(++++) CHARACTER COMPILATIONS

Zoe’s Jungle. By Bethanie Deeney Murguia. Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $16.99.

Nancy Clancy, Book 4: Secret of the Silver Key. By Jane O’Connor. Illustrations by Robin Preise Glasser. Harper. $9.99.

Alien in My Pocket 3: Radio Active. By Nate Ball. Illustrated by Macky Pamintuan. Harper. $4.99.

The Berenstain Bears’ Lemonade Stand. By Mike Berenstain. Harper. $3.99.

Favorite Stories from Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: School Days. By Erica Silverman. Painted by Betsy Lewin. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $12.99.

50 States to Celebrate: Celebrating Massachusetts. By Marion Dane Bauer. Illustrated by C.B. Canga. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $3.99.

     Stories matter, of course, but in some kids’ books, the attraction of recurring characters is as much an element of the fun as is the plot. Zoe’s Jungle brings back Bethanie Deeney Murguia’s charmingly imaginative character from Zoe Gets Ready and Zoe’s Room (No Sisters Allowed), this time in a story in which Zoe is thoroughly comfortable with her little sister, Addie, whom she imagines as the elusive “Addiebeast” that Zoe must capture within a strict five-minute time limit. The real-world part of the story takes place at a playground, where the girls have been given a five-minute warning by their mother – it is just about time to leave. Zoe volubly protests the deadline in a wonderful two-page layout connecting her words and body language with a dotted line along the lines of those in The Family Circus cartoons: “Is there no respect for the explorer and her quest?” she finally asks. But the countdown continues inexorably, and Zoe’s imagination shifts into high gear for a chase game: “No human has ever come so close to catching this strange animal,” the Addiebeast. This “career-defining mission” (the language here is wonderful) eventually brings explorer Zoe past all sorts of imagined perils – which Murguia contrasts with scenes in the actual playground – until “a lifetime of preparation comes down to this moment,” which is “a great moment in the history of everything.” So Zoe takes Addie’s hand and the two get ready to leave the playground with their mom – a not-quite-mundane ending, since the book concludes with Zoe promising that they are on their way to story time and that she has a great one about a fearless explorer. Zoe is a wonderfully ebullient character whose everyday adventures are anything but ordinary, thanks to her imaginative approach to her world.

     A more-directed form of imagination is needed by Nancy Clancy – the chapter-book, somewhat-more-grown-up version of “Fancy Nancy” – as she and best friend Bree solve a series of minor mysteries, the fourth being Secret of the Silver Key. Nancy was ebullient when younger – her French-language-obsessed, big-word-using, tutu-wearing younger self is still one of the most attractive characters around – but she is more ordinary in these mild-mystery books. In this (+++) volume, Nancy’s family buys an old desk at a yard sale, and Nancy finds a key in a secret compartment. The key is not for the desk itself, so Nancy and Bree set out to discover what it is for. As Nancy puts it to the woman who sold the desk, “‘I’m hoping you know what secret the key will reveal.’ ‘Reveal’ was also one of Nancy’s favorite words. It sounded so much more mysterious than ‘show.’” The mystery turns out not to be a very significant one at all, at least in traditional Nancy-Drew-like terms, but it does bring about the unexpected reunion of two women who had lost track of each other over the years, and that produces a happy if somewhat overly sweet ending. The Nancy Clancy books are less exuberant than the Fancy Nancy ones, but older girls who have outgrown the picture books will enjoy the continuing adventures of the central character.

     The continuing adventures in the silly Alien in My Pocket series are those of Zack McGee, who is host and friend to a four-inch-tall alien named Amp who crash-landed in Zack’s bedroom and has no way to get home to his own planet. This is not an “E.T.” sort of series – it is more an annoying-little-brother series in which the little brother just happens to be really little, colored blue, and able to affect people’s minds so they do not realize they have seen him. Actually, Zack already has an annoying little brother, Taylor, who knows Zack is keeping something secret but isn’t sure what it is and is constantly trying to figure out the mystery. True, it’s not much of a mystery, but Nate Ball’s (+++) books aren’t really intended to be much more than easy-to-read, somewhat humorous stories for kids who find jokes about passing gas endlessly fascinating (the whole first chapter of Radio Active and much of the second are taken up with that topic). The story here has ordinary-guy Zack and his obligatory really-smart friend and sidekick, Olivia, trying to stop the town from panicking after Amp builds a “quantum radio” to contact his home planet and accidentally makes everyone think aliens are about to invade Earth. There is really not much to the plot or, for that matter, the characters, but the book is a quick and easy read – and the bonus material, which shows kids how they can actually build an AM radio, is quite good, being well and simply explained and containing matter-of-fact comments such as, “Like any project, it might not work perfectly on the first try.” Fans of Blast Off! and The Science UnFair, the first two books in this sequence, will enjoy this third entry.

     Even easier books, still with recurring characters at their core, can be found in various publishers’ early-reading series. The I Can Read! sequence from HarperCollins includes books at five levels, from “My First” to Level 4; The Berenstain Bears’ Lemonade Stand is at Level 1 (“simple sentences for eager new readers”). It is a (+++) book in which Brother, Sister and Honey Bear set up a lemonade stand and soon have so much business that they run out of the cooling drink. Early readers will quickly come to recognize the very-often-repeated phrase, “Aaah! It is good.” And fans of the Berenstain Bears will enjoy the straightforward story, which thankfully lacks the sometimes heavy-handed moralizing of Berenstain books. Slightly more-advanced readers, especially ones with a taste for horses, will enjoy Favorite Stories from Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: School Days, which includes the school-focused stories “A New Friend” and “A Report.” In the first of these, Cocoa becomes temporarily jealous of Kate’s new friend from school; in the second, Cocoa helps Kate do a school report on horses by, of course, showing her all the things horses do. The Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “Green Light Readers” series, in which this book appears, has only three levels rather than five, and this (+++) book is at level 2 (“reading with help,” intended for kids from kindergarten through second grade). Another book in the same series – this one written for young readers with an interest in facts rather than fiction – features a character known as Mr. Geo, a professorial guide to the U.S. states who helps young readers explore throughout the country. This book is at level 3 (“reading independently”). It is slightly more complex than the Cowgirl Kate book and considerably more advanced than The Berenstain Bears’ Lemonade Stand, but it is not really difficult: officially intended for grades 1-4, it will mostly attract first- and second-graders. The story, being essentially a recitation of facts (including some trivia), will not “pull in” readers in the way that the fictional adventures likely will, but the book does make some attempts to lighten what could otherwise be a dry recitation: “This state is home to more than 100 colleges and universities. …Many colleges have great rowing teams. How do they make it look so easy?” A (+++) book for a clearly targeted audience, Celebrating Massachusetts will appeal to kids for whom recurring fictional characters need not be shaped like aliens or bears but can simply be people who provide an introduction to informative subject matter.

(++++) SERIES OF HEROICS

The Hero’s Guides, Book 3: The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw. By Christopher Healy. Drawings by Todd Harris. Walden Pond Press. $16.99.

The Testing, Book 3: Graduation Day. By Joelle Charbonneau. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $17.99.

Dualed #2: Divided. By Elsie Chapman. Random House. $17.99.

Star Carrier, Book Five: Dark Matter. By Ian Douglas. Harper Voyager. $7.99.

     It is possible, barely possible, to create an extended heroic-fantasy series that does not draw largely on cliché and is not largely patterned on other, earlier heroic-fantasy series. It is, however, extraordinarily difficult, which is why it can be so hard to be sure just which heroic-fantasy series you are reading: the characters’ names and the names of the settings may change, but all too often, there is a sense of “déjà vu all over again” in the occurrences and plot twists. Christopher Healy’s The Hero’s Guides therefore deserve a smattering of applause – no, make that more than a smattering – for their creativity and the sheer fun they bring to the whole “epic heroic stuff” model. This does not mean Healy is oblivious to earlier series of this type – in fact, he is so aware of them that he constantly draws attention to them and turns them neatly inside-out. Healy’s world here is that of fairy tales, and his whole trilogy turns fairy-tale tropes on their heads by having princes be bumbling, princesses be quite able to take care of themselves, and the various dastardly villains be as dastardly as usual, but usually in different ways. This in itself is nothing new: many authors have done fairy-tale reconsiderations for adults and young readers alike, and some (such as Vivian Vande Velde) have regularly engaged in humorous retellings of the old stories. But Healy – abetted by some really wonderful drawings by Todd Harris – goes a few steps further than others, and at considerably greater length: this is a 500-plus-page book. The various fairy-tale “Princes Charming” have names in Healy’s trilogy – Liam, Duncan, Frederic and Gustav – and, despite in many ways remaining determinedly one-dimensional, have considerably more personality than in the original tales. They also have significant anger-management and interpersonal-relationship issues. And in The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw they’re wanted for murder – along with Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Lila – because Briar Rose has been reported murdered. Thus, there is plenty for princes and princesses/fair maidens to do in the Thirteen Kingdoms, a map of which is thoughtfully provided. And there are plenty of amusements along the way, such as tongue-twisting references (the Jade Djinn Gem); suitably named stuck-up functionaries and compatriots (Euphustus Bailywimple, Daggomire Hardrot, Stumpy Boarhound, Deeb Rauber, Erik the Mauve); odd names for this and that (a boat called the Wet Walnut); and occasional references that only adults, and not all of them, will get (Val Jeanval, arrested for stealing a loaf of bread – see Jean Valjean of Les Misérables). The chapter titles are part of the ongoing amusement here (“An Outlaw Does Something Rash,” “An Outlaw Forgets to Pack a Change of Clothes,” “An Outlaw Doesn’t Know What Kind of Bird She Is,” “An Outlaw Puts His Right Foot In, Puts His Right Foot Out,” and so on until the final chapter, “The Villain Wins”). In fact, everything is part of the amusement, and the eventual happy ending(s) is (are) just silly enough and just absurd enough to make perfect sense in so senseless a context. There have been sagas aplenty in which fairy tales are eviscerated in one way or another, but few as amusing as this one.

     On the other hand, The Testing, Divided and Dark Matter, the first two books intended for teenagers and the third for adults, are series in which the paths are so well-worn that they have become ruts. These are (+++) books for readers seeking quick entry into offerings entirely typical of their genres and willing to look past numerous plot holes and a vast supply of clichéd characters and actions. Non-fans of these genres will give the books no rating at all, since they will have no reason whatsoever to read them. The Testing is an entirely typical dystopian trilogy based so closely on The Hunger Games that readers of Suzanne Collins’ books may find themselves wondering whether Joelle Charbonneau simply wandered into Collins’ universe and stayed a while. The Hunger Games trilogy is itself not very original and not particularly well-written, but it has become a gigantic success for a variety of reasons relating to timing and some excellent publicity machinery. The Testing is presumably for young readers who want more of the same: same vaguely troubling dystopia, same background of some sort of vague worldwide catastrophe, same vague delineation of characters (Charbonneau’s are vaguer), same horrendously murderous competition propagated because it apparently makes sense to kill off a lot of the small number of survivors of the aforementioned catastrophe, same shadowy government doing awful things because that’s what shadowy governments do, and so on. Graduation Day, sequel to The Testing and Independent Study, brings Cia Vale through the usual maze of deception, danger and betrayal, forcing her to make the usual difficult choices while as usual endangering those closest to her in order to allow the usual choice between a narrow, fear-driven future and a broad, hope-defined one. This is all so formulaic that it is hard to understand how anyone could consider it original. But originality appears to be beside the point: the idea here is to tap into readers’, umm, hunger for more stories about the heroism of a strong female protagonist in a dark and dismal near-future (and/or alternative-universe) world, complete with mild romance, substantial violence and all sorts of predictable trials and tribulations. Graduation Day goes nowhere particularly unexpected, but readers who want still more of its type of adventure will find it here.

     Divided follows a similar pattern, and in fact also involves a deadly test. It is the sequel to Dualed, the debut novel by Elsie Chapman, which featured a 15-year-old girl named West Drayer who, in yet another of those standard-issue dystopias, is forced to hunt down and kill her Alternate, a genetic twin raised by another family. Only by destroying her Alt can West prove that she herself is worthy of future life in the city of Kersh. This world makes less sense than do many similar dystopias, because there is little explanation of why there are Alts in the first place and why one has to be killed. Furthermore, it is unclear in the first book why West, apparently an ordinary girl, becomes a striker – an assassin hired by the rich and powerful. It would have been good to understand this early on (it happens rather early in the first book), because in Divided, the whole point is that West is told she must take on another contract-killing assignment – and this one comes with unusually potent inducements, including safety for her future children as well as a clean slate for West herself. It will be obvious to readers that so attractive an offer must mean the target is one that will cause West significant difficulty, and so it turns out: she is supposed to kill her dead brother’s Alt. Complications abound, including the development of the love between West and Chord from the first book (which was not very convincing there and is not much more so here). The main issue is that the Board, which is in charge of Kersh and which has given West her assignment, is clearly corrupt. This is thoroughly unoriginal, but as in the first book, Chapman keeps the pace of events moving quickly enough so readers will not be tempted to think too closely about the holes in the plot – and at least this time the rationale for the Alts is explained, even if it is not a very good one. Divided is not the end of West’s story – it concludes with a very clear setup for the next book – and hopefully some of the lack of clarity here will be resolved in the follow-up volume, as some loose ends from the first book are tied up in this one. The fact remains, though, that there is little surprising in Divided, a book for readers looking for a certain type of adventure and not wanting to think too closely about the rather rickety superstructure on which the story is hung.

     Ditto Dark Matter, in this case for readers who think space-opera military fantasy is the same as science fiction. Dark Matter, the fifth book in the ongoing Star Carrier series, is yet another thoroughly unbelievable, fast-paced novel in a sequence devoted to wars and politics both on Earth and around the universe. The first four books, Earth Strike, Center of Gravity, Singularity and Deep Space, firmly established the heroism of Admiral (later President) Alexander Koenig, the evil of the relentless Sh’daar, the necessity of sometimes making a pact with the (metaphorical) devil, and the inevitable negative results when one does so. By the time of Dark Matter, there is civil war on Earth between those who want humanity to stride triumphantly into the future and those who want to give in to the Sh’daar and become part of their massive Collective – at the price of limiting human technology. Ian Douglas (one of the many pen names of William H. Keith, Jr.) is always ready to bring in a new deus ex machina to complicate matters further and prevent his plots from bogging down into, say, thoughtfulness. This time he has another alien race show up, through an artificial wormhole 16,000 light years from Earth, leaving Koenig with a severe moral and resource dilemma: continue fighting the Sh’daar and possibly weaken Earth forces in the face of the new alien threat, or ally with the Sh’daar against the others and take the huge risks that are now known to come with trusting this implacable enemy? This is, to be sure, a rather ho-hum plot in space adventures, and has been done so many times before that it is hard to see what new directions Douglas may take it in. In fact, he does not move it anywhere new, but uses a combination of old and newly introduced characters to move the story along and allow plenty of time for battle scenes, last-minute turnarounds of fortune, and other predictabilities. Just as Graduation Day and Divided are no worse in plot or writing than others of their ilk, so Dark Matter is fine for what it is. The problem is that, again as is also the case with Graduation Day and Divided, it just isn’t very much. These books are mildly entertaining, mildly engaging novels for people already predisposed to read works of a particular type. The fact that Graduation Day, Divided and Dark Matter are eminently forgettable will not be of any particular concern to readers who find the books congenial: they can remain secure in the knowledge that where books like these exist, more, from these authors or from others, are sure to follow.

(+++) MYSTERIOUS POWERS

Dreamer, Wisher, Liar. By Charise Mericle Harper. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $16.99.

Saving Lucas Briggs. By Marisa de los Santos and David Teague. Harper. $16.99.

The Hypnotists, Book One. By Gordon Korman. Scholastic. $6.99.

     Back in 1958, a collection of 11 short stories by Theodore Sturgeon appeared under the wonderful title, A Touch of Strange. Modern authors of books for preteens and young teenagers may or may not know the half-century-old book, but many certainly do try to bring “a touch of strange” to their own writings. Charise Mericle Harper, for example, introduces the idea of a “wish jar” with time-traveling powers as part of the plot of Dreamer, Wisher, Liar. The jar turns up one unhappy summer in the basement of the house where Ash lives. The summer is unhappy because Ash wants to spend it at camp with her best friend, Lucy, before Lucy moves away, but instead is being forced by her mother to spend it at home with a seven-year-old irritant named Claire. Ash’s mom has told Ash that she must babysit Claire, the daughter of a friend, and Ash is quite upset enough about losing Lucy without being told to babysit instead of going to camp. Ash is frightened of new people and of change in general, and she suffers from a condition called prosopagnosia, “face blindness,” which means she cannot recognize people after first meeting them – a day or less later, she needs to be reintroduced. Lucy has always helped Ash with this, whispering names or hints, but now she is leaving, and Ash’s life cannot possibly get worse. It can, however, get stranger, when she finds the old jar, tries to use it to make wishes (primarily one that Lucy will stay and not move away), and discovers that that is not how it works: it contains someone else’s wishes. And when Ash starts reading them, strange things happen: she is carried back in time and becomes an invisible, ghostly presence observing the ups and downs of the friendship of two other girls. So now we have Ash as a dreamer and wisher, and she becomes a liar as she tries to figure out what is happening to her without telling her mother or Claire or other people know what is going on, because “that’s the kind of thing a crazy person would say.” Claire, meanwhile, turns out really to like old people, so she and Ash spend time at “the old people’s home,” where Claire bubbles and Ash starts to discover connections to the past that tie in, somehow, with the wish jar. There are also scenes involving a thrift store, and crying clowns, and – well, Dreamer, Wisher, Liar is a grab-bag of a book, somewhat overdone and overcomplicated even though its heart is certainly in the right place. The tie-everything-together ending is almost too neat, but its emotional warmth will be just what readers are looking for at that point, and the final affirmation of the magic in everyday life makes for a very satisfying conclusion.

     Time travel is at the heart of Saving Lucas Briggs as well. Margaret O’Malley’s family has the ability to time-travel, but there are strict rules and strict requirements. There is a rather convoluted explanation of how it all works, courtesy of Margaret’s father: “Time is a garden hose stuffed in a suitcase. …An infinitely long garden hose stuffed into a very big suitcase, a suitcase larger than just about everything you can think of, including our universe. …And the hose is stuffed in such a way that every bit of it is touching every other bit of it, if you can imagine that. …But the point is that every bit of time is actually curled up cozily beside us, all day every day, even if it is hopelessly, eternally just out of reach. Out of reach unless – and here’s where things get tricky, so please pay attention – you figured out a way to poke a pinhole in the walls of the hose, those walls being otherwise known as the limits of reality as we know them, and you slipped through the pinhole from one loop to the next in an instant.” There is more of this – a lot more – and it is all equally convoluted and incoherent and, really, meaningless. But it is not the point of the story by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague. What Saving Lucas Biggs is about is Margaret’s determination to go back in time to change the past of a cruel man known as Judge Biggs – who has sentenced Margaret’s father to death for a crime he did not commit. Margaret teams up with her best friend, Charlie, and Charlie’s grandfather, Josh, to go through a hose pinhole (or whatever) that leads to a year in which Lucas Biggs was changed forever into the cruel person Margaret knows. Of course, changing the past, while not impossible in this context, is quite difficult, because the hose (or whatever) resists being changed. Margaret ends up back in the year 1938, a time when there is a murder, a faked suicide-murder, and a whole series of consequences “which would lead to my father’s life being in terrible danger in ways that I also couldn’t tell” anyone about. Well, as Margaret is told point-blank by someone who knows what Margaret is trying to do, “history doesn’t want to change, you know. History resists.” And “no human being’s stronger than history when it’s resisting.” There are back-and-forth plot complications galore here, not surprisingly in a book about time travel, but eventually the solution Margaret comes up with takes place in the present day and has the sort of family focus that is typically central to books for this age group. Saving Lucas Biggs takes a long time (in several senses) and goes through a lot of byways before getting to its satisfying conclusion, but it does get there, and readers willing to stick with the rather twisty plot will be very glad indeed when they finally find themselves with Margaret “right there in the one now.”

     The adventure is more surface-level and the plot more straightforward in the first book of a new series, The Hypnotists. Gordon Korman, who to date has contributed five books to The 39 Clues sequences and written six in a series known as Swindle – not to mention a number of other individual books and trilogies for preteens and young teenagers – writes formulaically, but in a way that makes his books distinctly attractive to adventure seekers who are not looking for anything particularly profound or philosophical. There are no images here of face blindness or time as an infinite garden hose. Instead, there is 12-year-old Jackson (Jax) Opus, who discovers that he has color-changing eyes with hypnotic abilities that he barely understands and cannot control: they lead to a wild ride on a city bus, a doctor’s apparent nervous breakdown, and a series of what Jax thinks may be out-of-body experiences for Jax himself. His parents send him to a ridiculously overwrought psychiatrist with an “endless forehead,” who is given to pronouncements such as, “There is no lying in this office. Even when you speak an untruth, deeper truths are revealed to me.” This works out about as well as might be expected – worse, actually, since Jax tells the pompous doctor to jump out the window and the doctor promptly does just that, or tries to until Jax stops him. Clearly, as Korman writes, “Something was very wrong.” Well, enough initial setup – soon The Hypnotists proceeds in some entirely expected directions, as Jax hears from the Sentia Institute (“sentia” as in “sentient”) and its director, Dr. Elias Mako (“mako” as in “shark”). Things there are clearly not as they seem; indeed, it is not even clear what they seem to be. Jax quickly tires of hearing that Dr. Mako has “devoted his life to New York City education and is an inspiration to every single one of us.” Readers will know that the repeats mean something is seriously amiss. And lest that not be immediately clear, Jax’s father soon becomes distressed and reveals that “the whole Massachusetts branch of the Opuses was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials!” This is utter nonsense, but of course it is not intended to be believable – Korman does not do “believable.” What he does is “exciting,” and The Hypnotists delivers on that score. Unsurprisingly, as Jax gets more deeply into what Sentia and Dr. Mako do and plan, he starts to question whether he is learning to use his talent or is himself being used. For it turns out very quickly that Jax is more than an ordinarily able hypnotist – if the types of hypnotists trained at Sentia can be considered ordinary. Jax is a super-hypnotist, able to practice, among other things, “remote mesmerism,” in which even a recording can hypnotize people. Readers will realize long before Jax does – as a protagonist, he is rather dim – that Dr. Mako is up to no good, a fact made super-clear when the not-so-good doctor tells Jax, “Sometimes, Jackson, true greatness can only be achieved through extraordinary methods,” and then reveals that Jax’s parents will be safe only as long as Jax cooperates with Sentia’s plans. There is, of course, a good guy available to help Jax – his name, Axel Braintree, is a giveaway, although, as Jax points out to Braintree, “You’re a convicted art thief who holds self-help meetings in a Laundromat.” Even with all the absurdity and occasional flashes of humor here, The Hypnotists is intended to be taken as an adventure story, not a sendup of adventure stories, despite the fact that the one person Jax cannot initially command is a friend who is color-blind. Korman mixes things up satisfyingly for readers who do not choose to look at any of the plot holes and clichés too closely, and it is a fair bet that the next book in this series, Memory Maze, will provide more of the same.

(++++) TRIPLES, LIVE

Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 39-41. Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century conducted by Frans Brüggen. Glossa. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 4-6. Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel; Sarah Fox, soprano (No. 4). Signum Classics. $38.99 (4 CDs).

Mahler: Symphony No. 6. Gürzenich-Orchester Köln conducted by Markus Stenz. Oehms. $29.99 (2 SACDs).

     Couple the inherent enthusiasm of live performances with the very high quality with which it is now possible to record concerts and you have a recipe for some excellent music-making that has a certain level of audience involvement beyond what any studio recording can offer. Thankfully, audiences worldwide have become much better in recent years – in most cases – in remaining silent as concerts are recorded, so home listeners generally get the benefits of live performance without the coughs, sneezes, rustlings and general background irritation often present in the concert hall. (And recording producers’ much-improved ability to edit out those extraneous sounds certainly helps!) Thus, the Glossa release of Mozart’s last three symphonies, featuring live performances from 2010 by the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under Frans Brüggen, is a highly involving recording of this thrice-familiar music. Brüggen chooses tempos judiciously; the orchestra of about three dozen players is light and transparent most of the time but full and rich – within appropriate 18^th-century, pre-Romantic bounds – when called for; and the sectional balance is excellent. Brüggen makes a few unusual, even questionable decisions, notably the very quiet endings of No. 39 and of the third movement of No. 41. But for the most part, his readings combine careful studiousness with plenty of verve and spirit, being especially strong in the way they highlight Mozart’s wonderful balance among instruments – high and low strings, strings and woodwinds, and so forth. Brüggen’s approach to No. 40 is particularly interesting for the way it thoroughly explores the work’s minor-key emphasis while avoiding the intense emotionalism that some conductors bring to (or extract from) this symphony. The result is a performance that is on the cool side – which is likely closer to what Mozart would have intended than are other, somewhat overheated versions. The recording, made in Rotterdam, is very fine, providing a real sense of being in the concert hall where these performances took place. Anyone interested in first-rate period-instrument renditions of Mozart’s final symphonies will be more than satisfied with this two-CD set.

     Satisfaction is somewhat harder to come by in the April and May 2011 recordings of Philharmonia Orchestra performances of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 4-6 as interpreted by Lorin Maazel. Maazel’s Mahler cycle at London’s Royal Festival Hall was widely praised in its time, but these very broad, deliberately paced and sometimes rather muddy readings are less satisfactory when heard at home than they apparently were during the concerts themselves. Maazel takes a very expansive view of these works. His No. 4 is one of the longest, if not the absolute longest, currently available: usually running 52 to 55 minutes or so, the symphony runs 61 here – and feels like it. There is considerable beauty in Maazel’s reading, as when he dwells lovingly on the extended string theme in the first movement and proves highly attentive to details such as pizzicati and timpani strokes in the second. The third movement, though, meanders so much that it seems to lose its way – although the “gates of heaven” climax is excellent. The finale, unfortunately, is not a very effective capstone: Sarah Fox’s voice sounds too mature, her delivery is too operatically expressive, and the final verse of Das himmlische Leben practically stalls instead of seeming transcendent. Maazel’s No. 5 runs 76 minutes – this symphony usually lasts about 70 to 72 – but what matters here is less the pacing than the conductor’s handling of the individual movements. The first, in particular, limps instead of marching, while the second opens strongly and dramatically but soon bogs down. The other three movements are better: the third, which is well paced, is broad but not too slow, with fine horn playing and effective timpani; the fourth starts very quietly indeed and is beautifully expressive throughout; and the fifth builds well to its climax, with fine playing from all sections. In Symphony No. 6, the length is a truly extraordinary 89 minutes, and again, what matters is not the inherent pacing but the way Maazel chooses to use the time. The first movement’s march is somewhat flaccid, and Maazel swoons rather too intensely when the lovely second theme appears – and by about 15 minutes into this 26-minute opening, the music has achieved stasis that Maazel apparently wants but that Mahler surely did not. Maazel takes the scherzo second – the order of the middle movements of this symphony remains a matter of dispute, with Mahler himself never having quite made up his mind – and here matters start strongly but soon slow to a point where the forward momentum practically stops. The third and fourth movements, however, are first-rate. The Andante is warm, expressive and involving from start to finish. And the huge finale builds well, with Maazel contrasting its sections effectively while still maintaining an overall sense of the movement’s scale and shape – something that was lacking in the first movement. In all, this set of three Mahler symphonies gets a (+++) rating: there are excellent elements here, but also a number of missteps that could easily be overlooked in the emotional atmosphere of a live concert but that inhibit the enjoyment and emotional connection of the music at home.

     Maazel’s handling of Mahler’s Sixth contrasts sharply with the (++++) one from Markus Stenz and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln in a live recording from 2013. It is not just that Stenz’s version is speedier, coming in at less than 82 minutes. Stenz seems to have thought through the symphony’s proportions and overall argument in a way that Maazel also must have but that comes through far more clearly in the very high-quality Oehms SACDs than in the Signum Classics discs (whose sound is adequate but not exceptional). Stenz launches the first movement strongly and maintains its march character throughout its faster sections, allowing the slow ones plenty of breathing room but handling them more as interludes within the march than as competitors with it. Stenz places the Andante second rather than third, a less musically satisfactory although entirely justifiable decision, and he keeps the movement sweet and lovely throughout, its flow strongly contrasted with that of the symphony’s jagged opening. Placing the Scherzo third allows a fine contrast among the first three movements, and Stenz’s Scherzo is very well played throughout, with especially good percussion. Having the Scherzo and finale back-to-back, though, is somewhat awkward, given the intensity of the last movement. Still, Stenz does a top-notch job with the symphony’s conclusion, offering strong and even pacing, a propulsive sense of inevitability interrupted by the famous hammer blows, and particularly outstanding brass playing. There is a cohesiveness to Stenz’s Mahler Sixth that is missing in Maazel’s, and not just because of the different tempos chosen by the two conductors. Stenz, whose Mahler cycle for Oehms now includes all the composer’s completed symphonies except No. 9, finds a unitary message in the Sixth that either eludes Maazel or that Maazel deems less important than the individual elements of the work. The Stenz approach, on balance, is the more involving and emotionally compelling of the two.

(++++) UNDERSTANDABLE MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Shark Kiss, Octopus Hug. By Lynn Rowe Reed. Illustrations by Kevin Cornell. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $14.99.

I Am Otter. By Sam Garton. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $16.99.

A Piece of Cake. By LeUyen Pham. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $16.99.

     One of the more amusing ways to make points about friendship and acceptable behavior for kids ages 4-8 – and to tell a good story – is to have characters mess things up significantly, then straighten everything out at the end. This approach works even better if the eventual straightening out will be obvious to young readers (or to adults reading them the books) from the start. Thus, Lynn Rowe Reed’s Shark Kiss, Octopus Hug quite clearly involves a large-mouthed but not-too-toothy kissable shark and an eight-armed, good-for-a-hug anytime octopus – as Kevin Cornell’s illustrations make abundantly clear. But Reed avoids the obvious until the very end of this story. She does indeed have Charlie the shark and Olivia the octopus, “the best friends the ocean had ever seen,” desiring, respectively, hugs and kisses – but it never occurs to either of them to offer affection to the other. Instead, Charlie and Olivia spend their time watching families play on the beach, and that play includes plenty of kissing and hugging. So Charlie and Olivia, pictured with suitably adorable expressions as they observe the humans, try to find ways to participate in the affection-fest. They start by simply offering hugs and kisses, but that scares the kids away. Then Charlie decides to do a one-man “Shark-speare on the Beach” show in order to get hugs afterwards, while Olivia opens a beach art gallery to get kisses from her fans; but neither artistic endeavor helps at all. The fishy friends offer free rides to the kids, but the parents won’t let their kids go. So Charlie and Olivia decide to stage an eating contest with hugs and kisses as prizes – but all Charlie knows how to make is “the most delicious algae soufflé you’ll ever taste,” and the beachgoers don’t consider that delicious at all: “Everyone ran away,” in one of Cornell’s funniest illustrations. Poor Charlie – now he really needs a hug. And poor Olivia – now she really needs a kiss. And just when things seem darkest, the two friends come up with the solution that kids reading the book will likely have seen from the start: Olivia wraps all her arms around Charlie, Charlie puckers up, and everything ends happily – doubly so when a little girl and dog notice the two friends embracing and come back to the water’s edge to join them. Of course, the entire problem could have been easily avoided without the unnecessary misunderstanding that gets the whole book going – but then there wouldn’t have been any warmly amusing story to tell.

     Warmth, amusement and misunderstanding also combine in I Am Otter, Sam Garton’s tale of an unusual pet, the pet’s devoted stuffed-animal friend, and the human with whom pet and friend share a home. Otter narrates the book, referring to the human as Otter Keeper and the friend simply as Teddy (which is sensible, since the friend is an old teddy bear). Roly-poly little Otter is left on Otter Keeper’s doorstep one day and quickly adopted, being given Teddy for reassurance and as a playmate. Sure enough, the two become inseparable, with Teddy merely being a stuffed toy but with Otter behaving much like a human child, drawing pictures and riding in a toy car and even singing karaoke. Unfortunately for Otter (and Teddy), all their fun with Otter Keeper is confined to the weekend, since “every Monday we get bad news: Otter Keeper will be going to work.” Otter tries a variety of amusing ways to prevent that from happening, but all are unsuccessful, so he and Teddy decide that if Otter Keeper has a job, they should have jobs, too. And so they create “a toast restaurant” after Otter reads several cookbooks, one of them upside-down and one actually being a magazine called “Wok Weekly.” Well, things do not exactly go smoothly, with all the toys lined up as customers not having reservations or money and with Teddy, who is in charge of such things, not always getting toast orders right (one plate has a banana on it; another has a piggy bank spread with jam). Things do not improve after Otter fires Teddy and replaces him with Giraffe (also a stuffed toy): the wordless two-page illustration in the center of the book, showing the gigantic mess that the kitchen has become, is laugh-out-loud funny. Things are not so amusing for Otter, though: he realizes that Otter Keeper will be home soon, after which “things had to be cleaned up” and all the toys must be put back in the toy box. But then – another problem! Teddy is missing! And the last part of the book is a frantic and funny search by Otter and Otter Keeper for Teddy, after which all three characters are reunited and Otter and Otter Keeper, both completely exhausted, end up sound asleep at the kitchen table. I Am Otter piles misunderstanding upon misunderstanding until everything finally works out just fine – well, not entirely so for Otter Keeper, who goes off to work in the morning in his bathrobe and with the Z’s over his head indicating that he is still mostly, if not entirely, asleep. At least, though, as Otter says, “I have my best friend back,” and that is what matters.

     What matters in A Piece of Cake is that Mouse is too kind and Little Bird lives too far away from him. Mouse has baked Little Bird a birthday cake, but as he walks along to Little Bird’s home, he keeps encountering friends who think the cake looks delicious and ask for a piece of it – offering Mouse something in return that Mouse is too kind to refuse. So the cake gets smaller and smaller, while Mouse gets a variety of objects that the other animals say he will find useful but whose uses he cannot quite figure out; and Mouse is quite sure that those objects – a cork, wire, net and flyswatter – will not be good birthday gifts for Little Bird. Indeed, Mouse gets sadder and sadder as the cake gets smaller and smaller, and eventually arrives at Little Bird’s house without any cake at all. But Little Bird, “who was a very clever bird,” thanks Mouse and suggests that the two friends take a walk together – and as they do, they pass the same animals as before, in reverse order, and come up with trades that do make sense. Interestingly, LeUyen Pham invites young readers themselves into misunderstandings here, making the book unusually clever. Cow, for example, has lost a soap-bottle cap and would like a cork for the bottle, and Mouse has one – but instead of giving Cow the cork, Little Bird gives the cow the wire, which can be twisted into a loop and used for blowing soap bubbles. Bear wants something to swat bees that are annoying him, but instead of giving him the flyswatter, Little Bird gives him the cork “to close up the hole of the hive, so the bees can’t come out.” In this way, all the unhelpful items given to Mouse become helpful – in unexpected ways – for the various animals. And Little Bird makes just the right trades, getting milk from Cow, honey from Bear, nuts from Squirrel and eggs from Chicken, all of which become the ingredients for Mouse to make another cake, one “that looked and tasted even better than the first one.” And this time, Mouse and Little Bird and all the other animals get pieces – a very happy ending to a story in which misunderstanding is turned to everyone’s advantage.

(++++) SCHOOL, DAZED

Big Nate: Mr. Popularity. By Lincoln Peirce. Harper. $9.99

Super Silly School Poems. By David Greenberg. Pictures by Liza Woodruff. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $6.99.

     School always plays a prominent role in Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate comics, but it is particularly important in the latest compilation, Mr. Popularity. This is not because of the strip “written” by Public School 38 itself: “Here’s a tip for the youthful 6^th grader/ who considers himself a school hater:/ Though I’m mortar and brick, and I can’t run a lick/ I’ll catch up to you sooner or later.” It is not because of the sequence in which Nate discovers that his substitute teacher is, like Nate himself, a cartoonist, or a would-be one, anyway. No, it is because of the extended series in which Nate decides to run for class president and, against all odds and every possible expectation, actually wins – by one vote. Peirce so often makes Nate a loser, tripping himself up at every turn, that it is easy to forget that Nate has a variety of talents that he displays, admittedly intermittently, in the strip. He is, for example, a first-rate chess player. In any case, Nate quickly finds that the reality of being class president is not quite what he expected. Despite his offer to take over the faculty lounge as his private office, the principal turns him down. His nemesis, brainiac Gina, who has been elected treasurer, tells him that “being sixth-grade class president is NOT that big a deal. It’s not like you have any POWER!” So Nate decides to assert himself and, incidentally and as an afterthought, do some good, by raising money for the local soup kitchen. This even earns him praise from his other nemesis, Mrs. Godfrey – who notices “your enthusiasm, your determination, and your work ethic,” and says that she expects “those admirable qualities to carry over into your SCHOOLWORK from now on.” Oops. Of course, the presidential matter is not the only school-related one here. There are also several sports sequences – Nate is school soccer goalie and on the basketball team – plus yet another of Nate’s perpetual plots to get his crush, Jenny, to go out with him…this one involving the temporary departure of Jenny’s boyfriend, Artur (the super-nice, super-competent student whose unassuming sweetness drives Nate crazy). There are various non-school sequences in Mr. Popularity as well: adventures in snow shoveling, problems with Nate’s ever-clueless father and shopaholic sister, rehearsals with “Enslave the Mollusk” (the band Nate and his friends Francis and Teddy have formed), and so on. But school is the focus here, complete with Nate’s usual detention stints (a point of pride with him) and even some sessions with the school counselor (which, like so much else at school, do not go quite the way Nate would like them to). Nate is scarcely a role model for 11-to-12-year-olds, but he has enough redeeming qualities, including stick-to-it-iveness and surprising (if occasional) doses of charm, so that this and other Big Nate collections are a lot of fun.

     School is also the focus, obviously, of David Greenberg’s Super Silly School Poems, a thin and easy-to-read collection on some expected topics and some unexpected ones. One expected poem is “My Teacher Is a Mind Reader,” which begins, “If you as much as whisper/ Your teacher is aware.” Another is “My Dog Ate My Homework,” which has only four lines: “More than crunchy biscuits/ More than juicy meat/ Homework is the food/ That doggies love to eat.” But then there are less-typical topics, such as “The Extremely Modern School Bathroom,” in which “The auto-flush toilet’s great/ There’s just one minor issue/ The toilet paper roll/ Is completely out of tissue.” Or “Snakes on the Loose!” – which starts, “Just before lunchtime/ All the snakes got loose/ You tried to get them back/ But it wasn’t any use,” and ends with the serpents E-mailing their friends to come join them at school. The poems are short; in fact, the whole book is short (32 pages). And Greenberg’s verse is nicely complemented by the amusing Liza Woodruff illustrations. The mixture of anticipated and unanticipated topics does not work terribly well, though, and not all kids will enjoy poems such as “The Tastiest Taste,” which ends with praise of boogers, or “The Worst Smell of All,” which compares the smell of a teacher’s perfume to “the smell of a class full of kids/ After recess when they sweat/ When none of the windows open/ And their tummies are, well, upset.” Still, this (+++) collection has enough high points to balance the low ones, although reading it during school is probably not the best possible idea.

(+++) THE DEEP AND DEEPER PAST

Alex’s Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance. By Martin Goldsmith. Da Capo. $25.99.

Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution. By Nathaniel Philbrick. Penguin. $18.

     Among some people, there seems to be an insatiable desire for more and more books about details of World War II, resulting in the production of a steady stream of such books – most of them highly detailed and well-meaning. For those preoccupied with the war and its effects, especially those with a strong personal stake in the war’s events and its outcome, these books can be salutary experiences. But they are very clearly niche productions – for many of today’s readers, a war that ended nearly 70 years ago is simply not a significant factor in everyday life. Alex’s Wake is a perfect example of a book written by someone with a strong personal attachment to wartime events, for readers feeling an equally strong involvement in the war. The book chronicles the personal journey of author Martin Goldsmith, who apparently feels guilty because he did not suffer and die in the war, which ended seven years before his birth. To assuage that guilt, he decides to retrace the journey taken by two doomed members of his family: his grandfather, Alexander Goldschmidt, and Alexander’s son, Helmut. Make no mistake: this is a book about a harrowing journey, or rather two of them – the one long ago and the one Goldsmith undertakes. Alexander and Helmut were passengers aboard the MS St. Louis, which sailed from Hamburg in May 1939 bearing Jewish refugees escaping from Nazi Germany. The world did not yet know all that was going on in Hitler’s Third Reich, or at least was not yet galvanized against it, and the ship, which headed for Havana, Cuba, was denied landing rights there. So the 900 refugees journeyed to Canada and the United States – but were refused admission by both countries and forced to return to Europe. There was no World War II yet – Hitler’s invasion of Poland did not occur until September 1 – but the Nazi campaign against the Jews was gathering momentum, and both Alexander and Helmut were caught up in it, sent to Auschwitz, and eventually killed in the gas chambers there. This was a tragedy of the time – one among millions – and it is certainly comprehensible that Goldsmith wants to understand it as part of his family history. His reasons for feeling uncomfortable, even guilty, about his own solid and apparently happy life, are harder to fathom. But they are the driving force behind the six-week journey that Goldsmith takes through France, Germany and Poland, attempting to follow the route of Alexander and Helmut and lay to rest, in his own mind, the ghosts of these people he never knew. Goldsmith’s trip eventually takes him, intentionally and inevitably, to Auschwitz, a site that produces intense emotion even among people who have no personal connection with it. It then takes him, at the end, to his grandfather’s family home, where the unveiling of a memorial plaque represents a triumph of sorts and provides Goldsmith with the comfort he has been seeking. Alex’s Wake is unfailingly well-meaning, carefully researched and skillfully written. It is clearly a work with considerable meaning for its author and, by extension, for those who share a similar family history and similar connections with the Second World War. For other potential readers, though, it will be curiously uninvolving. Those unfamiliar with the story of the MS St. Louis, which is not an especially well-known one, will find some matters of interest here; those familiar with the depredations of war in general and World War II in particular will find confirmatory material aplenty – but no more than in many, many other books about the war and its impact on families and the world as a whole. Alex’s Wake is a personal memoir that makes little attempt to reach out to anyone who does not already share the background that led Goldsmith to his quest – a self-limiting, self-limited work that will have considerable meaning for a few readers but very little for many others.

     Americans as a whole might be expected to take more interest in Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution, originally published last year and now available in paperback. This is, after all, a book about one of the seminal events in the establishment of an independent United States. But as a nation, the U.S. tends not to be very inwardly focused or very past-oriented. Historians such as Nathaniel Philbrick therefore doom themselves to serious consideration by only a small portion of the population at large, even when writing books that are not intended as academic exercises. In the case of Bunker Hill, George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and other well-known Revolutionary War figures do appear, but the central character is Joseph Warren, a 33-year-old physician who was largely responsible for fomenting rebellion and fanning its flames when they gave every indication of flickering out. Philbrick not only uses primary sources to excellent effect here but also absorbs some of the rhetorical flourishes of the 18^th century and adapts them into a style for the 21^st. Thus: “In the fall Warren had worked to soothe the outrage of the country people. By the spring, he was desperately attempting to inject some life into what had become a dangerously listless Provincial Congress. …What [Warren’s medical apprentice William] Eustis and other patriots took to be Warren’s natural and laudatory adjustment to the increasingly perilous times was seen by loyalists as part of a highly calculated strategy.” Warren was as active in political circles – and rabble-rousing – as in military confrontations. His pronouncements were scarcely moderate, as in one letter he wrote for widespread distribution, seeking recruits for the provincial army. “‘Our all is at stake,’ he wrote. ‘Death and devastation are the instant consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity who may survive the carnage.’” Warren looms so large in Philbrick’s narrative that the actual Battle of Bunker Hill – in which Warren was killed – nearly brings Bunker Hill to a screeching halt. After the battle, it was Washington who was left to assemble the militiamen of Warren’s command into an army that would withstand the British, and it is to Washington and other well-known figures of the time that Philbrick turns his attention after Warren’s death. This is, of course, a matter of historical necessity, but Bunker Hill becomes less interesting when it happens. And Philbrick knows this: his narrative continues for only another few dozen pages, with the almost-100-page balance of the nearly-400-page paperback devoted to extended and somewhat overdone notes, a very extensive bibliography in very small type, and an index. Near the end of the narrative portion of Bunker Hill, Philbrick quotes Thomas Paine’s famous words from Common Sense: “The birthday of a new world is at hand.” This was hyperbole, but Philbrick does his best to show in what way the words were true for the fledgling United States. It is worth remembering that American independence was not easily won: the American Revolution was a six-year war, as modern Americans often do not realize, and even though the battles ended in 1781, the Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, eight years after hostilities began. But by the time of Warren’s death a few days after his 34^th birthday, the path to the future was already becoming clear. It is a shame that so few 21^st-century residents of the United States are aware of the role played by patriots such as Joseph Warren in making their modern way of life possible.

(+++) CASE STUDY

The Collini Case. By Ferdinand von Schirach. Translated by Anthea Bell. Penguin. $15.

     A short, meticulously plotted and coolly narrated mystery, Ferdinand von Schirach’s The Collini Case will primarily be of interest to readers who want to learn some of the intricacies of German law as it relates to the Nazi era. If that seems like a rarefied group, it should – the novel (really more of a novella) is strongly bound to its country of origin and the time frame surrounding its events, with tie-ins that extend beyond the fictional story but will seem abstruse to most non-German readers. For example, the author is the grandson of Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974), onetime head of the Hitler Youth organization and Reichsstatthalter ("Reich Governor") of Vienna, who was convicted at Nuremberg of crimes against humanity and served 20 years in Berlin’s Spandau Prison. The author himself is a criminal lawyer and has even discussed ways in which his family’s past affected the writing of this book, his first novel (he has also written two story collections).

     Even without knowledge of Ferdinand von Schirach’s background, the direction in which the book will clearly point is obvious from the start. This is no whodunit: Fabrizio Collini, a 67-year-old retiree from Daimler AG’s Stuttgart Mercedes plant, walks into a Berlin hotel, posing as a journalist, shoots a prominent 85-year-old industrialist named Hans Meyer to death, then mutilates the corpse. The men’s ages make it clear that Collini’s motive will somehow involve World War II, but the killer steadfastly (and not entirely logically) refuses to divulge his reasons for what he has done. That leaves the “whydunit” to be deciphered by his defense attorney, Casper Leinen, who is newly qualified as a lawyer and is appointed to the case.

     Leinen’s opposite number, Richard Mattinger, is far more experienced and knowledgeable, and becomes a mentor to the young lawyer as well as an adversary. Neither man ever comes alive as a character, nor do Collini and Meyer – they are instruments through which von Schirach tells a story rather than compelling, individuated people. Indeed, the book as a whole is a cool, intellectual exercise, for all the emotions that elements of it will likely dredge up, at least for those familiar with German law in the years after World War II. Von Schirach’s attempt to humanize Leinen by having him discover a personal connection to Collini seems forced and is not really germane to the plot.

     One of the best things here is von Schirach’s refusal to overdo the dramatization of the climactic courtroom scenes. The careful, matter-of-fact presentation of legal matters that involve decisions on what constitutes an atrocity and what does not, which could easily become the stuff of melodrama, appears here with a detachment and distancing that pull the reader into the minutiae of the case with something of the same methodical digging that Leinen exhibits. However, the palpable lack of outrage, and the systematic (and systemic) desensitization implied by the dearth of emotional involvement, will likely be hard for readers unfamiliar with or uninterested in the intricacies of German law to accept. The book’s inconclusive conclusion is a perfectly sensible one; but, again, it may prove unsatisfactory for readers used to more-definitive endings. Even when well translated in terms of language, as The Collini Case appears to be, the book does not translate particularly well in terms of its relevance to non-German, or perhaps non-European, readers – that is, to readers for whom World War II and its physical, moral, ethical and legal consequences have not been felt with the direct impact that they have for von Schirach.

(++++) SYMPHONIC ROADS LESS TRAVELED

Vierne: Complete Organ Symphonies, Volume 3—Nos. 5 and 6. Hans-Eberhard Roß, organ. Audite. $16.99 (SACD).

Mieczysław Weinberg: Symphony No. 18, “War – there is no word more cruel”; Trumpet Concerto. Andrew Balio, trumpet; Tatyana Perevyazkina, soprano; Ekaterina Shikunova, alto; Vladimir Dobrovolsky, tenor; Zahar Shikunov, baritone; St. Petersburg Chamber Choir and St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Lande. Naxos. $9.99.

Yves Ramette: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 6. St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Lande. Navona. $19.99 (2 CDs).

Per Nørgård: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 8. Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sakari Oramo. Dacapo. $16.99 (SACD).

     Most lovers of classical music think they have a pretty solid idea of what symphonies are, and many do – within limits. A number of the most-popular classical works are in fact symphonies, but there are many, many works with the “symphony” label that are exceedingly unfamiliar, and some that significantly stretch the definition of the form, which in any case has changed dramatically in the last couple of centuries. The notion of “organ symphonies,” for example, did not exist until the time of Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937), and his 10 works in the form are, collectively, one of the high points of a genre that he in essence invented (Widor also wrote three symphonies for orchestra with organ, along the lines of Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3). The genre’s other high point lies in the six organ symphonies by Widor’s onetime assistant, Louis Vierne (1870-1937), which significantly extended the emotional and chromatic range of the organ symphony while pulling it into the 20^th-century world of extended, if not abandoned, tonality. Hans-Eberhard Roß has now completed his survey for Audite of Vierne’s six organ symphonies, which he plays on the modern (1998) Goll Organ of St. Martin, Memmingen, with tremendous skill and control and an absolutely sure sense of the works’ structure and emotional content. Symphony No. 5 (1923-24) is filled with dissonance and atonality and is the longest of Vierne’s organ symphonies. It is also crammed with postwar emotion – Vierne lost both family and close friends in World War I – and moves from grotesquerie to an ending that tries for transfiguration but does not quite attain it. Roß is comfortable both with the music’s modernity and with its ambivalence, and his performance is exemplary in bringing both qualities to the fore. Symphony No. 6 (1930) is somewhat more relaxed, or perhaps resigned, and is even more forthrightly chromatic than No. 5. Here too Roß extracts maximum feeling from the music, especially the despairing Adagio, putting the virtuoso demands of the symphony entirely at the service of its emotive value. This music is scarcely triumphal, but Roß has a personal triumph in the way he performs it, showing Vierne’s organ symphonies to represent both the pinnacle of their form and a major, if little-known, contribution to the music of the 20^th century.

     The contributions of Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) are significant as well, but they too are not frequently or widely acknowledged. Weinberg was the third great Soviet-era composer in the Russian tradition, after Shostakovich (his friend and sometime mentor) and Prokofiev. But he stands so firmly in the shadows of the others that his music is only now being rediscovered. Late in life, Weinberg – who wrote 26 symphonies in all – created a symphonic trilogy called On the Threshold of War and encompassing his 17^th, 18^th and 19^th symphonies. Naxos, which is in the midst of producing a rather ill-ordered Weinberg symphony cycle that releases the works with no particular logic (a rarity for this usually careful company), has now made No. 18 available in a very fine performance by soloists, chorus and the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Lande. The symphony dates to 1982-84, but its musical sensibilities are in line with the earlier ones of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 13 (1962) and 14 (1969). Its emotional sensitivity is in line with that of Shostakovich, too, although Weinberg’s orchestration is different in its emphases: pensive woodwinds and muted brass are important components of Weinberg’s soundscape. The first movement of the symphony is orchestral; the second uses a poem by Sergey Orlov (1921-1977); the third is based on a folk song; and the fourth – whose title becomes the title of the entire symphony – has text by Aleksandr Tvardovsky (1910-1971). The sentiments of the work are nothing special – it is a lament about war and the suffering it brings to combatants and civilians alike – but Weinberg, who had to flee his native Poland at the start of World War II, gives them enough sense of the personal so that they come across as genuine feelings rather than pronouncements. The work is nicely paired with Weinberg’s Trumpet Concerto (1966-67), whose three unusually titled movements (“Etudes,” “Episodes,” “Fanfares”) are written in highly varied styles, in a work whose broad sweep and thematic elaborations make it symphonic in scope – indeed, the final movement opens with a quote of the opening of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 (followed by one from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Andrew Balio plays the concerto quite well, with nuance and elegance rather than overweening virtuoso display, and as in the symphony, Lande leads the orchestra with sure-handedness, understanding and a firm grasp of Weinberg’s style.

     Lande is also comfortable with the very different style of Yves Ramette (1921-2012); indeed, Lande has established himself as a strong and effective advocate of a great deal of 20^th- and 21^st-century symphonic music. Lande’s new two-CD Navona release of four symphonies by Ramette is the world première recording of all four. Ramette’s is a style characterized by rhythmic fragments rather than extended melodies, an approach that leads to strong contrasts between dramatic and lyrical sections and even within individual parts of each symphony. Symphony No. 1 is for strings and percussion; the others here are for full orchestra. Something of Ramette’s varied approach to symphonic form may be seen in the works’ structure: Nos. 1 and 6 are in three movements, No. 2 in two that are linked, and No. 4 in one. Nos. 2, 4 and 6 feature themes that appear throughout, providing the works with aural connective tissue – Ramette believed that music needed to have an immediate impact on listeners and that it should not be an intellectual exercise, a stance that put him at odds with such modernistic musicians as Pierre Boulez. Certainly all these symphonies are well and carefully structured, and certainly they do have impact, but the way in which they come across takes some getting used to. No. 2, for example, pairs a strongly rhythmic first movement with a very broad and lyrical second (très expressif, Ramette indicates), but neither the rhythms nor the harmonies are in line with those of traditional classical music: they are neither Romantic nor dodecaphonic, but melodically fragmented and rhythmically ever-changing. Symphony No. 6, Ramette’s last, is programmatic, based on the same Byron poem that inspired Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. But although Ramette gives clear titles to the three movements – translated as “Manfred and the Spirits,” “Manfred in the Alps” and “The Death of Manfred” – there is less scene-painting than the titles seem to indicate, and the work’s overall approach, like that of most earlier Ramette symphonies, is one in which fragmented melodic elements are combined and recombined, changed and expanded. Ramette’s lyricism is attractive and his compositional style, while it requires a period of aural adjustment, repays listeners with a chance to hear some expressive and carefully structured symphonies by a composer of genuine thoughtfulness.

     Much the same may be said of the excellent new Dacapo recording of the earliest and most-recent symphonies by Danish composer Per Nørgård (born 1932). The performances here are truly exemplary: the smooth-as-silk Vienna Philharmonic, under the knowing direction of Finland’s Sakari Okamo, here makes its first foray into modern Scandinavian music, and its recording of Symphony No. 8 is a world première. Symphony No. 1 (1953-55, revised 1956) is called “Sinfonia auestera” and shows its austerity through a determined seriousness of purpose and sparseness of sound despite its full orchestration. There are some reminiscences of Sibelius (notably of Tapiola in the symphony’s first movement), but the work’s polyphony and command of the orchestra already show signs of Nørgård’s maturity. This makes it particularly interesting to hear No. 1 in juxtaposition with No. 8 (2010-11). No. 8, commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic and dedicated to the orchestra and conductor John Storgårds, opens with rising and falling scales suggestive of spirals in a first movement that moves briskly throughout. The second movement is a strong contrast, slow and sensual – but with three interludes of melodic contrast. The third, final movement is restless and becomes more so as it progresses, with a final oscillating murmur that vaguely recalls the symphony’s opening and brings the work to a pianissimo conclusion. Nørgård has made some interesting comments on his Symphony No. 8, calling the first movement “an arrow pointing in a direction” and the second “a situation where it spins around in a kind of never-ending three-part carousel.” The finale, whose rhythm is difficult to hold onto, seems largely pulseless until it grows organically – “you see a form as you go along,” the composer has said. Not all listeners will see the form, or accept it if they do see it, but this symphony is structurally quite intriguing, showing that Nørgård has come a very long way indeed from the “austerity” of his first symphony. Yet Nørgård has remained true in significant ways to the history of the symphony: the finale of No. 8 contains and reinterprets themes from earlier in the work, giving the symphony as a whole a unity of emotion and thematic purpose despite the initial confusions that listeners will encounter in trying to follow its structure. Vierne, Weinberg, Ramette and Nørgård, all substantial symphonists in their own very different ways, offer thoughtful listeners with an impetus toward variety many chances to hear symphonies that are far from the standard repertoire and that challenge both the ears and the mind.

(+++) COMPOSER-PERFORMERS

Lionel Sainsbury: Five Tangos; Canto Ostinato; Sea Storm; Two Cuban Dances; Incantation; Ten Moments Musicaux; Meditation. Lionel Sainsbury, piano. Navona. $16.99.

Bunny Beck: Our Fantasies; Spirit; The Night Is Long; Dark Feelings; Emanon Two; My Heart; Punch Out; arrangement of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” Bunny Beck Jazz Ensemble. Big Round Records. $14.99.

D.J. Sparr: Woodlawn Drive; The Glam Seduction; Sound Harmonies with Air; Fantasia for Flute and Electronics—Sugarhouse; Vim-Hocket, Calm; Vim:Hocket:Calm. D.J. Sparr, electric guitar; Donna Shin, flute; Karen Galvin, electric violin; New Music Raleigh; Hexnut Ensemble. Centaur Records. $16.99.

Patricia Morehead: Alaskan Songs; The Edible Flute; Three French Songs; Sempre un Giorno Nuovo; Two Movements from “Triptych”; Just Before the Rain; The Wonderful Musician. Navona. $14.99.

     There is nothing new about composers performing their own work – it was the norm rather than the exception in classical music for many years. Gradually, though, the roles separated, notably during the 20^th century; now, in many cases, they are coming together again. This can be especially useful when composers have specific ideas about how their music – now frequently a blend of traditional classical forms and ideas with those of pop, rock, folk, “world music” and other forms – ought to sound. Lionel Sainsbury certainly knows what he wants from his piano works, which he performs enthusiastically on a new Navona CD. There are two extended works here and five shorter ones. The lengthy pieces – actually assemblages rather than long-form works – are Five Tangos and Ten Moments Musicaux. The tangos partake both of the traditional dance form and of the form as reimagined by Astor Piazzolla, and their tempo variations show just how versatile the form can be. The Ten Moments Musicaux all bear standard tempo indications (although one, ondeggiante or “undulating,” is rather unusual) and are all short, poised explorations of widely varying moods and styles. Some of Sainsbury’s themes are reminiscent of Gershwin’s, but the Two Cuban Dances here only marginally resemble Gershwin’s Cuban Overture – they are simple, rhythmic and effective. Canto Ostinato is brief and to the point as well. Sea Storm is intense and virtuosic; Incantation pulls listeners into an engaging sound world; and Meditation is even more introspective, closing this well-played album thoughtfully.

     Bunny Beck is also a pianist/composer, but despite her classical training, she is primarily interested in jazz, and it is jazz that permeates the eight works on a new Big Round Records release called From the Spirit. Aside from a mellow and not-at-all-countryish arrangement of Hank Williams’ Your Cheatin’ Heart, all the music here is by Beck herself, and all of it is performed by her on piano along with Matt Blostein (alto and tenor sax), Tom Hubbard (acoustic bass), Ed MacEachen (guitar) and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums). This is middle-of-the-road jazz, the improvisations expressive but not overdone, the handoffs among the instruments handled adroitly, the players working well together without trying to upstage one another, the music itself flowing freely and sounding warm and unchallenging. Only the occasional Latin rhythms hint at something beyond what listeners would likely hear in a jazz club in New York City, where Beck lives. Everything is smooth and rounded, relaxed and pleasant, redolent of the old days of smoky nightclubs even though smoking itself is passé nowadays (and illegal pretty much everywhere in New York). No single track here particularly stands out; all are in more or less the same mood and are more or less the same length. Listeners who enjoy one will readily settle back somewhere comfortable and enjoy them all.

     The music of D.J. Sparr also shows a blend of influences, but here there is more of a classical bent – although other types of music, quite noticeably rock, are also crucial to the effects. Sparr plays electric guitar but composes for a wide variety of instruments, and his range of interests is nicely highlighted on a new Centaur Records CD. Percussion is central to Woodlawn Drive, while a guitar solo starts The Glam Seduction, which Sparr says tries to combine elements of 1980s “glam rock” with the sort of virtuosity exhibited by Liszt and Paganini – an ambitious idea that does not work particularly well, although all players get the chance to hold forth as soloists at one point or another. Sound Harmonies with Air is simply a chord progression repeatedly transposed and repeatedly shortened – one of those pieces that is more an intellectual exercise for the composer than an audience-focused work. Fantasia for Flute and Electronics has an essentially chordal structure as well, using electronic manipulation of the sounds made by plastic balls bouncing against tuned strings as its foundation and adding a flute part above the result – an interesting compositional technique that does not, however, produce a particularly compelling result. The two works beginning with Vim are versions of the same thing, the differing punctuation intended to show that they are similar-but-different. One version is a duet for electric violin and electric guitar, the other an orchestration for a larger ensemble. In both, solid chords are contrasted with their arpeggiated versions, and quicker sections are interrupted by slower and calmer ones. Sparr’s music has a number of intriguing creative elements and is assembled with care, but it appears not to try to make any significant emotional connection with the audience – or if it does try, it does not succeed, despite the fact that the various performers handle their roles adeptly.

     The new Navona disc of Patricia Morehead’s music differs from the others here in that Morehead does not herself perform on it. She is a performer, an oboist, but she writes chamber music for a variety of forces, and none of the works on this disc – which is rather oddly titled “Brass Rail Blues” – calls for an oboe. Alaskan Songs and The Wonderful Musician both use mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley, the former with Dileep Gangoli on clarinet and Philip Morehead on piano, the latter with Philip Morehead conducting the CUBE Chamber Orchestra. Three French Songs are for Bentley and Philip Morehead alone. And there are two other vocal works here: Sempre un Giorno Nuovo with soprano Alicia Berneche and pianist Philip Morehead, and Two Movements from “Triptych” with soprano Susanna Phillips and Philip Morehead conducting an ensemble consisting of Aurelian Pederzoll and Elizabeth Choi on violins, Kristin Figard on viola, and Eric Schaeffer on cello. The CD also includes two instrumental pieces: The Edible Flute (Caroline Pittman, flute; Philip Morehead, piano) and Just Before the Rain (Dimitris Marinos, mandolin; Elizabeth Start, cello; Christie Miller, clarinet). The diversity of forces shows something of Patricia Morehead’s compositional range, although the works themselves are not quite as different-sounding as their instrumentation might suggest. The composer sets poems by Margaret Atwood, Anne Sexton and Cathy Ann Elias, sometimes in traditional art-song form, sometimes in settings that are more folklike. She flirts with atonality and dodecaphonic writing, but most of the music here has at least some sense of a tonal center. The balance between voice and instruments, or among instruments themselves in the nonvocal selections, is handled with skill, and the two instruments-only pieces have some very nice writing for the flute and mandolin, respectively. The disc as a whole is perhaps a bit bland, but individual elements of it are more interesting than its totality – this is one of those CDs best listened to piece by piece rather than from start to finish: an hour-plus of Patricia Morehead’s chamber music turns out to be a bit much.