wrote, which uses the Christmas season simply as a device to tell a tale of love, loss, cruelty and hope. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is a real rarity: a children’s version of the original Hoffmann story. Wren Maysen has toned it down and rearranged the events, and Gail de Marcken’s excellent illustrations are far too opulent to communicate the frightening aspects of the tale in more than a gauzy, distant way. But still, this book restores some of the power of what Hoffmann wrote – and some of the mystery – and the happy ending (a fairy-tale wedding, not a little girl awakening from a lovely dream). As Maysen and de Marcken re-create the story, it starts with the familiar Christmas scenes, the gifts, the wonders of Godfather Drosselmeier’s mechanical creations, and the affection Marie holds for her Nutcracker even after her brother, Fritz, breaks it. And so it goes, through the battle between the Nutcracker and his toy troops and the mice, led by the Mouse King – shown with seven heads, as Hoffmann intended, although the heads are more cute than scary here. But after the battle, things get really interesting, as Drosselmeier recounts the story of how the Nutcracker came to be a nutcracker, which is the tale of a gorgeous princess named Pirlipat, the demanding Dame Mouserink, and a hard nut called Crackatook. Kids and adults alike will marvel at the depths of this story, which has far more to it than the simplified version of The Nutcracker. Yes, there is a journey to Sweetmeatburgh in the land that the Nutcracker rules, but this is no mere diversion, for it is part of a growing-up story that eventually brings the real-world prince – a relative of none other than Drosselmeier – before a more-mature Marie, who becomes his bride. It is a marvelous story that need not displace the more-familiar The Nutcracker but that surely deserves to be known just as well. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King does Hoffmann proud – and makes Christmas, or any season, a little more wonderful and wonder-filled.

(++++) GET GOING!

Watch Me Go! Text by Rebecca Young. Illustrations by Von Glitschka. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $12.99.

Move! By Steve Jenkins & Robin Page. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $7.99.

Star Wars: Spaceships. Lucas Books/Scholastic. $7.99.

     Von Glitschka’s amazing lenticular animation – a process that makes still pictures appear to move realistically – gets better all the time. His previous collaboration with Rebecca Young – Watch Me Hop! – showed animals in motion. Now he has moved on to machines in Watch Me Go! And the results are fascinating. There are just eight illustrations in the new book – the lenticular-animation process is expensive and requires double-thick pages – but each is amazing to see again and again. A dump truck pours its load at a construction site; a race car speeds around the track, appearing to get closer to the reader as the page is moved; a diesel-engine train also moves closer, its headlight seeming to shine right into the reader’s eyes; a fire engine raises its ladder to help put out a blaze. Young’s text is very simple, suitable for the youngest readers or for parents reading to toddlers: “I’m a digger. My treads go around. Watch me GO move the ground!” But the illustrations are the big attraction here – parents should expect kids to ask how they can possibly move like that, and will probably have the same question themselves.

     A similar but less sophisticated movement effect adorns the cover of Move! A rabbit seems to leap from left to right, pushing the “M” of the title off toward the left as a result. This is cute, but it is not the main point of this book, which focuses more on text than pictures and has more to do with education than with the sheer wonder of illustrations. In fact, except for the cover, Move! is illustrated simply with collages of cut and torn paper. The pictures show animals that move in different ways – and the text connects each animal to the next. A gibbon swings, for example – and also walks on its back legs. Next, a bird called a lily trotter walks on floating lily pads – and then dives to catch a fish. After this, a blue whale makes a deep dive – and swims in the ocean depths. Through the illustrations and the brief interconnected comments, Steve Jenkins and Robin Page give behavioral information on animals from the roadrunner to the jumping spider to the penguin – and suggest, at the end, that human children can move in all the ways that these animals do. That is an interesting observation and a fine conclusion to a book that is thoughtful as well as clever.

     Star Wars: Spaceships is not quite at the level of the other books – it gets a (+++) rating – but it certainly has plenty of (implied) movement. There is actually a spaceship in Watch Me Go! – a real-world design – but Star Wars: Spaceships is a board book devoted entirely to fantasy. Every page has lovingly rendered versions of ships from the Star Wars universe, including the Millennium Falcon, TIE fighter, X-Wing and more. And every page contains a comic-book-style action word: “Zoom!” “Zip!” “Zap!” “Boom!” The motion here is implied, as is the action; clearly, the book is aimed at young fans of George Lucas’ Star Wars films. For them, it will be fun for a while. But they are more likely to tire of it quickly than to become bored with books that present motion in more interesting ways or use it as a basis for some gentle education.

(+++) SERIES HEROINES

Babymouse #11: Dragonslayer. By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm. Random House. $5.99.

Piper Reed Gets a Job. By Kimberly Willis Holt. Illustrated by Christine Davenier. Christy Ottaviano Books. $14.99.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (but she does love being in recitals). By Peggy Gifford. Photographs by Valorie Fisher. Schwartz & Wade. $12.99.

     Girls ages 7-11 have plenty of literary role models to emulate – or choose not to emulate – these days, whether a reader’s tastes run more to comics and graphic novels or to old-fashioned tales told primarily in prose. The Babymouse series is now at its 11^th volume, if these small books can be called “volumes,” and Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (who are sister and brother) have settled into a pleasant familiarity with the title character and her world. It is a world in which fantasy and reality repeatedly intersect, usually in amusingly unsettling ways. And it is a world in which the narrative voice, typical in comics and graphic novels, takes part in the story, as when Babymouse proclaims that her latest adventure is destined “for glory! For everlasting greatness!” – and a line beneath the panel says, “Yeah, good luck with that, Babymouse.” The story in Dragonslayer is a little weaker than most in this series: Babymouse is doing so badly in math that her teacher assigns her to join the “Mathletes,” math whizzes who are about to compete in a tournament. In the real world, that just doesn’t happen – math teams and math competitors are always drawn from top students in the subject, not ones who get an F-. Even in Babymouse’s “real” world, this is a stretch. Of course, fans know Babymouse will eventually come out on top, and that is exactly what happens, with the usual forays into fantasy – here, skewed versions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Lord of the Rings. The eventual Math Olympics – where the prize is, of all things, the “Golden Slide Rule,” or “regula calculanda aurea,” as its pedestal says (which is poor Latin but suitably impressive to Babymouse) – is only moderately amusing, but Babymouse lovers will no doubt be delighted as she once again saves the day (and her math team).

     Piper Reed’s “team,” so to speak, is the Gypsy Club, and in the third Piper Reed novel, the sweet-but-saucy fifth-grader starts a party-planning business to raise money so the Gypsy Club can get its own clubhouse. This sounds like a plot out of 1950s television, which it pretty much is. Kimberly Willis Holt’s stories are nothing if not wholesome, with the biggest issues for Piper and her two sisters involving whether a neighbor should pay double or triple if Tori babysits her triplets, and whether Samantha (Sam) can call herself an author if she is writing but has not had anything published. In addition to trying to raise money for her club, Piper has to do a research paper on Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper to cut grain: “Maybe Cyrus McCormick was like spinach. Maybe knowing about him was good for you.” Piper, as usual, soon finds herself overwhelmed, between doing illustrations for Sam’s book and the need to do her own homework – plus babysitting, party planning and more. Everything becomes a big mess, and Piper learns the inevitable lesson, “It’s better to do one job well than three jobs poorly.” Piper will bounce back, of course, and she and the other Gypsy Club members are already looking forward to more adventures at the book’s end. Piper seems a bit like an updated Eleanor Estes character – although Christine Davenier’s illustrations, old-fashioned though they are, don’t look much like those of the Moffats. Piper has a certain not-quite-up-to-date charm that comes through even when she uses Post-It notes and does research on the Internet.

     Moxy Maxwell has charm, too, and also has a little more inherent mischievousness than does Piper. Moxy does not love writing thank-you notes and does not love Stuart Little, as we know from titles of Peggy Gifford’s previous Moxy books. The neat thing about the Moxy books is that you can figure out almost everything that happens by just reading the chapter titles: “What Mrs. Maxwell Really Said Next or The Amazing Mind of a Tired Mother Who Is Not Too Tired to Focus.” “In Which Moxy Tries to Remember Where She Put the Note.” “In Which the Word ‘Intermission’ Is Explained.” “In Which ‘Heart and Soul’ Begins and Ends.” And so on – and on and on. It’s a good thing the chapter titles are so useful, because they are often nearly as long as the chapters themselves (86 chapters in 175 pages – wow!). The plot here focuses on Moxy’s upcoming piano recital, during which she plans to wear a crown and for which she is making fake ermine trim for her cape (one of many matters shown in Valorie Fisher’s photo illustrations). Moxy has also practiced her bow – a lot. What she hasn’t practiced is the piece she is supposed to play. The typesetting can be as much fun here as the narrative. Chapter 49, “The Part of the Story in Which Mrs. Maxwell Begins to Climb Slooooowly Up the Stairs to Find Out Why Moxy Hasn’t Started the Big Dress Rehearsal,” for example, offers the word “slowly” with a nearly uncountable number of “o’s” (all right, there are 129 of them) and then has the words “by step” repeated, stepwise, up the next page. Eventually, after a bout of stage fright and the timely intercession of Aunt Susan Standish, a self-proclaimed Mistake Expert, everything works out just fine – of course. Moxy’s adventures are a little too frantic and a touch too contrived for all tastes, but she is certainly spunky enough – and amusingly self-involved enough – to build an ever-growing fan base.

(++++) A QUARTET THAT “AMES” HIGH

The Ames Piano Quartet, 1989-2009: Piano Quartets by Dvořák, Fauré, Richard Strauss, Charles-Marie Widor, Schumann, Brahms, Paul Juon, Sergei Taneyev, Borodin, Joseph Suk, Vitězslav Novák, Martinů, Chausson and Saint-Saëns. Mahlon Darlington, violin; Lawrence Bulkhalter and Jonathan Sturm, viola; George Work, cello; William David, piano. Dorian Sono Luminus. $49.99 (8 CDs).

     It would be unfair to characterize string quartets as a dime a dozen, especially in light of the cost of the instruments they play. But they are certainly common – in contrast to piano quartets, which are not common at all. Playing the great piano-quartet literature usually means adding a pianist to an existing trio or removing a violinist from an existing string quartet and inserting a piano player. The results can be quite wonderful, but they are not to be compared with what happens when a piano quartet is formed specifically as a piano quartet and plays together, time after time, year after year. When that happens – which, again, it rarely does – the music-making can be truly special, as it is in this wonderful 20-year retrospective of recordings by the Ames Piano Quartet.

     The Ames is the resident chamber-music ensemble at Iowa State University – located in Ames, Iowa; hence the quartet’s name. The players have been together for many years: Jonathan Sturm recently assumed the viola role previously held by Lawrence Bulkhalter, but violinist Mahlon Darlington, cellist George Work and pianist William David have been together through the entire 20-year time span covered by this new release. Unfortunately, Dorian Sono Luminus does not give dates for the recordings, but in fact they are more or less chronological through the first seven CDs, the disc of Dvořák’s two piano quartets being the oldest and that of quartets by Suk, Novák and Martinů the most recent. The eighth CD belongs somewhere in the middle of the pack: it was originally released by Musical Heritage Society and here appears on the Dorian Sono Luminus label for the first time.

     In fact, it was already true in 1989 that the Ames Piano Quartet offered wonderfully well integrated sound and thoughtful, perceptive interpretations: its Dvořák CD is a highlight of the set and one of the best recordings these quartets have ever received. The rather sunny Dvořák works (from 1875 and 1889, respectively) contrast interestingly with the two minor-key piano quartets by Fauré on the next CD. Fauré was fond of modal music, using the Aeolian mode in his first piano quartet (1876-9) and the Phrygian in his second (1885-6). Fauré’s unusual technique of recombining themes in different contexts (in terms of harmony and texture) is especially well brought out by the Ames players. In their hands, these quartets sing beautifully.

     Less well known are the piano quartets of Richard Strauss and Charles-Marie Widor, on the third CD in this set. Strauss wrote his at age 20. It is a well-made work but not highly distinctive except insofar as it looks ahead to other Strauss works, notably in the dramatic Scherzo and in a violin passage that anticipates Till Eulenspiegel. Widor, best known for his organ music, wrote a rather Liszt-influenced quartet with a prominent piano part and a modal element akin to Fauré’s: Widor’s quartet’s finale features a theme in Lydian mode. The Ames Piano Quartet handles these two lesser works with the same attention to style and detail that it gives to more-accomplished pieces, making as good a case for the music as is likely to be made by anyone.

     The fourth and fifth CDs in this release return to music of stellar quality: Schumann’s sole piano quartet and the three by Brahms. Here the Ames players are simply wonderful. Schumann’s Piano Quartet strongly contrasts staccato with legato passages and, in the Scherzo, sounds a bit like Mendelssohn, who was a friend and mentor to Schumann. There is also songlike beauty here, in the slow movement, and the Ames players truly make it sing. In Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 (in G minor), the performers give as much care and attention to the first three movements as to the famous concluding Gypsy rondo, making the work sound more intense and unified than it sometimes does. In Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 2 (in A), the passion and songfulness flow freely, and the finale emerges with some of the same intensity as the Gypsy rondo of the earlier quartet. The composer’s third quartet (in C minor) can be problematic: it was started before either of the other two (and was originally in C-sharp minor); but it was finished later, and there is some confusion about how Brahms worked it into final form. That sort of thing is academic, though, when the Ames players offer such a finely honed reading of the work, whose first two movements are intense and stormy but whose third offers placidity and peace before a finale of pervasive melancholy, if not quite tragedy. The shifting moods of the music require just the sort of careful attention to detail that the Ames Piano Quartet provides.

     Less-familiar music returns in the sixth CD of this set. Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) was the teacher of Paul Juon (1872-1940). Taneyev’s work clearly reflects the language of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, and Juon carries a similar approach into the following compositional generation. But as it happens, both these composers’ piano quartets date to the same year, 1906. Taneyev’s offers soaring melodies and some very effective contrapuntal passages; Juon’s gives the cello special prominence and is filled with passion expressed in a rather free style – in fact, Juon called his work Rhapsody rather than a piano quartet, and the term is apt. This CD is filled out what a piano-quartet arrangement by Geoffrey Wilcken of Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor. These wonderful dances – intended for full orchestra and chorus – have survived all sorts of arrangements and survive this one, too. The players do their usual fine job here, but the arrangement adds nothing to the music.

     The seventh CD here includes three Czech piano quartets, none of them particularly well known (although Josef Suk’s remains popular among Czech players). Suk’s piece (in A minor) is his Op. 1, and it has the passion and confidence of a youthful composer who wrote it on assignment from his teacher, who was none other than Dvořák. It actually became Suk’s graduation piece from the Prague Conservatory – on Dvořák’s recommendation. This quartet retains freshness and songfulness and has an especially lovely central Adagio. As for Vitězslav Novák, he was one of Suk’s classmates. His sole Piano Quartet (in C minor) was written in 1894, three years after Suk’s quartet, and thoroughly revised in 1899. Its highlight is a bright, charming central movement with the unusual but apt designation of Scherzino. The Suk and Novák quartets are in considerable contrast to the one written by Bohuslav Martinů in 1942. It opens with a nervous, energetic, piano-centered movement that stands in strong contrast to the lyricism of the following Adagio, in the first half of which the piano is silent. The finale flows with determined cheerfulness that the Ames performers bring out with verve.

     The last CD in this set returns to the Romantic era. Chausson’s Piano Quartet is a somewhat derivative work – themes and harmonies clearly reflect the influence of Wagner – but it has warmth and songlike charm aplenty (and yet another use of modes, with Phrygian and Mixolydian variants appearing in several of the work’s four movements). This is a pleasant work but not an altogether convincing one, even when played as well as it is here. The quartet by Saint-Saëns, though, is a joy. A well-unified four-movement work whose first movement’s themes return in the finale, it includes impressive contrapuntal writing in an Andante maestoso ma con moto and has a strange, rhythmically jerky sort-of-scherzo that leaves an impression not unlike that of the composer’s Danse macabre – which was written in 1874, just a year before this quartet.

     There are nine-and-a-half hours of piano-quartet music in this marvelous set – far too much for a single hearing, or several. This release is a delectation, an immersion in the extensive literature of a musical combination that has sonorities and emotional impact all its own. The playing is exemplary, the music ranges from the interesting to the great, and the set as a whole is a grand and lasting tribute to the skill and intelligence of the members of the Ames Piano Quartet.

(++++) MORE BIRET BOUNTY

Idil Biret Beethoven Edition, Volume 11: Piano Concerto No. 5; Choral Fantasia. Idil Biret, piano. Turkish State Polyphonic Chorus and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit. IBA. $8.99.

Idil Biret Beethoven Edition, Volumes 14-15: Symphonies Nos. 6 and 9 (Liszt Piano Transcriptions). Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $17.99 (2 CDs).

Idil Biret Concerto Edition, Volume 3: Saint-Saëns—Piano Concerto No. 5; Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Piano Concerto in D for the Left Hand. Idil Biret, piano. Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jean Fournet. IBA. $8.99.

     It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the multitude of Idil Biret Archives releases of the Turkish pianist’s diverse and impressive recordings, both old and new. The Beethoven Edition CDs are really three series in one: the concertos, the sonatas and the Liszt transcriptions of the symphonies. And the Beethoven concerto sub-series is not to be confused with the Concerto Edition, which includes works by composers other than Beethoven. The Beethoven Edition itself is due to have 19 volumes, but Volume 12 has not yet been released – although 13 through 15 have. And the various recordings showcase Biret, who was born in 1941, at very different times in her career. The three latest IBA releases include works recorded just last year (Volume 11); ones recorded in 1986 (Volumes 14-15); and, in Volume 3 of the Concerto Edition, a Saint-Saëns performance from 1999, a Ravel G Major from 1998 and a Ravel Left-Hand Concerto from 1996.

     What makes this confusion worth wading through are the artist at its center and the intellectual as well as emotional stimulation of hearing her highly organized, carefully structured approach to all this music – an approach that has remained remarkably consistent through the decades. Biret’s formidable technical skill is always placed at the service of carefully analyzed, fully thought-through interpretations that frequently show familiar works in a new light. This is not to say that her readings will be to all tastes. Quite the contrary: her latest CD of Liszt transcriptions, for example, can actually be difficult to endure, played at what is often so grindingly slow a pace that the Ninth – the transcription over which Liszt labored longest and with the most misgivings – lasts almost an hour and a half, putting it at or beyond nearly all the symphonies by Mahler. In fact, the finale – which runs 32 minutes here – lasts nearly as long as Mahler’s longest single symphonic movement (the first movement of his Third Symphony). This is not Beethoven for every listener and probably not even for most – it is Beethoven for committed musicians who really want to understand the underlying skeletal framework of the composer’s final symphony, hear in great detail how the harmonies are built, how the themes relate to each other, how the careful choice of key structure seems to make the use of a chorus in the finale inevitable – a fascinating realization since, of course, there is no chorus in Liszt’s transcription. This is not at all an accessible performance, but it is one of great depth and intellectual rigor.

     Similarly, Biret keeps things slow and stately for the “Pastoral” symphony: she certainly has the power needed to bring forth the fourth-movement thunderstorm, but she seems more comfortable dissecting the second movement, “Scene by the Brook,” with such care that the usually flowing water seems positively stagnant. Biret pulls apart this music with tremendous care and understanding, but in so doing loses the forward momentum of the symphony as a whole. It is easier to appreciate this performance than to love it – but it is hard not to consider it revelatory.

     Things are more straightforward in the “Emperor” concerto and Choral Fantasia. Biret prefers deliberate tempos here, too, but not to an inordinate extent. This “Emperor” has genuine majesty, with an especially expansive first movement that marches from start to finish with firmness and dignity. The magisterial approach continues through the second and third movements as well, with Antoni Wit and the Bilkent Symphony providing workmanlike support that keeps the focus on Biret while placing her dominance in a suitable context. In the Choral Fantasia, Biret is a touch too cool and controlled in the opening, extended piano solo, which works better if it sounds more improvisatory than it does here: her phrasing and rhythm are excellent, but what is missing is a sense of abandon (the whole piece was written as an extended encore to a famous and very lengthy 1808 concert). Still, Biret’s control and ever-present understanding of the music are apparent and attractive, and the choral and orchestral sections complement her solo work very nicely indeed – leading to a rousing conclusion.

     Biret offers fine if somewhat undistinguished readings of the three French concertos on the latest Concerto Edition CD. Saint-Saëns’ final piano concerto, known as the “Egyptian” because the composer wrote it in Luxor and it reflects his impressions of Egypt and other areas to which he traveled, has stateliness and sweep in this performance, although the second movement, marked Andante, is a very slow-paced walk indeed. Biret does some particularly nice work with the jazzy finale – a rather forward-looking movement for 1896, especially considering the composer’s reputation as a conservative musical thinker. In Ravel’s G Major concerto, which dates to 1931, Biret pays close attention to the expressivity and nuances of the score but becomes a trifle too enmeshed in detail to present an effective overarching concept. However, her top-notch technique stands her in good stead in the Presto finale. In the Concerto for the Left Hand, written in the same year, Biret’s intelligent and slightly cool approach brings out the score’s intricacies to fine effect, and the Bilkent Orchestra under Jean Fournet plays with understanding and a good sense of style – as it does in all three of these works.

(++++) STYLISH AND STYLELESS

Once Upon a Twice. By Denise Doyen. Illustrated by Barry Moser. Random House. $16.99.

The 39 Clues, Book 5: The Black Circle. By Patrick Carman. Scholastic. $12.99.

     It is rare for a children’s book to succeed based almost solely on its style, without regard to its underlying story – and Once Upon a Twice is a rare book indeed. The plot of this book for ages 4-7 is nothing much: an age-appropriate warning given by older mice to young ones to be careful what they do so they can avoid danger. But the telling of the tale is simply marvelous. Denise Doyen turns and twists language every which way to create a book that almost has to be read aloud – and that is even better when spoken than when read silently. “They runtunnel through the riddle— Secret ruts hid inbetwiddle— But one mousling jams the middle! Whilst he goofiddles, others howl.” The troublemaker, “a riskarascal in repose,” has “dropped preycautions” and incurred a safety lecture that “the elder mouncelors whispercroon” to him: “Open moonlight is a menace. Trust in shadows – disappear.” But little Jam, unafraid, goes off on his own, “sneaks un –aware, -afraid, -asham’d” into the open – where his carelessness attracts a deadly enemy of mice everywhere. What happens then to Jam – and what the incident means to young mice from then on – is the heart of the book’s lesson, but not of its beauty. That comes from a combination of Doyen’s language with the intricate, lovingly realized illustrations by Barry Moser, which sparkle with reality while heightening it, bringing extraordinary loveliness to a firefly’s spark, a flash of moonlight, a flower petal, the slender shape of a reed. The mice here are treated anthropomorphically, but they are drawn with accentuated realism – to which Moser adds humanizing touches, such as the small stick that one old mouse uses as a cane. Doyen’s gentle manipulation of language melds beautifully with Moser’s accentuation of the natural world that at the same time pushes beyond its boundaries. The result is a work that goes beyond the boundaries of most children’s books into a land of rare delight and considerable elegance.

     The stylistic contrast between Once Upon a Twice and 10-book sequence The 39 Steps, a fairy tale series in its own way, could scarcely be greater. Aimed at preteens, the series is succeeding through its consistent lack of style: although the 10 novels are being written by seven different authors, there is very little to distinguish them from each other. The Black Circle, the fifth book, gets a (+++) rating: it is written colorlessly but with the series’ trademark excitement and multiple double-crosses by Patrick Corman, who is better known (and should be) for his Land of Elyon books. Readers approaching the midway point of The 39 Steps will already know all the intricacies of the central Cahill family, which splits into multiple lines that, among them, include pretty much all the famous and notorious people of history – which gives every author a chance to inject a short history lesson into his or her novel. The Black Circle, set primarily in Russia, offers a bit of information on the czars and rather more on Rasputin, who (of course) turns out to have been a Cahill. Corman does occasionally throw in a good line – “Ian Kabra had been in the back of a limousine hundreds of times but never when covered in meat pies” is one of the funniest asides in the series so far – but for the most part, Corman sticks to the formulaic skullduggery with which this series is rife. Attentive readers will be a bit surprised at the way this book progresses, since the previous one, Beyond the Grave, indicated that the mysterious Madrigals would play an important role here, but there is barely any reference to them. Still, there are enough turncoats and almost-turncoats and mysteries and piles of bones and cryptic (or encrypted) bits of writing to keep things moving at a predictably hectic pace. There is also what appears to be an outright error – actually unusual for this series – in having notes written by 19^th-century Europeans use the American date sequence: 2-1-1826 is presented (as the context makes clear) as February 1, but it ought to be January 2; and 10-07 turns out to be October 7, although in Europe it would be July 10. Fans of The 39 Clues are unlikely to care about such niceties, though – they will be more interested in the game cards (of which six are packaged with each volume of the series, including The Black Circle), the Web site and the other elements of this series’ universe, which may not have stylish presentation going for it but has plenty of plot twists and excitement to keep its fans interested.

(+++) URBAN FANTASIES

Night’s Cold Kiss: A Dark Brethren Novel. By Tracey O’Hara. Eos. $7.99.

Model, Incorporated. By Carol Alt. Avon. $13.99.

     There are dark fantasies, and then there are dark fantasies. Vampire fantasies are all the rage now, from the prissy and rather sweet Twilight series to much more adult fare – such as Night’s Cold Kiss, the first novel by Tracey O’Hara and the first book of what is sure to be an ongoing series. O’Hara writes a fast-paced, formulaic vampire romance with plenty of familiar elements (vampire and human vampire killer who are destined to become lovers as well as partners) and some cleverly offbeat ones (a school for vampire hunters that enrolls children as young as age six). The characters are just what you would expect them to be. When Antoinette, the star-crossed human whose mother was killed by a vampire (a typical back-story element), sees the vampire Christian, “His lean frame rested casually against the wall, hands in the pockets of his stylish dark Armani suit. Midnight hair brushed the collar of his red silk shirt, which lay open at the throat[,] and his pale skin shone beneath in shocking contrast. It suited him. Her gaze ran over the rest of him, sensing the power coiled beneath his casual demeanor. Like a cobra ready to strike. She raised her eyes to his and they stared back with a twinkle of amusement.” Antoinette is no slouch in the looks department herself, as Christian discovers soon enough: “A red and black dragon tattoo sat in the small of her perfect back, the tip of the tail disappearing into the crevice between her buttocks just beneath her panties. …He’d seen literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of women in varying stages of dress and undress in his life time. But he’d rarely seen anything of such beauty. Antoinette was put together perfectly. Her muscles danced beneath her skin enlivening the tattoo dragon – he swore the beast watched him.” This slightly purple prose is the stuff of romance novels, which in many ways is what Night’s Cold Kiss is. But it draws equally on current takes on the supernatural, including both good vampires and evil ones (and of course good and evil humans as well); silver-nitrate-filled bullets as the anti-vampire weapon of choice; and a peace treaty between humans and vampires that is endangered unless the human vampire-hunters known as Venators can work successfully with the upstanding Aeternus vampires, such as Christian, against the evil rogue Necrodreniacs. The names and basic plot description make Night’s Cold Kiss sound sillier than it is: in fact, O’Hara does a good job of uniting her mostly conventional elements into a well-paced story that delivers considerable punch, even if nothing in it is exactly a knockout. But this is, after all, a first novel, and it will be interesting to see whether O’Hara progresses stylistically as well as in terms of plot and character development in future ones.

     Model, Incorporated is a second novel – a followup to real-life model Carol Alt’s debut, This Year’s Model. This is a fantasy of a different kind, in which a basically good girl (Melody Ann Croft, known as Mac) gets swept up into the high-stakes modeling world and finds herself tempted by all the evils of fame. Having decided that modeling is just a step on her way to college, Mac discovers in Model, Incorporated just how big a step it is and how difficult it can be to avoid taking one step more…and one more…and one more…all in stilettos, of course. Despite her penchant for four-letter words, Mac is just too well grounded to be fully believable, with her small-town background, loving family and a head that is screwed on straight as well as being surpassingly lovely. It’s impossible to sympathize with her concerns about all the hard work involved in photo shoots, first-class world travel, a life in five-star hotels and oodles and oodles of money and fabulous clothes. Yes, she encounters some nasty people and has some disturbing run-ins with men who want only one thing – or maybe more than one, none of them being particularly upstanding – but it is clear from the start (as it was from the start of the previous novel) that Mac has the intestinal fortitude to make it through whatever life throws at her (which includes, among other things, being the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl). Even when accused of being no more than a high-priced hooker (“a cheap floozy,” as Mac puts it), Mac gets just the right advice at just the right time, from someone who has been there – or at least whose sister has: “‘My sister – sweetest girl in the world. Truly. The nicest. But these reporters, they have a knack for twisting up words and facts. They love to tear you down. If you’re prettier or richer or more successful or more talented – wham! That’s when it happens. …[But] it’s when they stop talking about you that you have to worry.’” Still, Mac worries about her clients and, worse, her parents seeing such terrible stuff, until she learns to ignore the bad things and just focus on all the good ones, of which there are plenty. Although there are surely elements of truth in Mac’s world – Alt has, after all, been there – it tends to come across as no more believable than one populated by vampires and vampire hunters, being just as over-the-top as a supernatural romance. That’s part of the charm of Model, Incorporated, of course: pure escapism. “Who says I can’t have a little fun?” Mac asks herself at one point. She is talking about relationships, but her question could just as easily be posed by readers of this book. Why not have a little fun here before returning to your real reality?