(++++) PIANO AMAZEMENTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(++++) NEW SYMPHONIC DIRECTIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(++++) AMUSEMENT OR SERIOUSNESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

(+++) A TALE OF THE FROZEN NORTH

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

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

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

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

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

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

(++++) GETTING TO THE CORE

Mahler: Symphony No. 6. Symphonieorchester des Bayerischer Rundfunks conducted by Daniel Harding. BR Klassik. $16.99.

Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Finlandia; The Swan of Tuonela; Valse Triste; The Bard. Michael Ludwig, violin; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Beau Fleuve. $17.

Sibelius: Swanwhite—complete incidental music; Ödlan (The Lizard)—complete incidental music; A Lonely Ski Trail; The Countess’ Portrait. Riho Eklundh, narrator; Turku Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam. Naxos. $12.99.

Bach: Cello Suites (complete). Matt Haimovitz, cello. PentaTone. $29.99 (2 SACDs).

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8 (“Pathétique”), 21 (“Waldstein”) and 32. Boris Giltburg, piano. Naxos. $12.99.

Richard Strauss: Don Quixote; Also Sprach Zarathustra. Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo. $19.99.

     “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,” explains the title character in The Little Prince. “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” When it comes to music – which is certainly invisible once transformed from notes on a page into sound – the appeal to the heart is, in most cases, a given. But what is essential in music, essential to the understanding of the totality of the work of a particular composer, essential to individual pieces? Certainly Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, often given the sobriquet Tragic, requires seeing with the heart: all Mahler’s music is a journey with the composer into his deepest emotions, the Sixth even more so than some of his other works. But how does one get to the essentials of the Sixth? There are two significant performance problems with this work, along with a myriad of lesser ones. One major issue is the order of the middle movements: should the slow movement precede or follow the scherzo? Mahler himself could not make up his mind – he himself could not quite decide which sequence better elucidates what is essential in the symphony. The other important matter is the famous sequence of three hammer blows in the finale, the last of which fells the hero who (as in the First and Second Symphonies) is the protagonist of the drama. Mahler originally planned five hammer blows, then decided on three, and then, after the work’s first performance, deleted the third – from superstition, it has been widely argued. Should the third be reinstated? Daniel Harding’s well-paced and very strongly played performance of the Sixth on a new BR Klassik CD leaves out the third hammer blow and places the Andante moderato second. The essential character of the symphony is partly determined by these decisions. Most conductors now omit the third hammer blow, although its inclusion inarguably adds to the power of the symphony’s conclusion. Conductors are split just about 50-50 in terms of movement sequence: certainly placing the slow movement second provides relief after the high drama of the opening, but the decision then produces a scherzo-plus-finale of almost unrelieved intensity for well over 40 minutes. This is particularly so in Harding’s performance, which goes for maximum power and encourages the outstanding orchestra to play for all it is worth. Just how intensely the performers participate in this reading is made clear from what may be the most unusual cover ever used for a CD: it shows the electrocardiograms of Harding and four members of the orchestra during the performance (they were fitted with EKG devices as an experiment) and provides amazing insight into just how involved musicians become in the works they perform. This disc raises both intentional and unintentional questions about what is essential. An example of the latter: it is considered essential to keep CD recordings at or below 80 minutes, or perhaps a tiny smidgen above, to preserve sound quality at an adequate sampling rate. But this 82½-minute performance is offered on a single CD, and there is no audible compromise in the sound at all.

     Certainly symphonies are the essential element of Mahler’s oeuvre, making up – along with song cycles – essentially everything he wrote. Symphonies are equally crucial to an understanding and appreciation of Sibelius, with whom Mahler had his famous argument about what a symphony should be. A new CD on the Beau Fleuve label is therefore completely off base in its title, “The Essential Sibelius,” since there is no symphony here. There are, however, several other works that are crucial to Sibelius’ total production, most notably his Violin Concerto, performed with aplomb by Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concertmaster Michael Ludwig. This is a solid, sturdy rendition of the concerto, largely straightforward in approach, allowing the music to unfold naturally without any attempt by Ludwig or conductor JoAnn Falletta to accentuate either its Romantic leanings or its forward-looking harmonies: the disparate elements coexist peacefully here. Falletta does know how to go for drama when she wants to: her Finlandia is mountainously strong and strides boldly forth, although its warmer and more-relaxed sections get somewhat short shrift as a result. Valse Triste and The Swan of Tuonela are somewhat less successful, despite Anna Mattix’s lovely English horn playing in the latter, because there is a dark wistfulness to both works that is missing here: Valse Triste should tread the line between fear of Death and being enamored of it, and the beauty of the land of the dead is also a crucial element of The Swan of Tuonela. These performances are fine, but scarcely revelatory. The least “essential” of the works on this CD is the final one, the short tone poem The Bard, which is not exactly at the core of Sibelius’ music but which does offer some very effective tone painting – which Falletta reproduces with colorful involvement.

     It could be argued that Sibelius’ theater music is almost as essential to his overall work as are his symphonies, but his musical accompaniments for 13 plays and various shorter presentations are not heard particularly often, except in the truncated form of suites. This makes Leif Segerstam’s ongoing survey of Sibelius’ incidental music all the more welcome: a new Naxos CD featuring Swanwhite and The Lizard is the fifth in the sequence. The degree to which the theater and symphonic music of Sibelius intertwine is quite clear in the Swanwhite music: one piece clearly echoes Valse Triste and another was later reworked by Sibelius into part of his Fifth Symphony. By definition, theater music is episodic: the 14 numbers for Swanwhite take less than 30 minutes to perform. But Sibelius’ expertise at producing atmospheric sounds is clear everywhere, and it is almost possible to visualize scenes from the play simply by hearing the music written for it. This is less true when it comes to The Lizard, whose music is consistently gloomy and rather low-key, closer to what we now deem “background music” than the Swanwhite pieces, which add to and comment upon the stage action. The Lizard is a rather dreamlike story about a nobleman whose soul is torn between characters representing good and evil. The music is quite effectively orchestrated but not particularly interesting to hear in concert form, although the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra plays it very well. The CD also includes two short dramatic pieces, real Sibelius rarities: melodramas, in which narrator Riho Eklundh briefly tells stories as Sibelius’ music swells and subsides behind the voice. Nothing on this CD should be considered “essential” Sibelius, but to the extent that his theatrical productions are essential to an understanding of his music, this disc provides a real service by making more of them readily available.

     Asking what is essential in Bach’s music is a more-difficult question: it is hard to think of Bach works that do not partake of the essence of his style and communicative skill. Certainly his six Cello Suites are essential for cellists: they remain among the most complex and difficult works ever written for the instrument, and every cellist who performs and records them takes pains to note that his or her interpretation at any given time will differ from ones under other circumstances. Matt Haimovitz is particularly forthright about this, discussing – in the notes he provides for the new PentaTone recording of the suites – the ways in which his thinking about the music has changed since he first recorded the suites 15 years ago. Haimovitz’ musings and self-analyses are interesting, and the brief examples he offers of his musical re-thinking confirm the overall thoughtfulness of his approach to Bach. But what is essential here is how Haimovitz’ new views of the music translate into the way he offers it. One significant element that changes is the edition of the suites that he uses: here, Anna Magdalena Bach’s manuscript rather than the Bärenreiter edition of the suites from which he worked on his earlier recording. Perhaps even more important is the fact that Haimovitz has somewhat toned down the quirks in tempo and rubato that marred his earlier recording of the music. He performs the first five suites here on a Baroque cello with an especially sonorous lower range (made in 1710 by Matteo Goffriller) and the sixth on a five-string cello piccolo, and he uses gut strings and a modern reproduction of a Baroque bow throughout. But Haimovitz does not believe “Baroque” means “stolid,” and he does not hesitate to make some unusual tempo choices and to continue to employ a degree of rubato that is not, however, as overdone as in his first recording. Haimovitz wants be to be provocative in his performances – at least that is the impression this recording gives from time to time, if not constantly. He plays so well that his provocations and occasional oddities are not only impossible to ignore but also important to take seriously, which is likely his point. The almost completely static Sarabande of Suite No. 2, the amazingly bowed Gigue of Suite No. 3, and the fascinating handling of the pizzicato section at the end of the Gavotte I & II movement of Suite No. 6 are but three examples among many. There is nothing staid in Haimovitz’ readings – some of his dance movements are really danceable – and if he occasionally seems to overdo things with some inauthentic phrasing or rhythmic touches, at least he never errs on the side of too much caution. What Haimovitz has done is to show, as other performers have also done, that the essential elements of Bach lie only partly in the instruments and forms he used: what Bach communicates transcends the specific means through which he does so.

     Figuring out what is essential in Beethoven is a tricky matter, but surely his piano sonatas are among the essential elements of his music. What is particularly attractive about a new Naxos CD featuring three of them played by Boris Giltburg – aside from the assured, well-proportioned interpretations and the well-controlled virtuosity that never subsumes the music within empty display – is the contrast among the three sonatas heard here. The “Pathétique” of 1798 bears many of the hallmarks of youth and of the sort of Sturm und Drang atmosphere of some of Haydn’s symphonies, while also looking ahead toward the Romantic era in its un-self-conscious emotional display. The “Waldstein” of 1804 is grander and more technically challenging, a work in which Beethoven significantly broadened the concept of a piano sonata and paved the way for its further expansion by Liszt and others. And No. 32, Beethoven’s final sonata (1821-22), is simply astonishing, anticipating jazz in one section of its first movement, pushing the bounds of harmony, combining elements of drama and mysticism in a heady brew that seems different each time the work is performed. This sonata, whose form inspired several Chopin works and was used by Prokofiev as the basis of his Symphony No. 2, transcends both its time and the earlier sonatas for which it is the capstone. The notion of Beethoven having early, middle and late compositional periods is a widely repeated over-simplification that seems self-evident on the basis of this CD: the composer’s progress from accepted forms and harmonies into new territory that remains modern-sounding nearly 200 years later is amply explored by Giltburg, whose readings of all three sonatas show careful crafting, sensitivity and musical understanding.

     And what would be understood as essential in the music of Richard Strauss? Opera, for sure, but also tone poems – and there were few interpreters of those tone poems more adept and assured than Herbert von Karajan. Although long identified with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which he led for more than three decades (1956-1989), von Karajan also frequently led the Vienna Philharmonic – probably the only orchestra equal to the Berlin ensemble during von Karajan’s lifetime. Some sense of the exceptional sound of the Vienna Philharmonic, especially its absolutely gorgeous string tone, comes through on a new Orfeo release of two Salzburg Festival Strauss performances from 1964 – readings made all the more attractive by the solo turns of violist Rudolf Streng and cellist Pierre Fournier. Von Karajan’s drive and constant striving for drama were sometimes off-putting, but these versions of Don Quixote and Also Sprach Zarathustra show the conductor as equally sensitive to the lyricism, warmth and plasticity of the music – his reputation for a certain coldness of approach is undeserved, at least here. Unfortunately, although the remastering of this recording is very good, the CD will be of interest only to fans of von Karajan and/or the Vienna Philharmonic, and ones with particular interest in historic performances. The reason is that this is a monophonic recording, and no amount of technical tweaking can turn it into anything else. The fullness of sound that comes through is actually more than would be expected under the circumstances, but it does have limits, and the result is a (+++) release of rather limited appeal. And those familiar with von Karajan’s spectacular 1973 Berlin Philharmonic recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra will find this one a trifle disappointing: for all the quality of the Vienna Philharmonic’s playing, the interpretation itself is a touch on the tentative side, lacking the extremely fine attention to detail of the later version. Don Quixote comes across quite well, though, with a fine balance between seriousness and elements of rather rough humor. Certainly this recording shows some of what is essential in the music of Strauss, although it would be a stretch to call it essential to the understanding and appreciation of one of the world’s greatest Strauss conductors.

(++++) VARYING VOCALS

Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri. Sally Matthews and Kate Royal, sopranos; Bernarda Fink, contralto; Mark Padmore and Andrews Staples, tenors; Florian Boesch, bass; London Symphony Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. LSO Live. $25.99 (2 SACDs+Blu-ray Disc).

Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortilèges; Ma Mère l’Oye. Hélène Hébrard, Ingrid Perruche and Annick Massis, sopranos; Julie Pasturaud, mezzo-soprano; Delphine Galou, contralto; Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, tenor; Marc Barrard, baritone; Nicolas Courjal, bass; Chœur Britten, Jeune Chœur symphonique, Maîtrise de l’Opéra National de Lyon and Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Naxos. $12.99.

Bruno Maderna: Requiem. Diana Tomiche, soprano; Kathrin Göring, contralto; Bernhard Berchtold, tenor; Renatus Mészár, bass; MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig and Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie conducted by Frank Beermann. Capriccio. $16.99.

Penderecki: A sea of dreams did breathe on me… Olga Pasichnyk, soprano; Ewa Marciniec, mezzo-soprano; Jarosław Bręk, baritone; Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit. Naxos. $12.99.

An English Christmas. Westminster Concert Bell Choir conducted by Kathleen Ebling Shaw. Westminster Choir College. $16.99.

     A distinctive and unusual work whose form is difficult to identify – Schumann called it a “secular oratorio,” which seems about right – Das Paradies und die Peri is a fascinating, musically very well-written piece that sustains well throughout its hour-and-a-half length despite the rather overly sentimental libretto. It deserves to be considered a real find: the high quality of the music and the very attractive vocal as well as instrumental writing combine to make it a piece that certainly does not deserve the obscurity into which it fell after Schumann’s death (it was quite popular in his lifetime). It gets a handsome presentation, too, on the London Symphony Orchestra’s LSO Live label: there are two very high-quality SACDs, an audio Blu-ray Disc, and an explanatory booklet that contains the complete libretto in German and English – altogether, a most welcome introduction to a work that very few listeners will ever have heard. The story revolves around the attempt of a Peri, portrayed as a sort of female angel, to gain readmission to Heaven after being thrown out for some unnamed sin. To be accepted again, she must journey about the Earth until she can find and bring back an example of that which is dearest to God. It takes her three attempts; she eventually succeeds by bringing back the tears of a repentant sinner. This is sentimental, for sure, and in line with conventional 19^th-century morality. But the point here is Schumann’s music more than the libretto, which is a modified, German-language version of a once-popular verse epic by Irish poet Thomas Moore. Schumann manages to find a way to write convincing solo vocal lines devoid of bel canto ornamentation, and choruses that do not sound Handelian. Those are the things that Das Paradies und die Peri is not; what it is, is basically a musically convincing extended song cycle, a series of solo and multi-person deliveries of texts that come through very clearly thanks to music that supports the words rather than obscuring them through vocal effects. The storytelling is plainly audible, and at the same time the supportive music enhances the tale and carries listeners along on a quest in which neither love of country (which produces the Peri’s first attempted gift to heaven) nor love-unto-death of man and woman (the second attempt) pleases Heaven enough to allow the Peri to regain a place on high. The story has elements of fairy tale rather than being a strictly religious narrative, and Schumann manages to balance these differing aspects of the libretto to fine effect, resulting in a work that seems to grow organically from start to finish and eventually ends in surpassing lyricism. Sir Simon Rattle leads the soloists, choruses and orchestra with absolute assurance and style here, showing Das Paradies und die Peri to be a work of grace and beauty, an unusual piece in Schumann’s oeuvre and one whose acquaintance it is well worth making.

     Fairy tales of a different type, ones specifically reproducing some of the thoughts and feelings of children, are the heart of Ravel’s opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges and his ballet Ma Mère l’Oye, both of which receive first-rate performances directed by Leonard Slatkin on a new Naxos CD. L’Enfant et les sortilèges is a particular pleasure: fast-paced, witty and with some genuinely striking instrumental effects, the score very neatly encapsulates a child’s world while teaching just the sort of mundane behavioral lesson that parents would hope misbehaving young children will learn without requiring the intervention of magical forces. As the petulant and destructive young Child, Hélène Hébrard is suitably tantrum-prone, then wonderstruck as objects in the room come alive, and then frightened when the creatures outdoors seem to become threatening – only to be won over by the Child’s act of kindness and repeated call for “Maman,” which the animals join the Child in calling out. Ravel’s amusingly evocative settings of a “cat conversation” and the personification of Arithmetic are standouts here, but in fact all the one-act opera’s very short scenes, starting with the awakening of the Louis XV Chair, are handled adeptly and sung with just the right frisson of mystery. The entire cast – each member except for Hébrard singing multiple roles – takes to the music winningly, and both the adult and children’s choruses complement the individual singers to fine effect. Slatkin’s direction is just right: the opera unfolds seemingly naturally, for all its fantastic elements, and the increasing menace toward the end dissipates quickly, just as it should, as the Child proves to have a good heart after all. L’Enfant et les sortilèges is nicely complemented by an equally facile performance of the complete ballet Ma Mère l’Oye (which is, in truth, not much longer than the more-often-heard suite drawn from the ballet music). The music here, in the absence of stage action, does not paint portraits of the Mother Goose tales particularly well, but it is all pleasant, generally impressionistic rather than specific in its portrayal of various scenes, and presented in this performance with a combination of gentleness and attentiveness to the finely honed orchestration at which Ravel was so adept. The performances were recorded a couple of years apart – Ma Mère l’Oye in 2011 and L’Enfant et les sortilèges in 2013 – but both sound equally good, and both show Slatkin’s clear understanding of and commitment to Ravel’s music.

     The vocal material is considerably more serious in the Requiem by Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), a work from 1946 that was long thought to be lost and was rediscovered only in 2006 and first performed in 2009. Maderna, a solid and underrated conductor, was also a composer of some substance, although his work will scarcely appeal to all listeners: much of it is determinedly serial and seems more concerned with adhering to the dictates of its style than with communicating effectively with an audience. However, Maderna did not begin writing serial pieces until 1948. His Requiem, which follows the Latin texts and the movement sequence of similar works by earlier composers, certainly sounds like a creation of someone familiar with 20^th-century techniques and harmonies, but at the same time ties clearly back to the expressiveness of the Requiems of Verdi and Berlioz. It partakes of some of their intensity as well: the Dies irae movement, which runs an astonishing 23-and-a-half minutes (it is two-and-a-half times as extended as the second-longest movement, the nine-and-a-half-minute concluding Libera me), is clearly reflective of the wartime experiences that led Maderna to create his Requiem. After serving in Mussolini’s army for a time, Maderna joined the Partisan Resistance and was captured by German forces, then interrogated at Dachau by the SS – the situation that led him to create the Requiem. The work makes considerable demands on its four soloists, but the primary impression it leaves is one of a plea for peace, not so much in the sense of Britten’s War Requiem as in a more-personal sense of seeking comfort for oneself and for those who have already passed on. Musically derivative in some ways, it shows genuine originality in others, and is well-orchestrated and effectively written for both individual and choral voices. Frank Beermann leads the forces heard on a new Capriccio CD firmly and with a particularly good sense of balance between the vocal and instrumental elements of the score. Not a great work but still a very impressive one, Maderna’s Requiem may well serve to introduce new listeners to a talented and still under-appreciated 20^th-century composer.

     Krzysztof Penderecki, on the other hand, is scarcely under-appreciated. His song cycle from 2010, A sea of dreams did breathe on me…, was composed for the final concert of the Polish bicentenary celebrations in Warsaw, but it is only in the third of its three parts that direct ties to Chopin really emerge. This work is in some ways closely related to Penderecki’s Symphony No. 8, “Songs of Transience,” but it links the composer more clearly to late-Romantic lied composers, especially the Russian school. The primary building blocks, though, come largely from 20^th-century Polish poetry. “The enchanted garden,” the first part of A sea of dreams did breathe on me…, is a fairy-tale world, but one quite unlike Ravel’s: this is a more-reflective place, fantasy as seen through adult eyes. The second part – “What is the night saying?” – gets closer to and beyond Ravel’s child’s fears into a world that has nightmarish elements; it is from this part that the title of the whole work is taken. The third part, as long as the first two combined, is called “I visited you in these near-final days…” Six segments here are marked “Chopin’s piano,” while other elements of the section refer somewhat bleakly to a land far away, the autumn wind, and Countess Potocka’s grave. Yet the feelings here are more wistful than depressive; indeed, Penderecki calls this entire work “Songs of reflection and nostalgia.” Neither reflection nor nostalgia is much in evidence in contemporary classical music, and it is Penderecki’s willingness to work within these now-neglected but once-common categories that helps A sea of dreams did breathe on me… reach out widely to audiences, in ways that his other works – no matter how much they are admired by musicians and critics – are not always successful in doing. Although it lacks the narrative flow of Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, Penderecki’s song cycle partakes of some of the same emotional flavor, and the first song, in which children’s souls are imagined to be flowering as the children walk across a field, has some of the sensibility of L’Enfant et les sortilèges – although Penderecki’s music here sounds more like that of Debussy than that of Ravel. The soloists are all very good on this Naxos recording, though soprano Olga Pasichnyk sounds somewhat strained in her highest register from time to time. Antoni Wit here reaffirms his sensitivity to Penderecki and to Polish music in general, shaping the work lovingly and leading both chorus and orchestra with sure understanding.

     Lighter music, with charms all its own, is a considerable seasonal treat on a new Westminster Choir College CD called An English Christmas and featuring the Westminster Concert Bell Choir. The ensemble not only sings beautifully but also performs on the largest range of handbells in the world, spanning a full eight octaves and supplemented by a six-octave set of easier-to-play (but still very sonically effective) handchimes. The blend of familiar and less-known carols works particularly well here, with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Silent Night juxtaposed not only with Greensleeves but also with the traditional Welsh Slumber Song, the 12^th-century Irish Wexford Carol, Gustav Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter, the well-known 16^th-century Good King Wenceslas, and Ding, Dong, Merrily on High. The combination, on its face, might appear a trifle odd, especially when considering which music seems more or less appropriate for handbells; but the sequence on the disc is well-thought-out, and Kathleen Ebling Shaw leads every carol with care and fine balance, resulting in a CD filled with pleasure from start to finish. The rest of the 14 tracks here are On This Day Earth Shall Ring (14^th century), Sussex Carol (17^th), Coventry Carol (16^th), Masters in This Hall (18^th), Boar’s Head Carol (16^th), and, as a finale, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – a more-than-fitting and thoroughly uplifting conclusion to a CD that effectively communicates the joys and underlying serious themes of Christmas both vocally and with instruments whose range and sensitivity prove significantly greater than anyone unfamiliar with highly skilled handbell playing will likely expect.