(++++) WORDS, MUSIC, PICTURES

Verdi: Requiem. Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano; Marina Prudenskaja, mezzo-soprano; Saimir Pirgu, tenor; Orlin Anastassov, bass; Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Mariss Jansons. BR Klassik, $37.99 (2 CDs); Arthaus Musik DVD, $29.99.

Carl Davis: Last Train to Tomorrow; Liberation—A Film Suite; National Songs. Children’s Opera Prague and Czech National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carl Davis. Carl Davis Collection. $24.99.

Granados: Goyescas—La Maja y el Ruiseñor; Canciones Amatorias; Falla: Siete Canciones Populares Españolas; Turina: Tres Arias. Danielle Talamantes, soprano; Henry Dehlinger, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.

Astor Piazzolla: Tango Nuevo—arrangements for violin and piano. Tomas Cotik, violin; Tao Lin, piano. Naxos. $9.99.

     An unusually well-integrated Verdi Requiem in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the performance by Mariss Jansons and the Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks provides a welcome opportunity to consider the pluses and minuses of music-only vs. music-and-video presentation. What Jansons has here is an absolutely first-rate chorus and orchestra, with a quartet of soloists who are all right but scarcely outstanding – but who, in the context of the work as a whole, sound just fine for their roles and help produce a highly impressive reading. Verdi’s Requiem is more theatrical, more operatic, than any other Requiem in the repertoire, notwithstanding the drama and sometimes even greater flair of Berlioz’. It is always tempting to overdo Verdi’s extremely dramatic Dies irae, which is not only tremendously impressive in itself but also repeated frequently as the work progresses. But Jansons eschews this approach, keeping the Dies irae and the rest of the Latin funeral rite in the perspective of the Requiem as a whole, giving considerable weight to the eight-part double fugue of the Sanctus and allowing the lovely Ingemisco to flow freely and with considerable beauty – although Saimir Pirgu’s voice does not seem ideally suited to the music. The beauties and terrors of the presentation get equal weight in this performance, with the choral sections exceptionally effective. As to the question of whether to choose the performance on CD or on DVD (with the visual version being, unusually, less expensive than the audio-only one): the decision depends on whether a listener believes the visuals of people singing and orchestral musicians playing add to the work’s effect or detract from it. This is music that is sublime as well as highly dramatic, and there is much to be said for simply listening to it in audio form – preferably in an otherwise quiet setting, without surrounding distractions. In that form, using the BR Klassik CD version, this Verdi Requiem is at its most impressive. Watching Jansons conduct and the soloists and chorus perform on the DVD tends to be distracting rather than enlightening – and it is always true that a recorded performance requires the viewer’s eye to go where the director wants it to go, which is different from attending a live concert and deciding, on one’s own, where to look at any given time. One can always close one’s eyes during the DVD, of course, but that undermines the purpose of having the work in a visual format. As operatic as Verdi’s Requiem is, it is not an opera, and it is at best arguable whether seeing formally dressed musicians and singers on a stage adds to or distracts from the impact of the performance. Jansons extracts very fine sound and very involving performances from orchestra and singers, but it is not really necessary to see how he does so in order to get the full effect of what he has done. The Arthaus Musik video is well done, and director Michael Beyer is sensitive to the music and tries not to make the visuals of this 2013 performance at the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein overly distracting. But the video elements really add little here, and they do, to some extent, pull attention away from the excellence of the music.

     On the other hand, visuals would have helped the Carl Davis Collection release of Davis’ score for Last Train to Tomorrow, a song cycle written by children’s author Hiawyn Oram. The cycle tells the story of the Kindertransport, a rescue mission launched by the British government after Kristallnacht in 1938. Through the Kindertransport, some 10,000 children, ages 3-17, found refuge in Britain from the Nazi regime. They left by train from Vienna, Berlin, Prague and other cities in Europe, and very few saw their families again. Oram tells their story through songs including “Night of Breaking Glass,” “A Big Adventure,” “Goodbye to Our Treasures,” and “Sun Rising on Another World.” And the Children’s Opera Prague and Czech National Symphony Orchestra, under Davis’ direction, sing the texts with feeling – the songs are mostly in the words of the rescued children themselves, and the whole story is told from their perspective. As one of many, many remembrances of World War II and the Holocaust, the song cycle is effective enough – but Davis created the music not for the concert hall but for a film, and in the absence of the visual element, Last Train to Tomorrow comes across as just another well-meaning, well-written bit of accessible movie music, designed to support a story being told primarily in a visual medium. The inclusion of a complete libretto is a nice touch and a meaningful one, but it is no substitute for seeing what Davis created the music to enhance. Over a period of decades, some excellent composers have written some first-rate film works: Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Korngold, Tiomkin and many others. Davis’ work is, by comparison, rather ordinary, however well-meaning and sincere. That applies as well to Liberation—A Film Suite, which is another work designed to explore and lend impact to the story of Nazi oppression and murder. The movements here bear titles such as “Annihilation,” “Massacre of Children,” “The Death Camps,” and “Free at Last: Liberation,” and Davis does his best to have the music make the titles’ meaning self-evident. Listeners strongly committed to any and all memorials of World War II and the depredations of the Nazi regime will surely find these accessible works to their liking. But for listeners in general, the music is insufficiently dramatic or moving – that is, insufficiently distinctive in storytelling – to mark the release as important. This (+++) CD also includes, as an encore or afterthought, La Marseillaise, Rule Britannia and Hatikvah, with those three national songs collectively underlining the purpose of the other music on the disc.

     Less portentous and considerably lighter are the songs performed by soprano Danielle Talamantes and pianist Henry Dehlinger on a new MSR Classics CD. Redolent of Spanish rhythms and strongly imbued with a sense of national identity, these works by Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla and Joaquín Turina are by and large not especially substantive, but they are uniformly attractive in their handling both of the voice and of the piano. The most substantial piece is Turina’s Tres Arias, which sets texts by three different Spanish authors: Ángel de Saavedra, Duque de Rivas (1791-1865), a poet and playwright who became Prime Minister of Spain; José de Espronceda (1808-1842), a Romantic poet well-known for his radical politics; and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870), an influential poet from Turina’s birthplace, Seville. Turina makes Rivas’ heroic ballad Romance quite dramatic; offers gentle, wavelike rocking motion for Espronceda’s El pescador (“The Fisherman”); and in Bécquer’s Rima (“Rhyme”), picks up on the passionate intensity of the poem with a thrilling vocal line that Talamantes handles particularly well. The Granados and Falla songs are comparatively mild, although La Maja y el Ruiseñor from the opera Goyescas comes across with considerable feeling. What is interesting about all the music on this (++++) disc is that, even in the absence of any visuals whatsoever, it makes it easy to envision Spanish scenes and Spanish landscapes, so vividly do the composers capture the mood of the words and so feelingly do Talamantes and Dehlinger brings the songs to life. The CD may contain little of deep meaning, but it offers much of beauty and a great deal of impressionistic music that allows and encourages listeners to envision the Spanish landscapes and culture from which these texts and settings sprang.

     The performances are also first-rate on a new Naxos CD of the music of Argentine composer and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla – who is best known for The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and an apparently inexhaustible series of tangos, which Piazzolla rethought from their wrong-side-of-the-tracks roots and turned into concert-hall music ranging from the smooth to the energetic and incorporating the influences of jazz, rock and klezmer music. Piazzolla’s music has a strongly visual element: it clearly bespeaks its country of origin and often calls up images of the dance halls where tango originated and developed. The attractively edgy playing of Tomas Cotik and Tao Lin – with additional violinist Glenn Basham heard in two works – is the main attraction of Tango Nuevo, which is musically something of a hodgepodge. Of the dozen pieces here, seven were arranged by Cotik himself; other arrangers represented are Dmitriy Varelas and Sofia Gubaidulina. The disc begins and ends with high points: the fast and virtuosic La muerte del ángel and the bright Libertango, respectively. The material in between is more of a mixed bag. The four movements of Histoire du Tango neatly trace the dance’s evolution through the 20^th century; two excerpts from María de Buenos Aires are atmospheric stage accompaniments, the second (No. 3 in the score) being especially evocative; Melodía en la menor (Canto du Octubre) is particularly emotionally evocative, while Le Grand Tango is elegant and striking. The works, however, are not presented in any especially intelligible sequence, either chronologically or based on their moods or other factors. The remaining pieces here are also served up willy-nilly: Tanguano (No. 1 from Dos piezas breves), Milonga sin palabras, Aire de la zamba niña, and two pieces from Henry IV, an Italian film from 1984—Ave María (Tanti anni prima) and Oblivion, the latter being another milonga (a kind of cousin of the tango). Clearly some thought has gone into the arrangement of the disc – otherwise, why would Ave María appear between the two excerpts from María de Buenos Aires? But the overall effect of the CD is of a series of disconnected and rather random encores, with the result that the totality seems to go on longer than it actually does. The performances by Cotik (who is himself from Argentina) and Lin – by turns warm, sultry, bright, rhythmically intense and brilliantly ornamented – are what give this CD its (+++) rating. Fans of the violinist and/or pianist will be especially drawn to it, but those not already familiar with the performers or with Piazzolla’s music may find themselves a bit puzzled by the choice of pieces and their sequencing.

(+++) VISITS TO THE UNUSUAL

Simon Mayr: Il sogno di Partenope. Andrea Lauren Brown, Sara Hershkowitz, Caroline Adler, Florence Lousseau, Cornel Frey, Robert Sellier, Andreas Burkhart; Bavarian State Opera Chorus and Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble conducted by Franz Hauk. Naxos. $9.99.

Chant: Missa Latina. Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz and Ensemble Vox Gotica. Obsculta Music. $18.99.

Chant: Into the Light. Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz. Obsculta Music. $18.99.

Jake Schepps Quintet: Entwined—Music of Marc Mellits, Matt McBane, Matt Flinner and Gyan Riley. Fine Mighty Records. $12.99.

     Here are some fascinating discs that are of limited rather than general interest but that can be just the thing for people looking to explore some less-often-visited corners of musical repertoire. Il sogno di Partenope on Naxos is part of a rather strange work, described on the CD as a “cantata opera,” that was written for a specific occasion by Simon Mayr (1763-1845). The reason it is only part of the piece is that the first act of the two-act work has disappeared, so only the second act is presented in this world première recording. Dedicated to King Ferdinand l on his birthday, the 1817 piece has a libretto by Urbano Lampredi (1761-1838), well known in his time as a classicist and intellectual. Lampredi and Mayr here create an allegorical cantata performed with recitatives and arias that make it sound like an opera – in fact, Il sogno di Partenope is a kind of bridge between opera seria and 19^th-century operatic melodrama. Very little is obvious to modern listeners here. Even the title requires explanation: it refers to the dream (really a nightmare) of Parthenope, the tutelary goddess of Naples. The city’s Teatro San Carlos had been destroyed by fire on November 12-13, 1816, and Il sogno di Partenope was written for the opening of the rebuilt theater 11 months later. The missing first act of Mayr’s work focused on the fire and the character who caused it, Polyphlegon, an entirely imaginary mythological representation created to give the allegory a negative personage to balance the positive ones. Gods, muses, genii and evil spirits (the last group led by Polyphlegon) are involved in the cosmic cause at whose center is the theater, which is deemed the Temple of the Muses. After the first-act decline and destruction, the second act – the one recorded here – involves restoration of the theater by Olympic forces. The sad event vanishes like a bad dream – Mercury’s wand puts Parthenope to sleep – and a character known as Time Personified allows the rebuilt theater to shine anew. At the very end, Ferdinand is praised on his birthday for his beneficence and his gift to Naples of the rebuilt, shining theater. Il sogno di Partenope was intended to be performed only once, as was also the case with other works in its genre, and hearing it (or half of it) shorn of context is a distinctly odd experience. What we have here is part of a piece whose totality would have been strange if it were available. Il sogno di Partenope happens to be quite well sung by the seven soloists (three sopranos, mezzo-soprano, two tenors and bass) and nicely handled by chorus members and instrumental musicians alike. A quartet with chorus and the final chorus of jubilation are musically fairly interesting; the remaining sections, all with their accompanied recitatives, are straightforward within the allegorical context. There is good music here, if scarcely great music, and the whole curiosity that is Il sogno di Partenope shines a light on a long-neglected musical form. But it is one whose neglect is rather understandable: there is little on this CD that bears repeated hearings.

     Two new Obsculta Music CDs featuring the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz in Austria feature not allegory but straightforward and entirely orthodox religious material, much of it traditional and anonymous and all of it sung with great purity of tone and a strong sense of the singers’ involvement not only in the music but also in the sentiments and beliefs underlying it. Both discs are expressions of supreme and sublime faith, and both draw forth great beauty of sound from the Cistercian Monks – all to proclaim and highlight the Latin texts. Missa Latina is the more interesting of the two CDs: its primary offering is Ordo Missæ in Lingua Latina (Missa de Sacratissimo Corde Jesu), but it also contains the simple, straightforward and very moving Missa sine Nomine by Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474), sung by Ensemble Vox Gotica, plus – performed by the same group – the Dufay hymns Veni Creator Spiritus, Pange lingua and Ave, maria stella. Dufay, although writing in the same style as that of others of his time, found ways to exalt and entrance listeners while celebrating deeply held religious beliefs, and his music retains considerable power even after an astonishing 600 years. Into the Light has a more interesting arrangement of its music, although no settings here match Dufay’s. The disc is set up in six sections: Missa Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, Magnificat, Amor, Passio, Silentium, and Iubilatio, the last two of these being particularly heartfelt in sound and interestingly unfamiliar in content.  These are CDs for listeners deeply committed to a faith shared with the singers, or one of considerable similarity: the discs are more forms of heightened worship than they are performances, and one must share in their sincerity in order to get their full effect.

     At the opposite musical extreme, in many and various ways, is a CD released by Fine Mighty Records and called Jake Schepps Quintet: Entwined. It is not just that this disc is wholly secular, nor that it is as up-to-date as the Cistercian Monks’ recordings offer sound that is old and honored. The entire spirit of the music and performances here is as wild and extroverted as that of the Cistercian Monks is focused and inward-looking. The four pieces here are Flatiron by Marc Mellits, Drawn by Matt McBane, Migrations by Matt Flinner, and Stumble Smooth by Gyan Riley – all jazzlike titles that do indeed reflect one of the myriad of influences upon this combinatorial music. The performers are Jake Schepps on banjo, Flinner on mandolin, Enion Pelta-Tiller on violin, Ross Martin on guitar, and Eric Thorin on bass – plus Ryan Drickey on violin in Drawn and Grant Gordy on guitar in Flatiron. The music uses the many capabilities of a bluegrass ensemble to explore works whose provenance ranges from classical to jazz to pop to machine and electronic sounds and techniques. Flatiron is in eight movements that explore a wide range of emotions and a considerable number of rhythms, contrasting hectic sections with almost-lyrical ones. Drawn, a five-movement work, is an odd mixture of bluegrass instruments with modernistic compositional techniques. Migrations becomes modernistic, too, but it builds to that category by starting with an old-time bluegrass approach and working its way through a development connected loosely with traditional classical music. And Stumble Smooth, which functions as something of an encore, mixes multiple musical types in a piece designed to show off the instrumentalists’ capabilities. Only listeners enamored both of the bluegrass sound and of experimentation in the name of combining multiple musical forms will likely appreciate this CD fully. The prominence of banjo and mandolin can become rather grating over time, and the composers’ various attempts to combine musical approaches are scarcely seamless. Heard as an experimental disc that unites a particular performance sound with forms of music for which that sound is not traditionally thought to be suited, the CD is interesting, even intriguing, at least from time to time. But the individual works are not particularly distinguished, and none of the composers seems to have anything especially novel to say: all have written a form of display piece that explores performers’ abilities but has little communicative impact beyond an occasional “oh wow” moment resulting from a neat turn of phrase or unusually virtuosic bit of instrumental ostentation.

(++++) OF DOGS AND FROGS

Stick Dog. By Tom Watson. Harper. $12.99.

Stick Dog Wants a Hot Dog. By Tom Watson. Harper. $12.99.

Stick Dog Chases a Pizza. By Tom Watson. Harper. $12.99.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog! By Lucille Colandro. Illustrated by Jared Lee. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $6.99.

     The first two Stick Dog books by Tom Watson proudly proclaim themselves “a really GOOD story with kind of BAD drawings” and “another really GOOD story with kind of BAD drawings,” so Watson presumably achieved an epiphany of some sort with the third book, Stick Dog Chases a Pizza, since there is nothing apologetic on the cover. There is simply Stick Dog chasing a pizza as his four stick-dog friends look on. Of course, the book starts, like Stick Dog and Stick Dog Wants a Hot Dog, with Watson making it clear that he does not draw well, knows he does not draw well, does not wish to be criticized for not drawing well, and intends to tell a good story to anyone who will not complain that he does not draw well. Seems reasonable. All the books focus on Stick Dog, Karen (“a dachshund who loves potato chips”), Mutt (“a mutt”), Poo-Poo (“a poodle and not named after, you know, going to the bathroom”), and Stripes (“a Dalmatian who…lost her job after the Nacho Cheese Grande incident”). The three books all include adventures of a really mild but always amusing sort, all of which help flesh out the dogs’ personalities and are just generally a lot of fun. Watson’s narrative style helps a lot. In the first book, at one point, squirrel-hating Poo-Poo is disappointed that the other dogs do not have a giant rubber band that he could string between two trees to make a slingshot so “I could shoot my way up there to get that whisker-twitching menace to society.” In the second book, there is a hilarious picture of Stick Dog with a chainsaw, and there is a scene in which the dogs try to understand why a man is “mad at the carpet or something” and is “pounding it with his whole body” (a perfectly logical misinterpretation of exercise, human style). In the newest book, Stick Dog Chases a Pizza, there is a chapter called “The Ultra-Missimo-Pizza-Snatch-O-Meter,” and there is dissension in the ranks when Poo-Poo, Mutt and Karen all want to rescue a kitty but “Stripes definitely did not,” until Stripes decides the kitten is “the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen” and starts making funny faces at it. The rescue attempt – the kitten is inside a truck – leads to Karen’s explanation that “pyramids were around during caveman times. The cavemen would climb to the top of the pyramids to get away from the dinosaurs and Viking ships.” And yes, there is an illustration, and yes, it is kind of a bad drawing, and no, that does not matter at all. And yes, pizza does figure in the story, and yes, all the dogs eventually get some – get covered in pizza, in fact – and all the dogs “had splotches of pizza stains somewhere on them, but none of them cared.” All three Stick Dog adventures are pleasant, unassuming (as is Stick Dog himself), amusing, and, well, sticky – not only in terms of how the dogs are drawn but also in terms of the food-related messes they get into whenever possible. Individually or as a set of three, the Stick Dog books, intended for ages 8-12, are playful enough to be fun for anyone looking for lighthearted, easy-to-read fun in which the “kind of bad drawings” are a big part of the kind of charming whole.

     Jared Lee’s drawings for the “Old Lady” series by Lucille Colandro are more professionally rendered but scarcely more outrageous than Watson’s in the Stick Dog books. Colandro’s old lady – derived from the old song about the old lady who swallowed a fly (“perhaps she’ll die”) – seems to have an endless capacity for swallowing just about anything and everything, always without chewing and without causing the swallowed things much discomfort, and certainly without dying. She is at it again in There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog! This time she starts with a frog (“she was in a fog”), then swallows dirt “to hide the frog,” then seeds, then rain, then sunlight, then gloves, and then a rake – finally spitting out a colorful garden. The sequence is less interesting and less absurd than in some of the other Colandro books – it is fairly easy to see where things are going – and the fact that everything swallowed after the frog is inanimate reduces the silliness factor. The book therefore gets a (+++) rating – it will be enjoyable enough for kids who like others in the series, and the final “Happy Spring” wish will be welcome to families dealing with a harsh winter, but the accumulation of absurd objects swallowed and eventually combining into something wonderful does not quite work here. The illustrations are actually more fun than the narrative, with the old lady’s dog, watching with a smile or bemusement as various items get swallowed, being as much a star of the story as is the old lady herself. Hopefully the next book in the series – there are sure to be more – will meld words and pictures to somewhat better overall effect.

(+++) A BEAR RETHOUGHT

Paddington: The Junior Novel. Adapted by Jeanne Willis from the screenplay by Paul King. HarperFestival. $5.99.

Paddington: Meet Paddington. Adapted by Annie Auerbach from the screenplay by Paul King. Harper. $3.99.

Paddington: Paddington’s Adventures. Adapted by Annie Auerbach from the screenplay by Paul King. Harper. $3.99.

Paddington: Paddington in London. Adapted by Annie Auerbach and Mandy Archer from the screenplay by Paul King. HarperFestival. $3.99.

Paddington: Paddington’s World. Adapted by Annie Auerbach and Mandy Archer from the screenplay by Paul King. HarperFestival. $3.99.

     Michael Bond’s marvelous tales of Paddington, the bear from “darkest Peru” who shows up at London’s Paddington Station one day, lost and craving marmalade, originated more than half a century ago: A Bear Called Paddington was published in 1958. Clearly these sweet, innocent, mischievous and subtly destabilizing stories – the most recent of which, Love from Paddington, is brand new, as Bond continues chronicling the bear’s fortunes and misfortunes – are too laid-back and wry for the film industry. And so we have a Paddington movie that combines live action with the now-typical computer-generated bear who moves almost realistically and communicates almost believably while going through a series of trials and tribulations that are almost those created by Bond. But not quite. Movies for young people need clear-cut heroes and villains, the thinking goes, but alas, there are no such in the Paddington books, where just about everyone and just about everything is good-natured and where misunderstandings rather than outright evil drive the stories and provide the amusement. But what works for a bear called Paddington will simply not do for a movie called Paddington, and so there must be a scene in which the bear amusingly pursues a thief through the streets of London, and there must be a Cruella De Vil type who wants to take the stuffed bear and – horrors – stuff him. And exhibit him in a taxidermy showing, of all things! Well, this is all ridiculous and, to those who know and love Paddington, close to sacrilegious; but the idea is to bring in new fans of Paddington, ones who will presumably not sit still in their media-saturated environment for anything like warm, homespun tales featuring nice people and gentleness. Oh my, we simply cannot have anything like that in the 21^st century, now can we?

     Families that buy into the reconstituted Paddington and the film bearing his name have many available takeaways to continue their enjoyment at home. Paddington: The Junior Novel is for ages 8-12 and simply retells the film’s story, from Paddington’s arrival in London to his many adventures and his eventual realization – typical for films of a certain type – that what matters most is not gadding about but finding a home and family within which to settle down. Kids who want to re-live the film’s plot will find it all here, with eight pages of film scenes as illustrations.

    Families that want to use the film, rather than Bond’s books, to help young children learn to read, can pick up two movie-based Level 1 books in the “I Can Read!” series. This level, intended for kids ages 4-8, is designated as “simple sentences for eager new readers,” and the books accordingly tell their film-based stories – set against many scenes from the movie – in very simple terms. Meet Paddington is a first-person narrative in which Paddington tells about himself, the Brown family members whom he meets in London, and the movie’s evil character, Millicent. Paddington’s Adventures is a third-person narrative showing and describing film highlights. Also for kids in the same age range are two books with an even stronger visual orientation. Their writing is slightly more complex, so they are best for slightly more advanced readers, but there is nothing really difficult in either of them. Paddington in London shows Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and other famous places, as well as close-ups of the movie’s characters, and has Paddington conclude that “London is a fascinating place.” Paddington’s World is slightly more unusual, mixing movie scenes with a few things for kids to do: get Paddington through a maze, create captions for Paddington’s scrapbook, do a word search for some things associated with Peru, and more. This is the only one of these five movie tie-in books that goes beyond describing the film’s plot and showing scenes from it; as such, it is the book most likely to give kids who enjoy the film something to do beyond simply recalling what they saw. All these books, though, are intended more as souvenirs than as serious reading – for that, kids should have any of Bond’s original Paddington books or any of the adaptations that have been made of them, not featuring movie scenes but offering wonderful illustrations by Peggy Fortnum or R.W. Alley (the latest Paddington book has pictures by both). The film may offer Paddington for the 21^st century, but the odds of it being fondly remembered 50-plus years from now are very small. Bond’s books, on the other hand, have made it past the half-century mark with their charm intact, and show every sign of continuing to enchant children for years to come – provided that parents make it clear that the movie called Paddington is by no means the first or last word on the stories of a bear called Paddington.

(++++) AMONG THE CONCERTOS

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1-5; Adagio in E, KV 261; Rondo in B, KV 269; Rondo in C, KV 273. Lena Neudauer, violin; Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern conducted by Bruno Weil. Hänssler Classic. $29.99 (2 CDs).

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5; Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra; Meerstille und glückliche Fahrt. Yefim Bronfman, piano; Schweizer Kammerchor and Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra conducted by David Zinman. Brilliant Classics. $16.99 (3 CDs).

Schumann: Complete Symphonic Works, Volume III—Cello Concerto; Symphony No. 4 (revised version, 1851). Oren Shevlin, cello; WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln conducted by Heinz Holliger. Audite. $18.99.

François Devienne: Flute Concertos Nos. 1-4. Patrick Gallois, flute; Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Naxos. $9.99.

Alexander Raskatov: Piano Concerto, “Night Butterflies”; Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. Tomoko Mukaiyama, piano; Seattle Symphony conducted by Ludovic Morlot. Seattle Symphony Media. $16.99.

Anders Koppel: Marimba Concertos Nos. 1-4; P.S. to a Concerto. Marianna Bednarska, marimba; Aalborg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henrik Vagn Christensen. Dacapo. $16.99 (SACD).

     Concertos, from their origin in the Baroque notion of concertino vs. ripieno to their multiple modern configurations, have long enthralled composers and audiences alike, and continue to do so – and the reasons become clear when listening to a wide variety of high-quality performances of music that spans multiple eras and styles. Mozart’s Violin Concertos are nowhere near the importance of the ones he wrote for piano, but they have a great deal of charm in and of themselves as well as a lot to tell listeners about Mozart’s own compositional development: Nos. 1 and 2 are at a very different level from Nos. 3-5, even though all the works were written within a comparatively short time span. Lena Neudauer’s handling of the pieces is distinguished by her determination to take each of them at its own face value, which means emphasizing the wild-but-decorous finale of No. 1, the carefree nature of No. 2, the lovely slow movement of No. 3, the effective structure and unusual pianissimo  conclusion of No. 4, and the multiple technical demands of the “Turkish” No. 5. It is not just Neudauer’s assured technique that makes these performances so attractive, nor is it only the fine accompaniment she receives from the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern under Bruno Weil – rather, it is the overall thoughtfulness of the performances that stands out, the notion that these works, whose virtuosic demands are comparatively modest by later standards, have a great deal to communicate that can best be put across through careful phrasing, attentiveness to rhythm and balance, and overall poise. In this Hänssler Classic  release, Neudauer brings all those elements – plus a clear enjoyment of the music – to her performances, which as a result are highly involving and emotionally satisfying. The three additional movements, two of them written as alternatives for the ones usually played in two of the concertos, serve as attractive encores and receive equally pleasant and pleasure-giving performances.

     The Beethoven Piano Concertos as performed by Yefim Bronfman, with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra conducted by David Zinman, provide evidence of just how far the concerto itself had progressed in the few years after Mozart’s death. Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (the latter being the earlier written despite being the later published) owe a considerable debt to Mozart, but Beethoven’s canvas is already larger, his modulations more daring, his formal constraints fewer as he strains at the bounds of Classical form. Bronfman handles these concertos with a light touch, but not too light, as he and Zinman give the concertos sufficient weight to show that they draw distinctly on the past but are also the first steps toward a new musical future. As in the five violin concertos of Mozart, the five piano ones by Beethoven have a turning point midway through the sequence: Beethoven’s No. 3 is altogether grander, more extensive in thematic development and intensity than either earlier work, and proceeds with a level of seriousness that makes it seem longer and broader than it actually is (Concerto No. 1 lasts longer but does not feel as if it does). And Beethoven’s No. 4 is an astonishing piece, especially in its short and very unusual slow movement, where piano and orchestra are in the sort of stark opposition that would later characterize a great deal of Romantic music – and not only concertos. After this, the grandeur and epic scale of Concerto No. 5 justify its title “Emperor” even though Beethoven did not call it that and probably would not have approved of the royalist designation. Bronfman and Zinman make this work grand, stately and thoroughly convincing, a chance for soloist and orchestra to complement each other while also competing for the audience’s attention. Bronfman has an understated virtuosity that works very well in this music, conquering Beethoven’s demands without seeming to strain to do so and without drawing undue attention to himself as a performer rather than as a conduit for the composer’s intentions. This very well-played and very well-priced Brilliant Classics release also includes the Choral Fantasia, a work that not long ago was dismissed as a mere trifle but that has grown in stature as scholars and audiences alike have come to appreciate its unusual hybrid form (a touch of concerto, a bit of cantata, all wrapped up in symphonic trappings). The set then ends, a touch oddly, with Meerstille und glückliche Fahrt, Beethoven’s vocal setting of the same two Goethe poems that would later lead Mendelssohn to write his concert overture, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. The absence of texts for this work and the Choral Fantasia is disappointing, but the words can be found readily enough online, and the uniformly high quality of the performances more than makes up for the words’ omission.

     By the time Schumann wrote his Cello Concerto in 1850, the post-Beethoven Romantic notion of concerto construction was in full flower, with the solo instrument set distinctly against the orchestra and often competing with it. Yet Schumann’s work, although it is a mainstay of concertos of this period, is less concerned with this opposition than are many other concertos of the time. Instead, Schumann emphasizes the warmth and beauty of tone of the solo cello, producing music of interactivity rather than a high degree of competitiveness. There is certainly considerable drama here – and Oren Shevlin adeptly brings it out – but there is a spirit of conversation, if not quite of full cooperation, underlying it all. Heinz Holliger’s direction of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln is well-paced and sensitive – Holliger is a first-rate oboist and has considerable understanding of how easily a solo instrument can be subsumed within orchestral sound, to the detriment of a work’s effectiveness, and he makes sure here to treat the cello as a partner in producing music of great beauty within a highly effective structure. This third CD in Audite’s survey of Schumann’s complete symphonic works also includes the 1851 version of Symphony No. 4 – the version that is usually heard (the decade-earlier version appeared on Volume I of this series). There has been, since the 19^th century, considerable argument over which version of the symphony better conveys Schumann’s thoughts: his widow, Clara, opted for the second, while his and her great friend and defender, Brahms, preferred the first. Hearing Holliger’s way with the two forms of the symphony is fascinating: he emphasizes the lighter elements of the early version and the stronger, more-intense ones of the late version, making the two sound almost like separate symphonies despite their nearly identical thematic and rhythmic progress. The fine orchestral playing here, and Holliger’s excellent sense of instrumental balance, prevent the second version from seeming turgid, as it does in some performances. Instead, what we get here is a weighty and effective reading that neatly balances Holliger’s handling of the earlier version and makes it pleasantly difficult to choose one over the other. It is a pleasure to have both of them played so well and sounding so good.

     The concertos of Mozart and Beethoven, and the cello concerto of Schumann, are standard-repertoire works, but other, less-known concertos can be just as revelatory of the concerto form and just as interesting to experience. The first Naxos volume of the flute concertos by François Devienne (1759-1803) is a case in point. These are not earthshaking, heaven-storming works, by any means; rather, they display the poise and elegance of Mozart’s time and are structurally reminiscent of Vivaldi in their neat three-movement arrangement, featuring brief slow movements that are essentially interludes between the opening and closing and that provide some aural respite without seeking to plumb any particular depths. The music here is elegant, rather detached, graceful and exceptionally pleasant to hear: the flute engages in many virtuoso techniques but never sounds strained or stressed, especially when played as well as Patrick Gallois does and with the light, finely balanced backup of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. None of these works can be considered “great” music, but all of them are exceedingly well-formed, all show a firm and fine understanding of concerto construction and of the abilities and limitations of the flute, and all – especially No. 4 – pull the listener along, seemingly effortlessly, into a sound world just a few steps beyond the fully cooperative one of the best chamber music.

     Modern concertos, on the other hand, make a whole set of new demands on performers and audiences alike. Alexander Raskatov (born 1953) has created one for piano that goes through a dozen short episodes in the course of half an hour. The work’s title, “Night Butterflies,” refers to its inspiration, which Raskatov says came from a childhood walk in the forest during which he was surrounded by butterflies. Commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, the work is performed on the orchestra’s own label by Tomoko Mukaiyama, who is perhaps better known as a performance artist than a pianist but who here shows she has plenty of technique to conquer Raskatov’s sound world. Ludovic Morlot conducts the music with a sure hand, and certainly Raskatov goes out of his way to produce as many types of miniature scenes as possible: there is a touch of drama here, a bit of tenderness there, an occasional startling exclamation, and some perhaps slightly overdone attempts to be poetic. The work is worth hearing despite its episodic nature and an overall feeling that it is more clever than genuinely thoughtful; the fine performance here certainly makes a strong case for it as a concerto in which piano and orchestra have very separate but closely connected roles to play. Interestingly paired with the concerto is Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, the intent perhaps being to contrast Russian works of two different times – or perhaps, as is common in concert programming nowadays, to use a well-known piece to draw audiences’ attention to a little-known one. In any case, although the Seattle Symphony’s handling of the Stravinsky is not over-the-top excellent – Morlot lets the rhythms flag a bit from time to time, and the sheer intensity of the experience is somewhat muted – this is a very worthy performance that actually does complement Raskatov’s concerto in some interesting ways.

     Even more interesting is a Dacapo SACD of the four concertos for marimba by Anders Koppel (born 1947), who – like pianist Mukaiyama – is perhaps better known for his non-classical-music endeavors: he co-founded the rock group Savage Rose in 1967. But just as Mukaiyama shows herself to be a first-rate performer, at least in the sort of music that Raskatov writes, so Koppel shows himself quite adept in absorbing the basics of concerto form and using it to produce quite interesting works for a solo instrument that is rarely heard in this context. The four marimba concertos date to 1995, 2000, 2002 (revised 2003), and 2006, and the interesting little solo called P.S. to a Concerto was written in 1995 as a kind of appendix to the first concerto. The first, third (“Linzer”) and fourth (“In memory of things transient”) concertos use full orchestra; the second is for marimba and strings. The first concerto is the most classically balanced, with a dramatic first movement, “night music” second and bravura third. The second concerto, in one movement, is more modernistic and experimental, using the marimba to measure out the passage of time through a series of tick-tocks interrupted by occasional cadenzas and other flourishes. The third concerto requires a large orchestra and places particular demands on the brass, with the marimba sometimes needing to struggle to find its place in a sound world that seems on the verge of overwhelming it. The fourth concerto is almost program music, its title coming from an inscription that Koppel saw on an old stone in a Swedish forest. Yet this work, far from being despondent, is life-affirming, even including a bit of Mozart’s Rondo alla turca from his K. 331 piano sonata. The four concertos, and the encore-like P.S. to a Concerto, give listeners a chance not only to hear some interesting contemporary music in which an instrument not usually thought of as a concerto candidate is used to very good effect – but also to experience the ways in which the concerto concept has continued to intrigue composers right up to the present day, being adapted by them to new sounds, new instruments and new structural techniques.

(++++) SYMPHONIC THINKING

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5. Tapiola Sinfonietta conducted by Mario Venzago. CPO. $16.99.

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 1-6; Manfred Symphony; Nocturne, Op. 19, No. 4; “Snegurochka”—excerpts; Francesca da Rimini; “Romeo and Juliet”—duet; “The Voyevode”—Overture and Dance of the Haymaiden; The Tempest; “Pique Dame”—Prelude and Finale; “Iolanta”—Prelude; Hamlet. Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev. Relief. $39.99 (6 CDs).

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6. Sinfonieorchester Basel conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. Sinfonieorchester Basel. $18.99.

Woldemar Bargiel: Complete Orchestral Music, Volume One—Symphony in C; Prometheus Overture; Overture to a Tragedy; Medea Overture. Siberian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Vasilyev. Toccata Classics. $18.99.

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Overtures—Ruy Blas; The Hebrides; Overture in C, “Trumpet”; The Fair Melusine; Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Walter Weller (Midsummer, Ruy Blas); Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Kurt Masur (other overtures). Brilliant Classics. $11.99 (2 CDs).

     Mario Venzago concludes one of the most thought-provoking and thoughtful Bruckner cycles ever with what may be the most controversial of all his already-controversial interpretations. Venzago, who has selected various orchestras for his recordings for CPO so as to match orchestral sonority to the way he believes each Bruckner symphony should sound, uses the 41-member Tapiola Sinfonietta for Bruckner’s very large, very complex, very long and very difficult Symphony No. 5 – a work whose grandiosity few would dispute. Venzago disputes it, picking the same ensemble for this work that he used for Symphonies Nos. 0 and 1 (he conducted the Northern Sinfonia for No. 2, the Berner Symphonieorchester for Nos. 3, 6 and 9, the Sinfonieorchester Basel for Nos. 4 and 7, and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin in No. 8, the only live recording of his cycle). Venzago is a highly cerebral conductor and a very careful researcher, and he argues persuasively for his handling of Symphony No. 5, which he connects not only to Schubert (many other conductors now accept the Schubert-Bruckner connection) but also to Louis Spohr. Furthermore, Venzago asserts that Symphony No. 5 requires much quicker tempos than it usually receives, with the result that his performance comes in at just 60 minutes while many others run well over 70 (Lorin Maazel recorded one that lasted 80). By turning this symphony into a comparatively light, transparent, fleet-footed work, Venzago has either rediscovered elements of Bruckner that others have missed for more than a century or has perverted the entire meaning and grandeur of the music. This is certain to be a polarizing performance. The real question, though, is not whether it is different from others – it most certainly is – but whether it works on its own terms. That is similar to questions that used to be raised about Beethoven’s metronome markings (indicating much faster tempos than most conductors were accustomed to follow) and Bach’s dance movements (which can be performed at a stately pace or one more akin to that of peasant country dances). It is unlikely that Bruckner lovers will want Venzago’s No. 5 as their sole version of the symphony, but it would be a shame if they did not have it as their second, or even third. It is a revelatory performance, with a clarity and, yes, a speed so unusual in Bruckner that it shatters the myth of this composer as a staid, dully religious creator of impressively cathedral-like but essentially plodding structures. There is a vivacity to Venzago’s Fifth that distinguishes it from all other performances, and the playing itself makes Venzago’s argument for this approach more effectively than do his very-well-chosen words. This is not a Bruckner Fifth for everyone, but it is a fascinating view of the music and composer, and it serves as a remarkable capstone to a Bruckner cycle that is filled with thoughtfulness and highly unusual approaches.

     The conductor’s thoughtfulness is evident as well in the excellent Tchaikovsky cycle led by Vladimir Fedoseyev – although the packaging of this release on the oddly named Relief label is so bad, so sloppy, that it cries out for reconsideration and reworking. These live recordings by the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio (founded in 1930 as the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra and still better-known by that name) were made at various times over a quarter-century, from 1984 to 2009. The orchestra’s complement surely changed during that time period, but its sound remained remarkably consistent and is perfect for this music, with enormously rich and warm strings, burnished brass, piquant woodwinds and forceful percussion. For emotion-drenched music such as this, it is hard to imagine a better-sounding ensemble. And Fedoseyev is a wonderful Tchaikovsky conductor – who, like Venzago (albeit to a lesser extent), is not afraid to take chances with canonical works. For example, Fedoseyev takes the first movement of Symphony No. 1 and the finale of Symphony No. 3 very slowly, an aural shock at first but soon afterwards a convincing approach that plumbs the music deeply. He embraces the episodic nature of the first movement of No. 4 instead of trying to gloss it over with quick tempos, and the result is an impressive level of grandeur. In the Manfred Symphony, most of his tempos are speedy, so that the work progresses with greater forward impetus than it usually receives – but he takes the second movement, Vivace, unusually slowly, a decision that, again, is initially odd but soon becomes convincing because of the excellent attention to detail that accompanies it. The tempo oddities pervade the non-symphonic works as well: in Francesca da Rimini, for example, Fedoseyev creates a greater-than-usual contrast between the “blowing winds” sections and the meltingly beautiful ones in which Francesca tells her sad story. Every piece here has something to recommend it – but very little in the packaging does. Is the conductor’s name properly transliterated as Fedoseyev, Fedosseyev, or Fedossejev? It depends on where you look. Is Op. 18 called The Tempest or The Storm, and does it date to 1873 or 1888? Again, it depends. (The work heard here is The Tempest of 1873, not The Storm, which dates to 1864.) Is the Hamlet overture from 1867 or 1888? (It is from 1888 but, if it helps, is Op. 67a, although here listed as Op. 67.) How many tracks are there on the CD containing Symphony No. 3? The answer is 11, but the actual track listing shows only 10 and omits a track for one piece altogether. Is there a work called Romeo and Julia, or is it Romeo & Julia, or Romeo + Julia Fantasy Ouverture? It depends on where you are in the packaging – but one thing that is certain is that it is not the famous overture but a vocal duet, completed by Sergey Taneyev (who is never mentioned), for an unfinished opera about the doomed lovers. And it does not date to “ca. 1880” or to “1869, 1870 + 1880,” as listed in various places, but to 1893. And on and on the errors of commission and omission go, to such a point that one sentence about the orchestra performing in “Pragrue” is barely a hiccup in the parade of mistakes. To mar performances this good with presentation this bad is a real shame, but thank goodness listeners can largely ignore the packaging while listening to the excellence of the playing and conducting.

     Thankfully, both performance and presentation are high-quality in the Sinfonieorchester Basel’s recording of Schubert’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 on the orchestra’s own label. Despite its large size, this ensemble performs these symphonies with lightness and elegance, and Dennis Russell Davies is firmly at the orchestra’s helm and thoroughly comfortable with the lilt and spirit of these early Schubert symphonies. Symphony No. 2 has a particularly weighty opening movement, which includes three separate sections (a technique that in some ways looks forward to Bruckner); this gives way to three lighter movements, including a finale that is as jocular as the first movement is serious. The symphony can sound rather disconnected because of the movements’ differing character, but Davies makes it all work within the context of warmth and high spirits. No. 6, sometimes called the “Little C Major” to distinguish it from the “Great” No. 9, is not really all that small, although its Rossinian themes (especially in the finale) and its overall feeling of light-operatic progress keep it on the pleasant and whimsical side throughout. The orchestra handles Davies’ emphases and tempo changes smoothly and with ease in both these works, and the live recording has an ebullience and, frequently, a joviality that makes the symphonies a joy to hear.

     Hearing any music at all by Woldemar Bargiel is a major surprise nowadays: he is as obscure as Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and Schubert are well-known. Bargiel (1828-1897) was Clara Schumann’s half-brother and, in his time, a composer thought of very highly and a major force in the Brahms “pure music” camp that stood in opposition to the more-forward-looking Liszt/Wagner group. Toccata Classics has embarked on a fascinating project to release all of Bargiel’s orchestral music, and the first CD in the series shows quite clearly what is to come, both for better and for worse. Bargiel wrote only one symphony, in 1864, and it is a thoroughly Beethovenian work, filled with drive and intensity that are quite apt for the mid-Romantic era – but lacking even the modifications of symphonic form and the extended wind writing that make Schubert’s early symphonies so attractive. There is a Sturm und Drang quality to the music, a driving spirit that pulls listeners along effectively – but like the symphonies of Spohr, who was also a hugely popular composer at this time, Bargiel’s is more of a repetition of techniques and approaches of the past than it is a stride of any sort into the future. It is very well-made indeed, but not original enough to seem like a long-lost work of high stature. The three concert overtures with which it is paired, though, have considerable interest. Overture to a Tragedy dates to 1856, Overture to Prometheus was written in 1852 and revised in 1854 and 1859, and Overture to Medea is from about 1861. These are essentially miniature tone  poems, along the lines of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, but they encapsulate feelings rather than the plot of a specific opera or story. They sound again and again like Schumann’s Manfred Overture (1852), and at the same time they look ahead to Brahms’ Tragic Overture (1880). The best of the overtures is Overture to Medea, which is pervaded by a sense of tragedy and features abrupt dynamic changes and a restless main theme that seem to reflect the sorceress’ unsettled state of mind. The other overtures have more than a few moments of effectiveness as well, and the Siberian Symphony Orchestra under Dmitry Vasilyev plays them all with strength, intensity and a high level of involvement. It may turn out that Bargiel was more inspired when writing shorter works than when undertaking a piece of symphonic length. Later releases in this series will show whether that is true – and listeners curious about the lesser lights of Romanticism will await them with considerable interest.

     It is easy to tell, nevertheless, why Bargiel and other once-famous composers fell into obscurity over time. A comparison of Bargiel’s overtures with those by Mendelssohn on a new Brilliant Classics release provides an object lesson. While there is a sense that Bargiel is going through the motions of creating varying levels of drama in his  overtures, the ones by Mendelssohn show something quite different: a composer devotedly exploring literary and experiential circumstances and then doing his best to reflect their emotional impact in music. None of these Mendelssohn overtures is straightforward tone painting: there is no attempt to create a precise musical version of material from real life (such as a journey to Fingal’s Cave) or literature (such as Goethe’s two short poems about sea voyages in the age before steam power). Instead, what Mendelssohn does is extract the essence of the feelings generated by travel, literature or myth and put that essence into the music. The result is that his overtures help listeners share in Mendelssohn’s own feelings and experiences in a way that Bargiel’s well-made ones never do – the Bargiel works have a level of distancing that their fine structure cannot conceal, while the Mendelssohn overtures seem to grow organically, as if their form is largely determined and shaped by the composer’s experiences. The sole exception here is the “Trumpet” overture, so called because of its trumpet flourishes – but this is a very early work, and while Mendelssohn at age 16 (when he created it) was already an accomplished composer, he had not yet attained the emotional maturity that gives the other overtures here their impact: he was just 17½ when he created the superb Midsummer Night’s Dream overture, but had clearly grown considerably by that time. Kurt Masur and Mendelssohn’s own orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, do a superior job with the four overtures they perform here in a 1974 analog recording, and Walter Weller and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are also quite fine in Ruy Blas, an overture to a Victor Hugo drama that Mendelssohn found repugnant but that still inspired him to create a tense, urgent work wholly in keeping with the impact of the play. The two-CD set also includes virtually all the music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a perfectly realized accompaniment to Shakespeare’s play whose vivacity and lilt seem to emerge naturally in every performance, including this one. Aside from the music accompanying melodramas (spoken sections with music in the background), this digital recording from 1992 is complete, including the vocal elements, which are very nicely sung by soprano Alison Hagley, mezzo-soprano Louise Winter, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus. The songs are given in English, which Mendelssohn learned after writing this music – the original settings were in German, but Mendelssohn’s music is so well constructed that the vocals work in either language. In that way as in many others, Mendelssohn shows himself as a composer of the highest stature, not only in his own time but all the way up to ours.

(++++) BACH AND BEYOND

Bach: Orchestral Suites Nos. 1-4. Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Richard Egarr. AAM Records. $29.99 (2 CDs).

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6. Concerto Köln. Berlin Classics. $29.99 (2CDs).

Bach: French Suites Nos. 1-6; Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904 (two versions); Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903. Sergey Schepkin, piano. Steinway & Sons. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Bach-Busoni: Prelude and Fugue in D, BWV 532; Chorale Prelude “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639/177; Bach-Liszt: Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543; Bach-Siloti: Adagio from Sonata No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1018; Beethoven-Liszt: An die ferne Geliebte; Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 32. Tien Hsieh, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.

Bach-Reger: Chorale Prelude in B minor, BWV 727; Bach-Siloti: Prelude in B minor; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 869; Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903; Bach-Kurtag: Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106; Timo Andres: Heavy Sleep; Mohammed Fairouz: El Male Rachamim (A Prayer in Memory of György Ligeti). Bruce Levingston, piano. Sono Luminus. $15.99.

Frederick the Great of Prussia: Flute Sonatas Nos. 126, 146, 182, 184, 189, 214 and 261. Mary Oleskiewicz, flute; Balázs Máté, cello; David Schulenberg, fortepiano. Hungaroton. $19.99.

     The notion of a definitive way to play Bach is more than passé – it is absurd. Even in the days when gigantism was the rule and Bach’s vocal and instrumental delicacy were transformed into something befitting 19^th-century opera, the composer’s underlying musical ideas burrowed out of the sound morass and found their way to the light of expressiveness. The rediscovery of historically accurate performance practices and use of historic instruments or careful copies, all coupled with the lower tuning that Bach would have used, have largely made it possible to return Bach’s music to the way the composer intended it to sound – although it is arguable whether those practices really give listeners the same impression that Bach intended, since the recital and concert halls in use today have acoustics so different from those of the performance spaces of Bach’s time. So do the homes where people listen to recordings – not to mention other listening places, such as cars and outdoors. There are so many variables that it is unreasonable to state definitively that a certain way of playing Bach is 100% right, 100% of the time. Nevertheless, the search for better Bach (however defined) continues, and several new recordings take particularly interesting approaches to Bach’s music.

     The low French tuning of A=392Hz is important both for the Academy of Ancient Music’s recording of the Orchestral Suites and for Concerto Köln’s readings of the Brandenburg Concertos. The low pitch provides a mellow sound that makes it easy to play these works with very small ensembles while allowing instruments with penetrating qualities, such as trumpets, both to achieve prominence without strain and to fall back into the overall ensemble without difficulty. These two historically informed recordings not only share excellence of actual sound but also provide evidence of how thoughtful today’s performers are about Bach’s music. Richard Egarr, for example, takes a strong stance against recent trends toward playing the Orchestral Suites very quickly (a particular issue in No. 4), and an equally strong position in favor of performing them with just one player per part. The result is works that unfold at a pace that seems wholly natural, with musicians playing what is essentially chamber music rather than what later generations would describe as orchestral pieces. The flexibility of the performers, and the way in which the contrapuntal lines are enhanced through the small ensemble size, combine to produce fluid, flowing readings that remain dancelike but do not sound nearly as hectic as do some readings of recent times. This AAM Records recording also shows to excellent effect the differences in Bach’s sound in the suites: Nos. 3 and 4 both include trumpets and timpani, while No. 1 features oboes and bassoons and No. 2 uses the solo flute in a very forward-looking manner. Thoughtful and joyful, these performances are as first-class as are those of the Brandenburg Concertos on the Berlin Classics label. Here too are small-group readings that emphasize the string complements in Nos. 3 and 6, the solo recorder, oboe and trumpet in No. 2, the harpsichord virtuosity of No. 5, the Italian and French elements intermingled in No. 1. Of particular interest is the scholarship that led to re-creation of the mysterious “echo flutes” for which Bach called in No. 4 – instruments that no longer exist but that appear to have been something like two side-by-side recorders per instrument, with finger holes and  mouthpiece allowing one side of the dual instrument to play loudly and the other quietly. Whether the re-created “echo flutes” heard in this recording – to excellent and surprising effect – are actually what Bach meant when he wrote “Fiauti d’Echo” in the score is not absolutely certain, but they certainly shine the light of a new perspective on music that, however familiar, never grows stale when played with the understanding and enthusiasm it receives here.

     At something of the opposite extreme compared with meticulous attempts to reconstruct performance practices and instrumentation as Bach would have known them is the approach of Sergey Schepkin in his pursuit of recordings of all Bach’s keyboard works. Schepkin, although he has studied historic performance practices, is primarily interested in adapting Bach’s music to the capabilities of the modern piano, using the instrument – which did not exist in Bach’s time – to explore elements of the keyboard works that Schepkin believes to be inherent in them but not capable of being fully extracted by using the instruments for which the music was originally written. This is a somewhat quixotic task: there is no evidence that Bach wished for a way to express more than he clearly did express by use of the harpsichord and clavichord. But it makes for some intriguing recordings, such as the new Steinway & Sons release of the six French Suites. Schepkin is quite capable of playing with the clarity of a harpsichordist – although the piano’s percussive mechanism can never match the actual sound of the plucked strings of the older instrument – but for the most part, what he does here is to use the piano’s tonal richness and ability for emotional expression to make the French Suites into works that Bach might have written if today’s Steinways had existed some 300 years ago. Schepkin finds passion and drama in these suites as well as continuity: if the six were written as a set (an arguable proposition in itself), then Schepkin believes they start in the comparative dimness of No. 1 and progress by stages to the ebullience of No. 6. And he performs the suites on that basis, turning them, essentially, into an extended “from darkness to light” tone poem. The approach will scarcely be to all tastes, and this release gets a (+++) rating as a result: it is very well played indeed, but whether it goes too far interpretatively is a matter of opinion. Listeners who simply want to revel in Schepkin’s exceptional pianism will rate it (++++). The French Suites are supplemented by a very fine and thoroughly pianistic recording of the complex and harmonically advanced Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, and by a pair of readings that show just how carefully Schepkin has thought about using a piano for Bach’s works: two separate performances of the Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904, one on a Hamburg Steinway and the other on a New York Steinway. The differences in sound between the two instruments lead to distinct differences in the effect of the music – which, of course, reemphasizes the reality that everything Schepkin performs is a sound world away from what Bach planned for the harpsichord or clavichord.

     Some composer-pianists who came after Bach solved the problem of how to play Bach’s works by moving beyond the Baroque into their own era, transcribing and modifying Bach to place his pieces firmly in the pianistic repertoire. The two best known for doing so are Liszt and Busoni, although others, such as Alexander Siloti, Max Reger and György Kurtág, made Bach transcriptions as well. The sampling of them performed by Tien Hsieh on a new MSR Classics release shows both the usefulness and the limitations of this approach. Busoni’s well-known transcription of Prelude and Fugue in D, BWV 532, lies well on the piano (it would be interesting to have a recording of both Busoni’s version and that of Eugen d’Albert), and Busoni’s version of the Chorale Prelude “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639/177, is similarly true to the original while adapting it to the larger compass and greater tonal capabilities of the modern piano. Liszt’s transcription of the rhapsodic Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543, places it firmly within the realm of 19^th-century piano fantasies, while Siloti’s respectful handling of the Adagio from Sonata No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1018, emphasizes the warmth of the music. In all these cases, the composers – creating works primarily for themselves to play – stayed close to Bach’s originals while expanding the music’s emotional compass for the taste of a later time. This is in a way more satisfying than returning to Bach’s actual works and simply playing them on a fuller instrument with a wider emotional range, although some listeners will find this to be a distinction without a difference. In any case, Hsieh plays all the pieces with care and attention, avoiding overly grand emotive sweeps but making no attempt to perform the music with the poise and clarity that would have been expected in the Baroque era but not at the times the transcriptions were made. This CD is entitled Mostly Transcriptions 2, and it includes, in addition to the Bach material, Liszt’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte. Here as in some of his Wagner transcriptions, Liszt takes very few liberties, from time to time actually omitting repeated portions of melody in order to bring the varied accompaniment into the limelight. The songs flow into one another with apparent naturalness, as Liszt makes the cycle into an expressive fantasia rather than a set of “songs without words.” Hsieh plays here as well as she does in the Bach transcriptions, but the mixture of material is rather odd – and made more so by the inclusion, as the largest work on the disc, of something that is not a transcription at all: Beethoven’s final piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111. This large-scale two-movement work has been highly influential not only in the piano literature but also outside it – it was the template for Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 2, for example. But it seems to get short shrift here, not because Hsieh is not up to the technical demands of the music – she handles them with aplomb – but because the sonata does not really fit in the context of the transcriptions that make up the rest of the disc. The thought behind the programming of the CD is rather difficult to discern: it is not as if the sonata is the primary work and the transcriptions are encores (indeed, the sonata seems appended to the other music). Hsieh handles the sonata well, although she is not especially attuned to some of its more modern-sounding elements, such as the proto-jazz passages in the second movement. The disc as a whole seems somewhat disconnected, perhaps aimed primarily at fans of Hsieh rather than at listeners mainly interested in the music. This odd focus, or lack of focus, results in a (+++) rating, which, however, does not diminish the appeal of Hsieh’s pianism.

     Bruce Levingston’s pianism is also fine on a new Sono Luminus CD containing Bach and Bach transcriptions, but here too the program is rather odd – certainly a mixed bag – and as a result, this is also a (+++) recording. Levingston is quite happy to use all the resources of a modern piano to bring out what he sees as the emotional core of the works here, which include Reger, Siloti and Kurtág transcriptions as well as two particularly wonderful Bach keyboard works, the Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 869 and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903. This Prelude and Fugue features contrapuntal complexity that never sounds quite right on the piano, which is essentially a harmonic instrument; and Levingston’s focus is the emotional communication of the piece rather than its structure, an approach that is certainly pianistic but not especially true to the composer’s intentions. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, one of Bach’s most forward-looking works, fares better here, perhaps because it contains some genuinely modern-sounding elements that seem to make Levingston particularly comfortable. Being a work that somewhat transcends its time, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue can also stand up better than many of Bach’s other pieces to piano performance – although it always sounds best when skillfully played as Bach intended, on the instruments of his time. Levingston here seems to be using Bach as an emotional touchstone for the world première recordings of the brand-new works that open and close the CD. Timo Andres’ Heavy Sleep is apparently a primary concern of Levingston here, since it gives the disc its overall title. The work is yet another of many musical meditations on death, inspired in this case by a poem called Nocturne by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. It would be unreasonable to expect an audience to know the poem or to be required to search for connections between the poet’s words and Andres’ music; Levingston opens the CD by simply letting Andres’ piece flow in its unhurried but never magisterial way. Then, after the Bach and Bach transcriptions, Levingston gets to the longest work on the disc, the five-movement El Male Rachamim, which Mohammed Fairouz wrote as a tribute to his late teacher, György Ligeti. This piece too takes its title from a poem, in this case one by Yehuda Amichai; the title means “God, full of mercy,” and the poem is based on a Jewish funeral prayer. The music itself – which, again, has to stand on its own, even for people who do not know the poem, or Ligeti, or Fairouz’ relationship to his teacher – is reasonably effective, including a certain amount of tension-and-release and a kind of dance of death midway through. Fairouz’ work actually contains some echoes of Ligeti, just as Andres’ in some ways echoes Bach (and, for that matter, Chopin). So this CD in its totality does have a certain degree of unity of theme and approach. But this is true only in a rather forced and academic way: heard simply as a sequence of musical pieces, Levingston’s recital, taken as a whole, is less effective than are some of its parts.

     Even in Bach’s own time, analysts, including other composers, were trying to determine the key to his unusually sublime and effective style. Johann Joaquin Quantz, for example, attributed the effectiveness of Bach to his seamless mingling of Italian and French stylistic elements, saying that Bach’s choice of the best elements of different countries’ musical styles produced Bach’s unique German one. Quantz (1697-1773) had his own ideas of style, especially as it related to the flute, for which he composed hundreds of concertos and sonatas and about which he wrote a highly respected treatise that is still used for information on performance practices of the 18^th century. Quantz is nowadays as well-known as the flute teacher, flute maker and court composer to Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great (1712-1786), as for his own poised and graceful compositions. The monarch himself, often spoken of as a highly skilled flute performer until tooth loss and gout-related hand swelling compromised his technique (he stopped playing altogether in 1780), is almost totally unknown as a composer. A new (++++) Hungaroton CD of seven of Frederick the Great’s flute sonatas – all of them world première recordings – makes it possible to judge Frederick’s accomplishments in composition, and shows him in quite a favorable light. None of the sonatas breaks any major new ground, and all of them pretty much follow Quantz’s models, but they are uniformly well-made and contain their share of surprises – a striking B-flat minor flourish to open No. 182 in B-flat major, for example. Like Quantz, Frederick composed in keys more remote than the usual ones used for the flute in the 18^th century, and he had some fondness for minor ones: four of the seven sonatas on this disc are in minor keys. (Bach’s Musical Offering, dedicated to Frederick, is in C minor, and the virtuosic trio sonata within it was written for Frederick to play the flute part – indicating that the monarch had considerable ability as a performer.) The Hungaroton performances – which use a tuning of A=385Hz, even lower than that used in the new Academy of Ancient Music and Concerto Köln discs – are uniformly first-rate. And they use instruments carefully created as replicas of those of Frederick’s and Bach’s time – indeed, Mary Oleskiewicz’s flute is based on one made by Quantz. The chance to hear Frederick the Great’s flute sonatas performed so well and with such a focus on historic instruments and practices is one not to be missed by anybody interested in music created in Bach’s time by a monarch of rare musical talent.