(++++) QUINTESSENTIAL ROMANTICS

Idil Biret Solo Edition, Volume 7: Schumann—Papillons; Carnaval; Arabeske; Waldszenen. Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $9.99.

Rubinstein: Symphony No. 6; Don Quixote. Philharmonia Hungarica conducted by Gilbert Varga (Symphony); Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michael Halász (Don Quixote). Naxos. $9.99.

     The “Solo Edition” releases from IBA, featuring recent performances by Turkish pianist Idil Biret, have turned into an ongoing celebration of two of her favorite composers, Liszt and Schumann. The first three “Solo Edition” releases featured Liszt works, the second set of three featured Schumann, and now the seventh CD is also devoted to Schumann. And “devoted” is exactly the right word, because Biret plays this music with quite exceptional understanding and devotion. Aside from Arabeske (1839), a pleasantly lyrical rondo that Biret handles with finesse and gentleness, all the works on the new CD are in multiple sections – giving the pianist plenty of opportunities to highlight not only harmonic and rhythmic contrasts but also emotional ones, the heart of Romanticism. The early Papillons (1831) incorporates still-earlier material in its 12 short sections, which are nominally program music but which simply come across as nicely contrasted dance trifles – the whole handled by Biret with suitable delicacy and without overstating the music’s pleasant but rather constricted emotional palette. There is more meat to Carnaval (1835), for all that its subject is overtly lighthearted. The work’s 21 sections include some that are self-referential (“Florestan” and “Eusebius,” pen names used by Schumann in his music criticism), some that reflect other musicians (“Chopin” and “Paganini,” the latter unsurprisingly requiring considerable virtuosity), and some that bespeak figures from the commedia dell’arte (“Pierrot,” “Arlequin,” “Pantalon et Colombine”).  The work is designated sur quatre notes, the notes representing Schumann himself and the town of Asch, and it looks ahead to his later relationship with Clara Wieck in a section called “Chiarina.” The challenge in Carnaval is to give each character piece individuation while holding the whole work together through recognition of its four-note structural underpinning. Biret makes the whole of Carnaval flow naturally and with an apparent simplicity that belies the structural care with which Schumann assembled it. Carnaval is fun to hear, as one would expect of a piece whose title refers to the masked balls at carnival time; but it is far from trivial, and Biret understands this and makes it clear through her carefully controlled performance. She carefully manages Waldszenen (1848-49) as well, giving each of its nine sections its own color and characteristics. Several of these woodland scenes approach the level of miniature tone poems, notably Verufene Stelle (“Haunted Place”) and the concluding Abschied (“Farewell”). Biret is sensitive to the nuances of all the pieces and lets them flow naturally through their different moods, producing a wholly satisfying, suitably atmospheric performance that shows yet again just how thoroughly in tune she is with Schumann’s piano music.

     There is considerable atmosphere as well in Anton Rubinstein’s final symphony, No. 6 (1886) – especially in its first and second movements, whose drama approaches the operatic, with the second-movement Moderato assai scarcely providing significant respite from the initial Moderato con moto. Rubinstein’s Romanticism was deemed rather stultifying, especially by the composers who came afterwards, and he himself was not always sure where he fit within 19^th-century composition circles – he produced both programmatic works and “pure music” (this symphony is of the latter type), but tended to lack the intensity and level of commitment of composers such as Brahms, of whom Rubinstein was not particularly fond. The Sixth Symphony actually has three movements containing the word “Moderato,” the finale being marked Moderato assai, and this helps show why Rubinstein’s music did not have the staying power of that of some of his contemporaries. He seemed unwilling to take a strong, personalized stance at a time when Romanticism led to expectations that serious composers would delve deeply into themselves in producing their works. The Sixth Symphony is certainly well-made, its third movement (a Scherzo in all but name: it is marked Allegro vivace) being particularly propulsive. But the work as a whole does not stay strongly with listeners after it is over. It is coupled on this (+++) Naxos CD with Don Quixote (1870), which follows the basic arc of Cervantes’ novel rather closely, although without the wit and orchestral cleverness that Richard Strauss was to bring to the same subject in 1897. Rubinstein called his Don Quixote not a tone poem but a Humoresque for Orchestra, and it is in fact somewhat on the light-hearted side, despite the underlying seriousness of the picaresque novel on which it is based. The performances on this CD – a re-release of readings from 1985 and 1986 that originally appeared on the Marco Polo label – are solid and substantial, although neither Gilbert Varga nor Michael Halász seems particularly entranced with Rubinstein’s music. This is nevertheless a worthwhile release for listeners interested in the work of a composer better known for his extraordinary success as a concert pianist than as a substantial creator of music of lasting value.

(++++) BABY BUSINESS

A Book of Babies. By Il Sung Na. Knopf. $15.99.

Little Frog’s Tadpole Trouble. By Tatyana Feeney. Knopf. $16.99.

     Playful and endearing, Il Sung Na’s A Book of Babies is intended – well, for babies. Targeting children up to age three – a group usually reached with board books rather than oversize hardcovers like this one – the book is meant to be read by an adult, with Na’s pictures enjoyed by the child as he or she listens to the simple story of animal parents with their new babies. The animals are drawn anthropomorphically, with human-like gestures and expressions, although Na’s text mostly gives accurate scientific information about them. For example, when it comes to babies, the text points out, “some can walk right away” – and the illustration shows adult zebras with a baby. “Some are carried in their mommy’s pouch,” writes Na, showing a kangaroo mom smiling at her wide-eye joey. “Some are carried in their daddy’s pouch,” Na adds, showing a seahorse family – portrayed in an unrealistic but very pleasant rainbow of colors. The book ends at the end of all the baby animals’ “very first day,” as all settle down to rest. A Book of Babies is a pleasant foray into the animal kingdom, showing very young children creatures born with fur (polar bears) and scales (lizards, shown – inaccurately – with the mother lizard tending the hatchlings), in a nest (ducklings) or in water (fish), and giving parents a chance to introduce very young children to books as well as to non-human infants.

     Na comments that the fish in her book “have lots of brothers and sisters,” and that is precisely the issue in Tatyana Feeney’s Little Frog’s Tadpole Trouble. This book, for the slightly older age range of 2-5, features the same sensibility and simple, amusing drawings found in Feeney’s Small Bunny’s Blue Blanket and Little Owl’s Orange Scarf. The primary color in Feeney’s new book is, of course, green, although it is not mentioned in the title; even the text is green – but bits of red enliven the otherwise all-green illustrations in some very clever ways. Little Frog and his parents really do not look like frogs at all, except in the vaguest way; but that scarcely matters in a book that features Little Frog jumping rope, playing a drum set and otherwise doing all sorts of un-froggy things. The topic of the book is only frog-related on a superficial level: the subject is the difficulty inherent in becoming a big sibling. Little Frog is happy that the family consists only of himself and his parents, but then he learns that he is about to become the big brother of nine – count them, nine – tadpoles. And he is not happy, since the only thing the tadpoles do is “take up all of Mommy’s and Daddy’s time.” Busy Mommy cannot read a bedtime story to Little Frog, and infant-focused Daddy cannot give him a good-night kiss, because of those “stupid tadpoles,” as Little Frog calls them. But Daddy points out that Little Frog was once a tadpole himself, and the tadpoles will one day turn into frogs just like him – and sure enough, that is what happens, so that Little Frog soon enough finds himself with “nine new playmates,” to whom he is “the best big brother.” This is an even bigger simplification of big-sibling-hood than is usual in kids’ books, but it works well for the targeted age range, and the illustrations are so amusingly silly that the message should go down easily. Little Frog’s Tadpole Trouble can be a wonderful book for a child who is destined to become a big brother or sister perhaps a little before he or she is quite ready to face the reality of what that means.

(+++) BEING HEARTABLE

Kitty Hearts Doggy. By Jeremy Greenberg. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems. By J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian. Pictures by Jeremy Holmes. Schwartz & Wade. $17.99.

The Never Girls #5: Wedding Wings. By Kiki Thorpe. Illustrated by Jana Christy. Random House. $5.99.

     The ♥ symbol, originally made famous, or notorious, through the “I ♥ New York” promotional campaign, now turns up just about everywhere, and not just in advertising and promotion. Jeremy Greenberg’s Kitty Hearts Doggy, one of those “Awww, so cute!” gift books, is actually entitled Kitty ♥ Doggy, which could equally well be “translated” as Kitty Loves Doggy as long as the potential cuteness could be deemed equal. (Somehow “Hearts” seems cuter than “Loves.”) In any case, the book is certainly ♥-able, or lovable, or cute enough, because it not only contains the expected adorable cuddliness of cats and dogs (which are really not natural enemies) but also turns the animal adorableness into a sort of road map for human dating. Actually, that part is a little confusing, but it is certainly meant to heighten the overall cuteness factor somehow. Each cat-and-dog photo comes with typical relationship notes: “Been together,” “Relationship secret” and “quotations” from the animals. For example, Callie and Basil have been together “since the dog realized that cats are warmer than pillows (about 5 years).” The time frame is probably accurate – why wouldn’t it be? – but is that a real explanation of the closeness? How about this one, for Cooper and Jax? They have been together “since the human switched us to weight-control kibble, and we had to find new sources of comfort (about 3 years).”  Or this, for Bailey and Sam? “Since the dog had her cone removed and remembered what it was like to love again (about 7 years).” Believe what you will of these – and also of the “relationship secrets,” such as “knowing who really barfed cat food, and not telling,” “complementary mood disorders,” and “find a shampoo that drives the kitties crazy.” The “comments” by the cats and dogs, intended to be amusing in a humans-might-say-something-like-that way, are the weakest part of the book: “What I love about my cat is that he knows how to be loved.” “When you’re in a codependent relationship with a dog, you have to accept that there’s no amount of comforting that will ever make up for lost balls.” “I just can’t believe I waited this long to be happy.” Whether or not you ♥ this book will depend on how you react to its unusual combination of adorable photos with somewhat-less-than-adorable “relationship writing.” Of course, it’s a small-size “gift book,” so if you decide it isn’t quite right for you, you can always pass it along.

     The ubiquitousness of the ♥ starts well before gift-book-giving time. It is, for example, already there in Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems, for ages 4-8, which includes a poem called “The Love Car” that goes as follows: “I ♥ the shape./ I ♥ the hue./ I ♥ to drive my love car too./ I ♥ the shine./ I ♥ the wheels./ I ♥ the way my love car feels.” And so on. What the book does is to take this dose of poetry by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian, then add a whole set of Monty Python-inspired illustrations by Jeremy Holmes: both the front and the back of this car are shaped like hearts, as are the headlights, taillights, seats and outside mirror, and the license plate is “I LUV.” The result is something so over-the-top that the only way to top it would be to turn the page. Doing that might land you on a poem about “Hot Dog Car”: “My hot dog car is lots of fun/ And comes with relish on a bun./ It runs on tons of sauerkraut/ Or mustard when you’ve just run out.” Or “Bathtub Car,” which comes “With hot-water heating/ And porcelain seating.” Or perhaps “High-Heel Car”: “There was an old woman/ Who lived in high heels./ She loved one so much/ That she gave it three wheels.” The authors point out that “someday our fantastic cars/ Might look like cool dark chocolate bars,” and that would scarcely be the strangest appearance in a book whose autos are powered by balloons, shaped like fish, overgrown with grass, travel only backwards, or are “eel-ectric.” This whole book is a flight of somewhat overdone fancy, the weirdness of its illustrations even surpassing that of its poetry, which is really saying something. Parents may or may not ♥ the unmitigated silliness here, but the authors and illustrator do seem to have figured out how to think like kids in their target age range.

     The age range for Disney’s The Never Girls series is slightly older, 6-9, and this is a sequence aimed squarely at female readers. It is about four not-particularly-well-differentiated girls: fairy-loving Gabby, beauty-loving Mia, animal-loving Lainey, and adventure-loving Kate. The four all get what they ♥ through a series of stories in which they encounter and interact with fairies by going through a broken slat in a fence – a mundane-looking break that is actually a portal between the human-being town of Pixie Hollow and the fairy world of Never Land (yes, that Never Land, the world of Peter Pan as reimagined by Disney). Simply written and focusing on dialogue rather than description or anything else that might slow the pace, the books are easy to read and straightforwardly illustrated, the problems within them being minor and more amusing than genuinely troubling. In the fifth book in the series, Wedding Wings, Gabby is supposed to be the flower girl at a wedding, and the fairies find that so intriguing that one of them stows away in Gabby’s flower basket – with predictably amusing results that never quite get serious enough to reveal the existence of fairies to any adults. The most enjoyable part of the misadventure has the fairy Bess become accidentally covered in chocolate and then finding it hard to run because her coating is hardening. Of course, that problem doesn’t last long – nothing does in these books – and even Gabby’s comment that “she had spoiled Julia’s perfect wedding” is soon turned around to “the ceremony went by in a joyful blur.” Girls who ♥ simple chapter books lightly sprinkled with magic will enjoy each entry in The Never Girls, including the latest one. There is nothing at all complex or challenging in the plot or writing, but the mild amusement and pleasant pacing of Wedding Wings will give fans of this sequence plenty to ♥.

(+++) SCORING A TRIPLE

The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. By Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld. Penguin. $27.95.

     Well-written, strongly argued and patently designed to be as provocative as possible, this 320-page book – nearly one-third of it comprising notes and the index, as if defying readers to disbelieve any of its assertions – throws a new spanner into the works of ongoing American “culture wars.” The wife-and-husband Yale Law School team of Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld sheds considerable light, and not a small amount of heat, on an issue best encapsulated as “equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome” – an issue that, so formulated, is of crucial sociopolitical importance in the United States.

     Essentially, one side of the argument says that the United States should be a culture in which everyone has an equal chance to succeed in whatever way he or she chooses to define success – and that if some sort of societal barrier can be shown to interfere with this chance, it is society’s responsibility to remove that barrier so certain people are not hobbled by an unfair “opportunity disadvantage.” The other side says that societal barriers are so widespread and significant that simply removing them is not enough – that people suffering from them must be given an “opportunity advantage” equal to the disadvantage imposed on them by society, and thus must be raised to a level that they simply cannot attain on their own because of the depth of their disadvantage.

     This formulation plays out in nearly every sphere of everyday life, and its nuances can be extraordinarily complex. Should African-American children receive additional tutoring before taking standardized tests that are crucial for college admissions – “equality of opportunity” if one accepts that idea that the effects of slavery demonstrably affect them 150 years after slavery’s abolition, even if neither they nor anyone in their families was ever enslaved? Should they be admitted to colleges with lower test scores than other ethnic groups achieve – “equality of outcome” based on the same analysis? Should the tests be rewritten to eliminate possible cultural or social bias that could make it harder for them to achieve high scores – “equality of opportunity”? Or should the tests be dropped by colleges altogether so there is no hint of possible disadvantage imposed on any group – “equality of outcome”?

     There are no right or wrong answers to these questions – only opinions, albeit ones with far-reaching consequences. And in The Triple Package, Chua and Rubenfeld make arguments and offer opinions that may render the opportunity/outcome dialectic largely obsolete in its current form. Taking undoubted statistical outcomes as their basis, the authors argue that three specific characteristics explain the extraordinary success of certain racial or religious groups relative to others and to the United States as a whole. One of the three elements they cite is no surprise, but the other two are sure to be more controversial.

     The unsurprising finding relates to self-control, the ability to defer gratification. “America is the great wrecker of impulse control. …It’s hardly news that modern America today is not big on strictness in childhood or impulse control in general, at least as compared to traditional societies. …American culture today celebrates a powerful live-in-the-moment message. The not-so-secret truth, however, is that successful people typically don’t live that way. On the contrary, the successful are often the ones profiting from the people who do live that way. …Success in America today comes more often to groups who resist today’s dominant American culture.” This point is arguable, but only half-heartedly, since the preponderance of evidence, whether cited by Chua and Rubenfeld or not, seems clearly to support it – at least as long as one deliberately excludes certain forms of success, for example in the entertainment field (pop music, movies and so forth).

     The other two elements of The Triple Package are more disputable and more intriguing. One is a group’s belief that it is superior in basic ways to other groups and to American society as a whole – Jews as the “chosen people,” Mormons’ belief that “they can and do receive direct divine communications and revelations,” Indian Americans’ “belief in their ‘distinctive and superior family/ethnic culture,’” etc. The fascinating thing is the way Chua and Rubenfeld find this second element of the “package” intertwined with the third: along with feeling superior, members of successful groups “tend to feel insecure, inadequate, that they have to prove themselves.” That is, two-thirds of The Triple Package consists of the belief that “we are better and know it, and have to prove it to the others out there.” That is not a quotation from the book but a summation of part of its argument. And certainly the authors understand that the need to assert and prove one’s superiority is not an unalloyed blessing: “In case it’s not obvious, there’s nothing intrinsically empowering about being the object of discrimination and prejudice. For anyone, including members of groups with a superiority complex, the accumulated weight of having the ‘wrong’ skin color or facial features, the relentless tide of stereotypes and media caricatures, can eventually be too much, crushing the spirit.” But in some marginal or marginalized groups, this is not what happens: group members, to a disproportionate degree, absorb stereotypes and negative portrayals, meld them with an underlying conviction of superiority, and as a result succeed, measurably, to a greater degree than do other groups and American society as a whole.

     This is a fascinating argument and sure to be a highly controversial one, as the authors quite obviously intend. It has the distinct advantage of being in large part backed by statistical findings regarding large numbers of people: Cubans who fled Fidel Castro’s regime with virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs and settled in Miami demonstrably rose to prosperity remarkably quickly, within a single generation; Nigerians statistically earn doctorates in the United States at exceptionally high rates; and so on. But The Triple Package has the distinct disadvantage of being unable to show how and why the statistical trends emerge – that is, why the three elements cited by Chua and Rubenfeld operate on a macro level but have no predictive value on a micro level. If all members of a particular racial or ethnic group share the three cited “upward mobility” characteristics, what is it that leads some group members to turn those elements to their advantage while others fail to do so? For example, Chua and Rosenfeld cite the case of Lebanese-American Joseph L. Jacobs, who became a top executive of Mobil Oil and then head of Montgomery Ward – a tremendous success that, amusingly, disappointed his mother, who wanted him to buy his “own store.” But in telling the story, the authors mention, entirely in passing, that the success pressure that helped Jacobs excel did not motivate everyone in his family: “his eldest brother rebelled.” Why? In what way? What personality differences lead the same “triple package” to affect Person A in one way and Person B entirely differently? These are questions that Chua and Rosenfeld consistently sidestep, with the result that their book is less persuasive than it could be if they had good answers to them.

     It is certainly interesting, though, particularly when the authors assert that the United States, taken as a whole, was a “triple package” country for some time but has been losing that distinction for quite a while. If this is true, does it portend “doom” of some sort for American society as a whole, or “merely” for ingenuity and creativity within the United States – or neither of the above? Readers should not look for answers to such complex questions here. They can, though, look for – and find – plenty of fodder for cocktail-party conversation and maybe, just maybe, some new insights that help elucidate the complexities underlying the ongoing argument about equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome.

(++++) THE PERSISTENCE OF DANCE

Johann Strauss Sr. Edition, Volume 25. Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina conducted by Christian Pollack. Marco Polo. $16.99.

Kara Karayev: The Seven Beauties—Ballet Suite; The Path of Thunder—Ballet Suite No. 2. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. Naxos. $9.99.

Saverio Mercadante: Flute Concertos Nos. 1, 2 and 4. Patrick Gallois, flute and conducting Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä. Naxos. $9.99.

     To the very end of his life, Johann Strauss Sr. continued to produce the tuneful, well-made and highly danceable music for which he was known in Vienna and around the world – as evidenced by the 25^th and final volume in the excellent Marco Polo series of Strauss’ complete music. As in earlier volumes, Christian Pollack proves himself an absolutely first-rate advocate of this music, which the Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina plays with verve, enthusiasm and a sure sense of style from start to finish. Strauss died of scarlet fever in 1849, at the age of 45, leaving behind a fragment called Radetzky-Bankett-Marsch (“Radetzky Banquet March”) that would have been his Op. 250 had he lived to complete it. This one-minute remnant is, appropriately, the final piece on this CD, its 20 complete bars showing no flagging of the warmth and spirit that always pervaded Strauss’ music. The remaining works on the disc were all created under a cloud of sorts: the 1848 revolution had been suppressed, and by Carnival time in 1849, when Strauss would normally have brought forth numerous works greeted with great joy, the atmosphere in Vienna and elsewhere was more somber than usual. The specific pieces, though, are not. This CD includes three waltzes: Die Friedesboten (“Messengers of Peace”) and Soldaten-Lieder (“Soldiers’ Songs”) have obvious ties to the events of 1848, while Deutsche Jubellaute (“German Sounds of Joy”) may have been Strauss’ response to the fact that many German principalities regarded him as a reactionary in connection with those events. There are, however, no political elements anywhere in the music – Strauss had long given his works titles relating to contemporary people and occurrences, with most of them reflected little or not at all in the dance tunes themselves. Also on this CD are three very well-formed marches: Jellacic-Marsch, named for a military leader who for a time was regarded as highly as was Radetzky, Wiener-Jubel-Marsch, and Wiener Stadt-Garde-Marsch. There is one polka here, Exeter-Polka, and there are two quadrilles, showing that Strauss retained a fondness for this form to the end of his life: Almacks-Quadrille, named for an exclusive social club in London, and Quadrille ohne Titel (“Quadrille without Title”), published after the composer’s death. Strauss Sr.’s music never attained the symphonic heights and elegance of the music by his sons Johann Jr. and Josef, but it was never intended to: Strauss Sr. wrote occasional music, designed to enliven people’s humdrum existence and give them something to celebrate year after year, through consistently beautiful themes and rhythms that made dancing seem as natural as breathing. His legacy is beautifully served by the first-rate Marco Polo series devoted to it.

     In his own way, Kara Karayev (1918-1982) was just as much a composer of a specific time and place as was Johann Strauss Sr. Karayev, a pupil of Shostakovich, was Azerbaijani, and throughout his life was fascinated by the folk music of his native land – music whose exotic-sounding elements are as prominent in Karayev’s works as are the sounds of Armenia in the music of Aram Khachaturian, a better-known composer who also flourished in one of the nations contained in the old Soviet Union. Like Khachaturian in his ballets Spartacus and Gayane, Karayev found the dance forms of ballet highly congenial for storytelling that allowed him to use ethnic melodies and harmonies to striking effect. His first ballet, The Seven Beauties (1953), is in fact the first-ever full-length Azerbaijani ballet. But its story comes from an altogether different place, being based on a work by the 12^th-century Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi – considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature. The suite from this tale of the seven wives of a shah is built around short, highly evocative dances representing each of the women, with considerable color and effective use of differing rhythms. The Path of Thunder (1958), Karayev’s second ballet, is exotic in a different sense, being the tale of a doomed interracial love in apartheid-era South Africa – and using a considerable amount of African music to complement some lovely, atmospheric orchestral writing in which oboe and English horn parts stand out. Dmitry Yablonsky conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with enthusiasm and skill on this Naxos CD, bringing the dance rhythms to the fore and taking full advantage of the coloristic elements of Karayev’s approach to orchestration.

     There are also ethnic dance elements in the flute concertos of Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870), although they are not the primary reasons for the concertos’ being. In fact, these concertos exist outside the mainstream of Mercadante’s work: he was primarily an opera composer (writing more than 60) and was for a time spoken of in the same breath as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, whose careers and his overlapped. Mercadante had a fine sense of the dramatic, and his operas paved the way for the techniques used by Verdi. But his seven flute concertos (one of which is for two flutes) are closer to academic exercises, having their origin in his conservatory days amid students and teachers who were virtuosi and who clamored for new works for their instrument. Mercadante had a strong sense of the capabilities of various instruments; the flute’s were more limited at the time of these concertos than they were to be in later years, and Mercadante pushed them to those limits but not beyond. The result is a series of attractive but rather formulaic concertos, three of which Patrick Gallois plays and conducts with considerable skill and apparent enjoyment on a new Naxos CD. Whether in major keys (No. 1 in E, No. 4 in G) or minor (No. 2 in E minor), the three-movement concertos follow the same pattern: a first movement that is as long as the second and third combined, a second that is the shortest of the three and functions more like a bel canto interlude than an emotional center, and a third featuring those ethnic dances – Polacca brillante in Nos. 1 and 4, Rondò russo in No. 2. Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä plays the concertos with enthusiasm on this (+++) disc, and although no one would call this great music – a better description would be “pleasantly insubstantial” – the CD provides an enjoyable opportunity to hear some pieces whose lack of depth does not diminish the auditory pleasures they bring.

(++++) BOARD BOOKS AND BEYOND

Small Bunny’s Blue Blanket. By Tatyana Feeney. Knopf. $6.99.

The Crayon Box That Talked. By Shane DeRolf. Illustrated by Michael Letzig. Random House. $6.99.

How to Be a Pirate. By Sue Fliess. Illustrated by Nikki Dyson. Golden Books. $3.99.

How Do Lions Say I Love You? By Diane Muldrow. Illustrated by David Walker. Golden Books. $3.99.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Retold by Jane Werner. Illustrated by Sheilah Beckett. Golden Books. $3.99.

     Board books for the youngest children, up to age three, and the well-known line of Little Golden Books for slightly older kids, are not only designed for enjoyment. Many have a great number of different messages to communicate. The board-book version of Small Bunny’s Blue Blanket, Tatyana Feeney’s delightful look at the relationship between a little bunny and his must-have blankie, is as much fun as the original, published in 2012. It shows all the things that Blue Blanket “helps” Small Bunny do: paint pictures, read books, play in the sandbox, and more. But when Mommy says both Small Bunny and Blue Blanket need a bath – uh oh! “Small Bunny thought Blue Blanket was perfect the way it was.” Mommy disagrees and insists on washing bunny and blanket, the former in the tub and the latter in a washing machine that runs for 107 minutes – during all of which Small Bunny watches and waits. Eventually Blue Blanket is all clean, which is exactly what Small Bunny does not want, so he promptly sets about restoring his blankie to the way he likes it – with plenty of “swinging, painting, reading and playing.” The littlest children will enjoy the simple but amusing drawings here as they learn about a bunny who – perhaps just like them – has a special bond with a blankie, but has to learn to separate from it now and then.

     The lesson is a broader one and somewhat more heavy-handed in The Crayon Box That Talked, Shane DeRolf’s 1997 book that is now available in board-book form. The rhyming story, and the illustrations by Michael Letzig, are all about diversity and the importance of cooperating and working together. In a toy store, a little girl overhears a box of crayons squabbling, with certain colors saying they simply don’t like others and don’t want anything to do with them, for no apparent reason. So the girl buys the crayons and uses them – all of them – to produce a picture to which they all contribute. And sure enough, when the picture is finished, all the colors appreciate each other, noticing how each has a place in the overall scheme of things and deserves as much respect and liking as every other one. This strong “message” book lays things on a bit too thickly for all but the youngest children – but that makes it particularly effective in board-book format, since board books are targeted at kids whose age makes them least likely to bristle at the obviousness of the message.

     The messages vary quite a bit in three (+++) Little Golden Books – and so do the books’ own ages. How to Be a Pirate is simply a romp, with Sue Fliess introducing kids ages 2-5 to silly pirates who teach pirate language, recommend parrots, show how to “do a jig in pirate pants,” and more. This all-new book is pure fun, the only aim of Fliess’ story and Nikki Dyson’s equally silly illustrations being to elicit some laughs and enjoyment – which the book does. Diane Muldrow aims for something a bit more meaningful in How Do Lions Say I Love You? Like other books in which anthropomorphic animals express human emotions, this one – originally published in 2009 – gently suggests parallels between animal behavior and human love. The David Walker illustrations follow Muldrow’s rhyming text closely: “Swans mate for life ’cause they’re truly love-struck,” for example, features swans with their heads together and their necks bent to form a heart. Giraffes are shown with necks entwined, wolves expressing themselves “with a howl and a huddle,” hens clucking, nightingales singing love songs, and so on. The book is pleasantly insubstantial, providing a nice opportunity for parents to discuss ways in which animals show human-like affection, or at least appear to do so. As for Sheilah Beckett’s illustrations for the classic Grimm fairy tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, they exist primarily for fashion-conscious little girls: the rather grim story (which in the original has distinct sexual overtones) fades into the background in Jane Werner’s simplification, and the focus is on how the princesses dress as they go on their nightly underground adventures, where they dance with mysterious princes until the princesses wear out their shoes. There is significantly more narrative in this book than in How to Be a Pirate or How Do Lions Say I Love You? Thus, The Twelve Dancing Princesses will appeal more to children at the upper end of the 2-5 age range, while the other books will be of interest to younger readers and pre-readers. The elements that make the Grimm story attractive to older age groups, including the death of those who cannot discover where the princesses dance and the magical help given to the soldier who eventually solves the mystery, are downplayed here in favor of a focus on illustrations that have held up surprisingly well since this version of the story was first published as long ago as 1954. These three Little Golden Books will appeal to children with very different personalities – not so much offering something for everyone as presenting different things for children with very different interests.

(+++) NO STOPPING YET

The 39 Clues: Unstoppable—Book One: Nowhere to Run. By Jude Watson. Scholastic. $12.99.

The 39 Clues: Unstoppable—Book Two: Breakaway. By Jeff Hirsch. Scholastic. $12.99.

     The 39 Clues is such a phenomenon at this point that calling the latest sequence of books Unstoppable seems inevitable (in fact, maybe the next sequence should be called Inevitable). The structure of this interactive multimedia series and of the books within it is now firmly established. Each book contains six trading cards; each card unlocks one online clue upon entry of the code appearing on the card. Within the books, the primary approach is adventure and the secondary one is history, since the Cahill family – which is at the center of all the novels – turns out to include or at least have interacted with practically every famous person that readers can think of or about whom they will learn in the course of the books.

     The books themselves change points of view frequently, allowing readers to see the story developing from multiple angles. Characters are one-dimensional and generally have comic-book-like motivations when they have any at all, but characterization is not a significant element in this universe: action and complex (but not too complex) plots are what The 39 Clues is all about. Unstoppable is the third series, and the authors of the first two books are quite comfortable with this sort of plotting and pacing. Nowhere to Run is by Jude Watson, an old hand at these books: he wrote Beyond the Grave, In Too Deep and part of Vespers Rising in the first sequence and A King’s Ransom in the second. Watson is responsible for the overall story arc of Unstoppable. The second book in this sequence, Breakaway, is by Jeff Hirsch, who is new to The 39 Clues but has clearly absorbed the authorial approach that the books require.

     The nefarious doings here affect an older and somewhat more seasoned Dan Cahill (now 13) and Amy Cahill (now 16). Unstoppable dips into the whole reason for the existence of The 39 Clues: those clues refer to 39 ingredients in a serum that, like the “one ring to rule them all” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth but without the inevitable darkness, will turn the possessor into the most powerful person on the planet. Inevitably there is darkness following the serum and its keepers – currently Dan and Amy – around, and that is the underlying plot mover of Unstoppable. In Nowhere to Run, an unscrupulous presidential candidate named J. Rutherford Pierce attacks Amy and Dan, steals the serum and plans to conquer the entire world. Readers who do not find this silly – merely absurd – will enjoy Amy’s and Dan’s attempt to find an ingredient for an antidote to the serum, a quest that is predictably world-spanning (Australia, New York City, Dublin, London, Istanbul, the inevitable “undisclosed location,” and so on). The tale is told with the usual hyperbole: “It had never happened before. Never, ever, ever. Nobody had ever done it and many had tried.” The dialogue is just what readers will expect, too: “This feels way sketchy to me.” “Come on. There’s no time.” “C’mon, kiddies, we don’t have all day.” Nothing is particularly original here, and nothing is supposed to be: Nowhere to Run does a good job of sending Amy and Dan on their latest quest to places known and obscure, for appropriate save-the-world purposes, as their ill-intentioned opponents seek to outmaneuver them.

     And Breakaway keeps things going nicely, as Dan and Amy realize that the power of their precious serum can be used against them and they must journey to the ends of the Earth – just about literally, since the book’s settings range from the equatorial to the Arctic – to try to prevent disaster. Again there are the expected sorts of descriptions, comments and thoughts: “You may be strong and fast, but it’s time to see which one of us is smart.” “Every inch of her body throbbed with pain.” “There’s no way I’m letting these people down.” “Time to go to war.” “Who’s the bad guy? You? Or me?” Actually, the question of good guys and bad guys gets a touch more complicated than usual in this book, since the plot twist here involves Dan apparently being betrayed by the one ally he has been able to count on throughout all his adventures: Amy. This sort of thing has happened before, as readers of The 39 Clues will remember, and it’s a reliable plot trope in adventure novels in general. Still, fans of this ongoing series will enjoy trying to figure out just who is on whose side and who is pursuing what agenda here, although all readers will understand that Dan and Amy cannot possibly end up on opposite sides of things. “Most people think he’s nuts,” one character here comments about another. And Dan replies, “Sounds like our kind of guy.” Indeed, anyone with goodness in his or her heart and a predisposition for the victory of the benevolent managers of history (the Cahills) vs. the evil ones (J. Rutherford Pierce and many others) will be “our kind of guy” (or gal) in Unstoppable, as in the previous incarnations of The 39 Clues. At this point, these thoroughly unsubtle, easy-to-follow multimedia adventure stories show every sign of continuing to expand to such a degree that they can fairly be considered, well, unstoppable.

(+++) TRANSFORMATIVE THINKING

Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently. By Caroline L. Arnold. Viking. $27.95.

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. By Scott Adams. Portfolio/Penguin. $27.95.

     The start of a new year is a traditional time for self-evaluation and contemplation of change, for looking in new directions and seeking new ways to deal with challenges. January, named for the Roman god Janus – whose two faces look in both directions at the same time – is an apt time to look back at what has worked and forward into the unknown and, one hopes, a brighter future. Hence the tradition of New Year’s resolutions, which most people know are “more honored in the breach than the observance,” as Shakespeare put it. Simply resolving to do better, to be better, is not enough to become better in whatever way one chooses to define “better.” So there are inevitably umpteen books available, with new ones emerging constantly, purporting to present the secret to self-improvement or, more modestly, a secret. Two that aim at much the same target but approach it very differently are Small Move, Big Change, by Goldman Sachs managing director Caroline L. Arnold, and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by cartoonist and serial entrepreneur Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.

     One point on which the books agree is that big goals are counterproductive; this is why typical New Year’s resolutions fail. If, for example, you set yourself a goal to lose 20 pounds, that seems like a big thing to do and a distant accomplishment, making it hard to summon the willpower, day after day, to keep moving incrementally toward the place where you are ultimately determined to end up. Even if you eventually get to the goal, it is likely to prove unsatisfying after a very short burst of pleasant feeling relating to the accomplishment. And because it does feel unsatisfying – and requires additional willpower for maintenance – it is likely to slip away as your limited supply of willpower is used elsewhere. That willpower limitation is a significant underlying element of the arguments in both these books; however, the authors offer radically different approaches to dealing with the issue. Arnold’s is to take the well-known admonition to break down big tasks into small ones and use it as the basis for your personal life. In other words, instead of deciding to make a big change, have your goal be to make a small, easily attainable one – which then becomes the first step toward making another small change – which leads to another, another, and another, eventually resulting in goal attainment. You do not give up on goals, but you break the big ones down into small, manageable parts requiring a minimal amount of willpower – parts that soon become so automatic that you need no willpower at all to maintain them. For example, instead of resolving to clean up the clutter caused by leaving clothes everywhere – a problem that Arnold found she simply could not address – you decide to hang up your coat when you come home from work. That’s all. Just hang up your coat. This is a small thing, requiring minimal thought and focus, and quickly becomes automatic; and it opens the way toward another small decluttering move, which opens the way to another, and so on. Instead of tackling big projects that seem overwhelming, tackle small ones – this is Arnold’s approach in a nutshell.

     Another of her examples is a financial one. Wedded to convenience and able to pay for it, she had a habit of withdrawing cash at whatever ATM might be most convenient. But she realized that her spending, on a macro level, was out of control. Instead of tackling that issue – a huge one for many people, including Arnold – she decided never to withdraw cash from an ATM that charged a fee. That created some inconvenience: Arnold lives and works in New York City, so she had to walk a bit to get to a no-fee ATM, just as people elsewhere might have to drive some distance to find one. But the willpower to make this small change was not hard to come by, and Arnold soon found the trip to a no-fee ATM becoming part of her routine and no longer needing willpower for maintenance at all. Furthermore, when she realized how easy this small money-saving habit was, she was encouraged to look for other, similar, small and low-willpower moneysavers, allowing her gradually to chip away at the larger issue of her overspending in general. The advantage of Arnold’s approach is the ease with which it can be applied in multiple areas of life. Instead of the goal of using the computer less after work, create the goal of shutting it off at, say, 10:00 p.m. – as Arnold did. Instead of resolving to exercise more, decide to use the stairs instead of the elevator at the office every day – or to park in the most-distant part of the parking lot and walk to your office building instead of looking for a space closer to the entrance. Instead of trying to force yourself to get more sleep – a losing proposition for most people – tie your bedtime routine to something easy to identify and use as a marker: Arnold decided to get herself ready for sleep immediately after putting her daughter to bed, so she could go to bed herself as soon as she started to feel tired, with no further preparation. There is actually very little new in Arnold’s approach, built as it is on Lao Tzu’s famous epigram, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and on the standard business practice of breaking down a huge project into smaller component parts. The value of Small Move, Big Change lies in Arnold’s personal examples, with which many readers will readily identify, and in her layout of a specific set of approaches to be used for developing and implementing what she calls “microresolutions”: make each one measurable and personal, be sure it delivers some sort of immediate payoff, make only two at a time, and so on. Arnold’s rules are formulaic, true, but may very well be helpful to people looking for clear guidance on creating modest goals and using them to reach larger goals that, on the face of it, seem impossible to attain.

     Or you can abandon goals altogether – which is what Adams argues for in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. The key word in this book’s title is “almost,” since Adams has no problem parading and enumerating his many entrepreneurial failures within the context of his one gigantic success, the Dilbert comic strip. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big may well be a major disappointment to Dilbert fans, since its connection to the strip is marginal and it contains very few cartoon illustrations. Furthermore, unlike Adams’ previous book for Portfolio/Penguin – Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! – this one has almost nothing in it about the comic or about creating and employing humor. There is a chapter called “Humor,” but it runs all of five pages and is presented in the context of very serious advice about how to live your life to invite luck and success to enter it. Not that Adams actually says his book will do that: he repeatedly says the opposite, that readers should not take what he says and run with it, should not unquestioningly accept lifestyle and self-help advice from a cartoonist whom they do not even know personally, should not assume that what has worked for him will work for them. More Shakespeare is worth quoting here: “The lady” – gentleman in this case – “doth protest too much, methinks,” seems appropriate, because beneath all the disclaimers and modesty lies a reality that goes something like this: “You don’t have to listen to me, follow my approach, pay attention to my ideas, but please notice that I am a rich, highly successful person who, among other things, got paid a lot of money to write this book telling you all the things that have led to my success, and you are not a rich and highly successful person or you would presumably not be reading this book.”

      Now that that’s out of the way, exactly what are the revelations Adams offers? His “happiness formula” is actually a quite simple, unexceptionable one that has little new about it: eat right; exercise; get enough sleep; “imagine an incredible future (even if you don’t believe it)”; try to have a flexible schedule; do things at which you can keep getting better; help other people if you have already taken care of yourself; and “reduce daily decisions to routine.” The last of these speaks to Adams’ attitude toward goals, even the sort of goals that Arnold favors: they are useless and for losers. Adams argues that any goal is self-limiting and that the way to live is through systems that do not merely reduce the need for any of your limited amount of willpower – they eliminate it altogether. It is by creating essentially mindless, self-perpetuating systems, Adams argues, that you can live a life in which luck will find you and you will be better able to identify good things that come your way in the natural course of time.

     Adams has a wide variety of these systems, which he uses to “program” the “moist robot” that is, he says, the human body. Whether his approach is rational or simply rationalizing is a matter for each reader to decide – the decision likely depending on how seriously you take Adams’ assertions about the way the universe works (for him), the importance of affirmations (as he uses them), and so forth. The “systems” idea is the most useful takeaway from this book, because it neatly shows the weaknesses of goal-setting in general while establishing that a continuous, non-willpower-driven process is better for improving one’s life than a discontinuous set of ever-changing (even ever-evolving) goals. For example, Adams is a committed vegetarian (although he does eat fish from time to time), and his system for sticking to a vegetarian diet and not being tempted to eat non-vegetarian foods makes sense: he stocks his home only with things he can eat, and – because he acknowledges the blandness of many such foods – he keeps a wide variety of flavorings (he provides a list of them) readily available, and also makes sure that the foods themselves are within easy reach at all times so that, when he really wants to grab a snack, he will grab a healthful one. Adams admits that vegetarian eating is much easier in California, where he lives, than it would be elsewhere – an amusing anecdote (one of the few bits of humor in the book) explains what happened when he tried to order vegetarian food from hotel room service in Kansas – but his point is to figure out what systems work for your particular circumstances, including geographical ones, and go from there.

     Adams does have strong opinions on some subjects, including some nutritional ones: “If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. …Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit.” How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big has been endorsed by many international coffee-growers’ associations – well, not really, but it could be. Whether Adams’ analysis of coffee’s benefits works for you will depend on the programming of your own “moist robot” and on how persuasive you find his arguments to be. One element of the persuasiveness will involve how closely your everyday life parallels Adams’. As he points out, his “life requires a lot of mental energy. …The key to my doing that many things is that I eat right, exercise daily, and have lots of control over my schedule, which allows me to match my tasks with my mental state.” If your life does not give you the level of schedule and personal-time control that Adams’ does, many of his specific recommendations will fall short or be impractical. But his overall optimism – even in the face of some significant health challenges, which are among the issues he discusses in this book – is a plus for anyone, although if you do not have a naturally optimistic inclination, no book can rightfully tell you that you ought to have one or show you how to change your baseline personality.

     It is a shame that How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big is not written more humorously, because humor is Adams’ major talent – and he does explain how it relates to other elements of life, such as stripping out the nonessential in order to get to the core of matters. When Adams does leaven things a bit, comments that elsewhere in the book seem Pollyanna-ish or simply silly come across far more attractively: “I find it helpful to see the world as a slot machine that doesn’t ask you to put money in. All it asks is your time, focus, and energy to pull the handle over and over. A normal slot machine that requires money will bankrupt any player in the long run. But the machine that has rare yet certain payoffs, and asks for no money up front, is a guaranteed winner if you have what it takes to keep yanking it until you get lucky. In that environment, you can fail 99 percent of the time, while knowing success is guaranteed. All you need to do is stay in the game long enough.” This is the core of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, and if readers may justifiably look askance at the reference to “rare yet certain payoffs” and being a “guaranteed winner,” they can at least learn from this sample of Adams’ statements how he sees the world working for him, and can decide on their own whether his attitudinal and behavioral prescriptions are likely to bring similar results for them. The answer, of course, is a resounding “maybe,” just as the success of Arnold’s small-goal approach is a “maybe” of a different sort. Neither of these books guarantees anything; neither author can reasonably claim to have a system that works for everyone (although, at bottom, that is what both do claim). What both Arnold and Adams offer is a particular way of looking at the world, with an eye toward solving the everyday problems of living in it. You pays your money and you takes your choice – and you remembers that there are lots of other self-help, self-actualization choices out there.

(++++) OLD STYLE AND NEW

Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-3. Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel. Sally Matthews, soprano; Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano; BBC Symphony Chorus (in No. 2); Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano; Philharmonia Voices and Tiffin Boys’ Choir (in No. 3). Signum Classics. $38.99 (5 CDs).

Mahler: Symphony No. 6. Bamberger Symphoniker-Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie conducted by Jonathan Nott. Tudor. $19.99 (SACD).

Mahler: Symphony No. 8. Manuela Uhl, Michaela Kaune and Marisol Montalvo, sopranos; Lioba Braun and Janina Baechle, altos; Stefan Vinke, tenor; Michael Nagy, baritone; Albert Dohmen, bass-baritone; Chor der Bamberger Symphoniker, Tschechischer Philharmonischer Chor Brünn, Windsbacher Knabenchor and Bamberger Symphoniker-Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie conducted by Jonathan Nott. Tudor. $19.99 (SACD).

     Gustav Mahler’s music has been a central element of the repertoire for long enough now – some 50 years – so that distinct styles of performing it have emerged. The earliest well-known ones are those traceable to Bruno Walter, who knew Mahler personally and who tended to emphasize the emotional elements of Mahler’s music at the expense of its cragginess and careful structure; and Leonard Bernstein, who generally conducted Mahler at fever pitch and with a white-hot intensity that was highly effective even when it ran roughshod over the composer’s more delicate, chamber-music-like qualities. No conductor today follows the Walter or Bernstein approach strictly, but some lean more strongly toward what may be called an old-fashioned way of handling this music, while others find new things in it and tend to look in less-explored directions.

     Lorin Maazel’s Philharmonia Orchestra readings of the first three symphonies on Signum Classics are very much of the old school. Recorded at live performances in April and May 2011, these are big, broad, frequently stately performances that give full vent to Mahler’s expansiveness and the gigantism of his concepts and the methods with which he brought them to fruition. The biggest of the three symphonies, No. 3, gets by far the best performance here: so large-scale, so all-encompassing and so beautifully calculated to show the contrasts among the movements and the gradual progress of the work from raw nature to universal love that it deserves to be called transcendent. Maazel gives the middle movements their full due, which is quite unusual in readings of this symphony: the Tempo di Minuetto and Scherzando become fully integrated parts of Mahler’s magnificent, sprawling conception. Too many conductors, old-school or no, focus on the huge first movement, the vocal fourth and fifth ones, and the gorgeous capstone of a finale, leaving the Tempo di Minuetto and Scherzando sounding a bit like way stations passed on route from something wonderful to something different but equally wonderful. Not so here: Maazel paints a very broad canvas throughout, with those middle movements being as crucial to the design as all the rest. There is something operatic in Maazel’s approach – part of its old-school nature – and the result is highly effective from start to finish.

     The First and Second are equally well played but not interpreted at this lofty level. The issues in them speak to Maazel’s old-fashioned handling of the music: he tries to bring extra intensity to important transition points through tempo changes that are not in the score and that Mahler – a brilliant conductor as well as composer – would surely have included had he wanted them. Again and again, Maazel slows down before an important downbeat or emotional flashpoint, then plunges ahead with renewed vigor. He surely sees this approach as emphatic – there is no other rationale for it – but in fact it serves mainly to slow the forward momentum of the music at exactly the points at which it can least afford to be held back. The fourth movement of Symphony No. 1 and the first movement of No. 2, both of which can tend to meander, are particularly ill-served by this approach. There are many felicitous touches in Maazel’s readings of these symphonies: the contrasts and bizarreries of the third movement of No. 1 are especially well handled here, and the vocal movements of the “Resurrection” are beautifully sung and filled with feeling and a sense of wonder. But as in some other old-style performances of Mahler, these readings suffer from an attempt to put more into the music than is necessary for it to have maximum impact. Mahler knew just what he wanted and just how to get it – the very best performances use that fact as their starting point and extract from the music what is already in it, rather than trying to add anything.

     And that brings us to Jonathan Nott’s handling of Symphonies Nos. 6 and 8. Nott is a new-style Mahler conductor, and his insights into these works are always fascinating and often genuinely revelatory. In the Sixth, Nott uses the march form, which pervades this symphony, as the key to unlock its mysteries and the strength of its communication. Like Maazel, he offers a very expansive reading – Tudor’s engineers manage to get the full 80½ minutes onto a single SACD, which is an impressive achievement – but unlike Maazel, Nott looks to the details of the symphony rather than its large scale to produce its effect. The huge first movement and even bigger finale, both of them essentially marches, stride forth decisively and never lose their forward momentum, even when the gorgeous second theme of the first movement appears or when the hammer blows of the finale resound shatteringly (Nott uses two of them, not three – as is more common nowadays than it used to be). One of Mahler’s salient characteristics is the continual emergence from a gigantic orchestra of brief solos – passages for individual instruments that help give his works their remarkable chamber-music-like feel. This is something to which Nott is particularly sensitive, for instance in this symphony’s Andante moderato (placed third; some conductors place it second, but it works better in third position by providing respite before the extremities of the finale). Nott also takes full advantage of the truly remarkable sensitivity of the Bamberger Symphoniker-Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie to this music: the orchestra plays with visceral understanding of Mahler’s sound world and rhythmic complexity – Maazel’s Philharmonia, although certainly a world-class orchestra, does not have the burnished tone and apparent ease of sectional balance that Nott’s ensemble possesses throughout. Nott takes full advantage of his orchestra’s superiority in this music to highlight numerous elegant touches in Mahler’s score, allowing inner voices to emerge from the ensemble and then subside with a feeling of natural ebb and flow that makes the “story arc” of Mahler’s Sixth seem supremely smooth as well as inevitable. This is a remarkably fine performance that is very much in the new style of conducting Mahler.

     Nott’s Mahler Eighth is equally fine. The attention in this work is most often on the sheer size of the forces it requires – hence the “Symphony of a Thousand” designation, a neat appellation of which Mahler disapproved. In fact, it is the detail of the Eighth that is most remarkable, and Nott is fully aware of it: the booklets for his Sixth and Eighth even contain a short essay by him on both symphonies, in which it becomes obvious just how thoroughly he has thought through their approaches and forms of expression. The odd combination of the ninth-century hymn of the first part of the Eighth with the final scene from Goethe’s Faust as the second part makes analytical sense when the words are examined closely – but to make musical sense, the juxtaposition requires an approach as sensitive as Nott’s: he carefully brings forth the motifs from the first part that recur and are expanded in the second, thereby showing how the medieval religious fervor of the beginning is deepened and rendered substantially more complex by Goethe’s scarcely orthodox handling of analogous themes at the conclusion of his masterpiece. The mysticism and soaring beauty of the appeal to the eternal feminine in Goethe have as their counterpart the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the symphony’s first part, and it is particularly fascinating to realize that the assertive, masculine God at the center of Western religion is wholly absent from this entire symphony. What is going on here, although the language is that of orthodox organized religion, is something entirely different – and Nott’s performance allows the Eighth to expand into genuinely cosmic realms, the expressions of glory and ecstasy mounting higher and higher until, at the end, the symphony’s worlds-spanning (not merely world-spanning) grandeur emerges triumphant. Nott’s interpretation stays quite true to Mahler’s tempo and dynamic markings, not adding anything to the score that the composer did not put there, but it extracts from the score a great deal more than old-school conductors – more concerned with the overwhelming nature of this symphony than with the intricate details of its construction – generally bring forth. There is a clarity to Nott’s performance that stays with the listener long after the sheer size of this monumental work has been fully absorbed. Old-style Mahler conducting still has a great deal to recommend it, especially for listeners new to the composer’s works. But new-style performances such as Nott’s show why Mahler’s reputation and importance continue to grow after so many years and so many concerts and recordings: there is still much to be uncovered and discovered in these astonishing scores, and the best new-style conductors continue to find gems sparkling throughout them.

(++++) MAKING DISCOVERIES

Villa-Lobos: The Guitar Manuscripts, Volume 1. Andrea Bissoli, guitar; Federica Artuso, guitar; Stefano Brait, flute; Schola San Rocco Chorus conducted by Francesco Erle; Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Fabio Mechetti. Naxos. $9.99.

Xavier Montsalvatge: Folia daliniana; Madrigal sobre un tema popular; Concertino 1+13; Serenata a Lydia de Cadaqués; Cinco invocaciones al Crucificado. Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano; Tim Fain, violin; Perspectives Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez. Naxos. $9.99.

James MacMillan: Missa Dunelmi and Other Choral Works. Cappella Nova conducted by James MacMillan and Alan Tavener. Linn Records. $22.99 (SACD).

Hindemith: Music for Cello. Sébastien Hurtaud, cello; Pamela Hurtado, piano. Naxos. $9.99.

     Anyone looking to step outside the standard repertoire and still encounter works of very considerable musical interest has an increasing numbers of ways to do so. Whether well-known or less-known, composers often leave behind works that, for any of a variety of reasons, fail to engage the imagination of performers and audiences – but that turn out, at a later time, to be well worth exploring. In the case of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), known to most listeners almost entirely through his Bachianas Brasileiras, there is some music that was thought lost and has only recently been rediscovered – in part by guitarist Andrea Bissoli, who has now recorded the first of a planned three-volume set of Villa-Lobos’ guitar works. Very little on this Naxos CD will be at all familiar to listeners, although the Guitar Concerto, which has been recorded by others and gets particularly skillful handling here, may be known to some. The final work on the CD, a transcription of the first movement (“Aria”) from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, will be known to even more people, although not in this version (which features soprano Lia Serafini). However, several other works here get world première recordings: Cirandas No. 14, Valsa and Motivos Gregos – the last of these being an interesting choral work that is well sung by the Schola San Rocco Chorus. None of these pieces is particularly  substantial – Valsa lasts less than a minute – but all show the fine workmanship for which Villa-Lobos is justly admired. The composer’s unique blend of cosmopolitanism with Brazilian folk music appears again and again on this recording, which is essentially (except for the Guitar Concerto) a collection of short pieces. Simples, Valse-Choro and Cirandas No. 1 are instrumental works; Floresta de Amazonas: Canção do Amor and Veleiros, Canção do poeta do século XVIII, and Serestas No. 5—Modinha are vocal pieces featuring Serafini. This CD is not a very good introduction to Villa-Lobos – the pieces are not entirely representative of his oeuvre and are mostly not at his highest compositional level, although the Guitar Concerto is very well made. But for listeners with a modicum of familiarity with the composer, this CD and the two volumes yet to come will be pleasantly revelatory.

     Music lovers attracted to Villa-Lobos’ Brazilian intricacies may also find themselves interested in the Catalan sensibilities of Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002). Montsalvatge actually had wide-ranging stylistic interests, and his concern for music went beyond the works that he himself composed: he was an influential critic. Although not particularly well-known internationally, Montsalvatge was enormously important in Catalonia, the area of northeast Spain and adjacent France where the Catalan language dominates. Montsalvatge’s more-substantial works reach beyond ethnicity to communicate with cross-cultural genuineness that is highly effective – especially so in his major song cycles, such as Cinco invocaciones al Crucificado (1969), sung with intense feeling on Naxos’ new CD by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and conducted with sure-handed skill by Angel Gil-Ordóñez, one of the foremost exponents of modern small-ensemble works, both choral and instrumental. Cooke also gives a lovely rendition – with cellist Wendy Sutter – of Madrigal sobre un tema popular (1991), whose theme is the well-known Catalan Christmas song, El cant dels ocells (“Song of the Birds”), most familiar in its cello arrangement by Pablo Casals (who was Catalan: his first name was actually Pau). Other pieces here are Folia daliniana (1995), a fantasy with elements of Impressionism; Serenata a Lydia de Cadaqués (1970) for flute (Sato Moughalian) and piano (Blair McMillen); and the very interesting Concertino 1+13 (1975), in which violinist Tim Fain is “first among equals” with Gil-Ordóñez’ very adept chamber ensemble. Montsalvatge’s music will be something of an acquired taste for those unfamiliar with it, but it is a taste worth acquiring: one whose emotional communicativeness and structural strength quickly grow on a listener through repeated hearings.

     The choral works of James MacMillan (born 1959) are also an acquired taste, but they are somewhat more limited in scope and orientation than Montsalvatge’s music, resulting a new Linn Records SACD getting a (+++) rating despite the fine sound that complements excellent performances by Cappella Nova. The highlight here is MacMillan’s conducting of his own Missa Dunelmi, a compressed Mass (four movements lasting 20 minutes) that lies well within the vocal ranges of chorus members and hits the right notes both musically and emotionally, but is not quite as original or heartfelt as some of the shorter works heard here. Other than the Mass, only Invocation has been recorded before: the six remaining pieces will be genuine discoveries for those interested in MacMillan and in modern religious music for chorus, since all are world premières on disc. St. Patrick’s Magnificat, …fiat mihi…, Cum videsset Jesus, I am your Mother, Domine non secundum peccata nostra (“Lord, do not pay us in kind for our sins,” best known in César Franck’s setting), and Alpha & Omega are all heartfelt works, paeans to God or prayers of hope, and all are performed quite well, with their frequent resemblance to plainchant effectively brought forth and Madeleine Mitchell’s violin in Domine non secundum peccata nostra adding a particularly nice touch. MacMillan’s works are determinedly old-fashioned and will be especially appealing to listeners interested in a modern composer’s adaptation of forms that were already well-established in Bach’s time.

     The discovery element of a new Naxos CD of Hindemith’s cello music is avowedly the performer: Sébastien Hurtaud was first-prize winner at the Adam International Cello Competition in 2009, and this disc is intended to showcase his talent. In reality, though, the music is as much a discovery as the cellist, since much of Hindemith’s output remains little-known, and his cello works will be unfamiliar to a great many listeners. Like the works of the slightly earlier Max Reger, those of Hindemith can come across as academic and even turgid when not explored thoroughly and performed with understanding as well as virtuosity. In high-quality readings, though, like those of Hurtaud and pianist Pamela Hurtado, Hindemith’s music shows considerable depth and ingenuity – even though its somewhat stolid (if skillful) construction can make it a bit hard to digest. Two pieces here are early Hindemith and two are much later, lending this CD something of a “survey” approach – and indeed, Hindemith’s cello works span much of his creative life. Three Pieces for Cello and Piano (1914-16) is one of Hindemith’s earliest works for any instruments (it is his Op. 8), with a brief introductory movement introducing two more-substantial ones that offer considerable substantiality despite their three rather lighthearted designations of Capriccio, Phantasiestücke and Scherzo. The Sonata for Solo Cello (1925), in contrast, is a work of quite modest dimensions, its five movements lasting less than 10 minutes; yet this is an intense, technically demanding piece that quite obviously owes a debt to Bach’s Cello Suites. On the lighter side – a side not often in evidence in Hindemith’s music – is A frog he went a-courting—Variations on an Old English Nursery Song (1941), which is scarcely evanescent but does give the cellist some chances to skip pleasantly about. In sharp contrast, the Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948), the latest work here, is much closer to what listeners will expect from Hindemith: intense, weighty, serious and steeped in knowledge of earlier music (the final movement is a passacaglia). Hurtaud handles all the works with sure technical skill and a level of attachment to this music that is somewhat surprising in a young cellist. Indeed, the playing is good enough to earn the CD a (++++) rating even though, on the basis of the appeal of the music itself, (+++) would be more fitting. This is music worth discovering – and a cellist definitely worth hearing.