(++++) SOLOS AND DUOS

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 2; An die ferne Geliebte (transcribed by Liszt); Czerny: Erste fantasie auf motive aus Beethovens werken; Nocturne in E-flat; Mendelssohn: Variations Sérieuses. Gwendolyn Mok, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.

Kate Moore: Stories for Ocean Shells. Ashley Bathgate, cello. Cantaloupe Music. $15.

Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Two Pieces for Violin and Piano; Korngold: Much Ado about Nothing—Suite from the Incidental Music; Marietta’s Lied and Tanzlied from “Die Tote Stadt.” Yuriy Bekker, violin; Andrew Armstrong, piano. Navona. $14.99.

Scene Rustique: Twentieth-Century Oboe Works by Hedwige Chrétien, Mary Chandler, Marina Dranishnikova, Gloria Wilson Swisher, and Madeline Dring. Leslie Odom, oboe; Soomee Yoon, piano. Navona. $14.99.

Steven Winteregg: Journeymen’s Songs. Navona. $14.99.

     It is a particularly salutary experience to hear composers’ music on the instruments for which they wrote it – not only music of the Baroque era, which is where “historically informed” performances began, but also music of much later times, right into the 20^th century, when gut strings remained the norm and there was much more portamento than is now customary. And when a performer is as good as pianist Gwendolyn Mok on a new MSR Classics release, there is pleasure both from the readings themselves and from the context in which they are presented. Mok’s disc is called “The Spirit of Beethoven,” and for once, this is an “overview” title that actually fits the music and does not feel forced. Mok first offers a very early Beethoven piano sonata, played on a 1985 reproduction of a 1795 Louis Dulcken fortepiano, and Mok’s rendition shows quite clearly how deeply rooted Beethoven was in the Classical era before beginning to move music into new directions. The fortepiano itself – decidedly worth hearing in, among other music, all the Beethoven piano concertos – has a sound quite different from that of a modern concert grand, as well as a much smaller compass of notes. Beethoven used it to its fullest extent, but that is nowhere near what modern pianos can bring to bear – and this music sounds all the better, all the more realistic in a strange time-traveling way, when performed on the sort of instrument for which Beethoven wrote it. This is equally true for Liszt’s transcription of the song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte, played here on an 1823 Broadwood & Sons instrument that by that time was called a pianoforte rather than a fortepiano. Liszt himself used even-more-substantial instruments than this one, but the Broadwood & Sons sound has clear transitional elements to it, being fuller than that of earlier fortepianos but without the scope or resonance of instruments that were yet to come. Mok uses the same pianoforte for Beethoven pupil Carl Czerny’s Erste fantasie auf motive aus Beethovens werken, a rather slight work that nevertheless deserves to be better known for its pleasantries as well as its effective use of Beethoven’s thematic material as its basis. Mok then moves to a third instrument for another Czerny work, Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 547 (Czerny was amazingly prolific). Switching to an 1868 Érard for this piece is a particularly happy decision, even though this pianoforte was built 11 years after Czerny’s death. The reason this works so well is that it gives listeners a chance to hear the music of this close Beethoven associate on two very different-sounding instruments, thus emphasizing both the transitional nature of Czerny’s own works and the influence Beethoven had over succeeding generations. The CD concludes, still on the Érard, with Mendelssohn’s Variations Sérieuses, Op. 54, a work with a more-tenuous connection to Beethoven than Czerny’s variations, but one showing quite clearly how Mendelssohn, like other composers of Beethoven’s time and immediately thereafter, adapted elements of Beethoven’s pianistic thinking and made it their own. Mendelssohn was 18 when Beethoven died and had already produced a considerable body of work, much of it influenced more by Haydn and Mozart than by Beethoven – but these variations show him reaching for greater intensity in the Beethoven mode, while filtering  Beethoven’s influence through his own, already well-developed piano style.

     The Cantaloupe Music CD of music by Kate Moore is as determinedly up-to-date as Mok’s is decidedly focused on Beethoven’s time. Here the solo instrument is the cello, with Ashley Bathgate performing an hour-long, six-piece sequence that composer Kate Moore calls Stories for Ocean Shells. Written over a 20-year period, the individual elements sometimes have the cello playing alone and in relatively straightforward mode, sometimes stretch the instrument in fairly typical contemporary ways, and sometimes combine the cello’s warm and rich sound with electronic elements that are intended to supplement the instrument but have a tendency to detract from its tonal beauty. For example, the work’s overall title is taken from its second, eponymous element, in which the cello line climbs above thick and rather eerie-sounding electronics that aurally get in the way of Bathgate’s impassioned playing. The pieces within Stories for Ocean Shells are of varying interest as well as varying structure: “Velvet,” for instance, is a moderately effective mixture of cello with electronic sounds, while “Homage to My Boots” is less interesting – and requires an audience to know that the work connects with Moore’s travels for it to have any significant connection with listeners. This is a (+++) CD featuring some fine cello playing and some good writing for the instrument: Moore herself plays the cello. The musical material, however, is on the thin side and is often rather ordinary in its insistence on mixing elements that do not go together particularly well.

     Aaron Copland and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, on the other hand, came up with well-joined elements of various sorts in their music for violin and piano, with the works on a new (++++) Navona CD played with verve and style by Yuriy Bekker and Andrew Armstrong. These pieces are rarely performed, and the violin used by Bekker is rarer still: it is a 1656 Stradivarius (called the “ex-Nachez”) that has not been recorded before. The violin’s wonderful tone is scarcely a surprise, given its provenance, but the contrasts built into the music are enough to make listeners sit up and take notice. Copland’s Two Pieces for Violin and Piano, for instance, dates to 1926 and is redolent of the influences that make earlier Copland music so attractive: folk tunes, blues and jazz. The pieces themselves offer a strong contrast between the Nocturne and the Ukulele Serenade. But both are tonal and pleasant to hear, which gives them a strong contrast with the Sonata for Violin and Piano of 1943. This work seems almost to play against the wonderful tone of the Stradivarius, much as Moore’s music at times seems at war with the cello’s warmth. And Copland’s piano part here is decidedly modern and technique-oriented, making extended use of parallel chords made of stacked perfect fourths – creating a foundation for the three movements that is quite different from what most listeners associate with Copland’s more-popular works (and perhaps explaining this sonata’s comparative obscurity). Copland’s music is paired interestingly with works by Korngold that are even earlier than Copland’s Two Pieces. The suite from Much Ado about Nothing dates to 1921 and offers four attractively structured, if rather straightforward, excerpts from Korngold’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s play. Here the violin and piano merge and discuss as frequently as they take on the roles of dominant and subsidiary instrument – although when they do assume those roles, the violin is clearly in charge. There are also two transcriptions here of songs from Korngold’s 1920 opera, Die tote Stadt, and they offer attractive and often-warm moments in which the violin sings as a substitute for the missing human voice. The CD is intriguing both for its repertoire and for the sound of the violin, and the playing by Bekker and Armstrong is very fine throughout.

     Twentieth-century duos of a different sort are presented on a Ravello release called Scene Rustique and featuring Leslie Odom and Soomee Yoon. Here too there are some interesting pieces, all of them written by woman composers and all of them receiving world première recordings. The works vary considerably in style and mood. Hedwige Chrétien’s Scene Rustique, which gives the disc its title, is a series of variations on a pastoral, four-note theme with a slight Mozartean flavor – the composer has a penchant for ornamentation and uses it to dress the theme up in a variety of ways. Mary Chandler’s Three Dance Studies for Oboe and Piano offers a trio of very short movements (the concluding Magyar lasts barely half a minute) with clear rhythms. Marina Dranishnikova’s Poème contains many neo-Romantic elements, such as strong emotional expression and frequent metrical changes, that bely its date of 1953 – it is intended to express the feelings of a tragic love affair, which it does through a generally dark mood and disturbed-sounding syncopated sections. Gloria Wilson Swisher’s Salutations is lighter music, along the lines of Chandler’s work, with three brief movements giving the oboe more chances than usual to offer proclamations and even, per the title of the second movement, Fanfares. The CD concludes with two works by Madeleine Dring, Danza Gaya and Italian Dance, which are both fairly straightforward dance tunes that invite the oboe to bubble along above pleasant piano accompaniment.  This (+++) CD will be of interest to oboists looking to extend their repertoire and to listeners who fancy a chance to hear less-known 20^th-century oboe music, but even those who really enjoy the rather slight works and the very fine playing will likely be disappointed to find that the disc lasts only 30 minutes – a genuinely paltry length for a full-priced CD.

     At 54 minutes, the new Navona CD of music by Steven Winteregg is more reasonable in duration; and this disc too seems directed in large part at instrumentalists who want to expand their repertoire. In this case, however, non-performers will also find much to enjoy. The CD features trumpeter Daniel Zehringer on B-flat and C trumpets and flugelhorn, and the works call for instrumental forces ranging from solo C trumpet (African Fanfare) to solos on all three instruments (the five-movement Reflections of Quoheleth) to C trumpet and piano (The City, with pianist Steve Aldredge) and flugelhorn and cello (Two Souvenirs, the cello here played by Franklin Cox). The album title does not come from any specific work but from the overall notion of travel both geographic (with references to places ranging from Chicago to several Chinese cities) and musical (through use of the various trumpets and different accompanying forces). The geographical references of African Fanfare and the two movements of Two Souvenirs (first Postcard from Narbonne, then Train to Nowhere) are at least reasonably clear from the titles, and The City is supposed to be a musical reflection on Chicago. The name Quoheleth sounds like something out of H.P. Lovecraft but is actually biblical (the reference is to Ecclesiastes); this is the piece on the CD that most clearly shows the differing colors of which trumpets of various types are capable, making it especially intriguing for performers. There are also two works here with more-extensive accompaniment. One is China Crossing, whose four movements are Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong; here the writing is for a brass quintet including Zehringer and Eric Knorr, trumpets; Jonas Thomas, horn; Gretchen McNamara, trombone; and Thomas Lukowicz, tuba. The referents to the specific cities are not particular evident, but the ensemble writing is attractive and the four movements are short enough not to wear out their welcome. Finally there is the intriguing, if somewhat overly cute, Popular Variations on a Classical Theme, in which Zehringer plays C trumpet and flugelhorn and is accompanied by Jerry Nobel on percussion and Don Compton on bass. The six movements are built around the well-known theme from the Largo of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” and the idea is to compare and contrast that theme with ones from specific later decades: the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The idea is fun, and hearing Dvořák varied in multiple tempos and juxtaposed with Benny Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing, the Marcels’ Blue Moon, TV’s Green Acres, the Village People’s Macho Man, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera is just outlandish enough to be intriguing. But the piece is essentially a “one-trick pony,” and even though none of the movements is very long (the six combined last 13 minutes), what Winteregg is doing is obvious enough so it wears rather thin after a while. Still, as a whole, listeners, especially but not only trombonists, will consider this a (++++) CD for its cleverness, the number of ways Winteregg finds to use the lead instruments, and the first-rate playing of Zehringer in every one of these pieces.

(++++) QUARTETS AND MORE

Abrazo: The Havana Sessions. Ansonica. $16.99 (2 CDs).

Fred Broer: String Quartet No. 8; Piano Pieces Nos. 2, 5, 6 and 8. New England String Quartet (Julia Okrusko and Nelli Jabotinsky, violins; Lilit Muradyan, viola; Ming-Hui Lin, cello); Karolina Rojahn, piano. Navona. $14.99.

Elliott Miles McKinley: String Quartet No. 7; Three Portraits. Martinů Quartet (Lubomír Havlák and Libor Kaňka, violins; Zbyněk Paďourek, viola; Jitka Vlašánková, cello); SOLI Chamber Ensemble (Stephanie Key, clarinet; David Mollenauer, cello; Ertan Torgul, violin; Carolyn True, piano). Navona. $14.99.

Loretta K. Notareschi: String Quartet OCD. Playground Ensemble String Quartet (Sarah Whitnah and Leslie Sawyer, violins; Donald Schumacher, viola; Richard vonFoerster, cello). Disegni Music. $10.

Last Lap: 21^st Century Music for Trombone Ensemble. Tromboteam! (Jennifer Griggs, John Grodrian, Ben McIlwain and Sarah Paradis, tenor trombone; Craig Watson, bass trombone). MSR Classics. $12.95.

     Ever since Haydn turned the string quartet into a conversational composition in which musicians wordlessly discuss, develop and resolve themes and arguments, the quartet and other chamber ensembles – sometimes string groups, sometimes not – have been excellent ways to communicate a wide variety of emotions. The conversational chamber approach eventually evolved into jazz, and the intermingling of jazz and classical musical elements remains today a fertile field for composers. A two-disc set from Ansonica, recorded in Havana not long after the initial warming of ties between the United States and Cuba and given the title Abrazo (“Hug”), shows this particularly well, nearly breathing a metaphorical sigh of relief at the dismantling of long-rigid political walls. The music here will be entirely unfamiliar to almost all listeners, but there is so much joy, bounce and ingenuity in so many of the pieces that listeners will be eager to make the acquaintance of the works and their composers. The first CD in this two-disc set opens with Hot Miami Nights and On an Autumn Day by Timothy Lee Miller, which serve as “cool jazz” introductions to the rest of the material. Next is Bugs & Gas by Don Bowyer, whose amusing style and elaborate syncopations belie the serious reason for the title: it was commissioned in honor of a man who spent his career decommissioning biological and chemical weapons. Jazz Instrumental Suite and Jazz Vocal Suite by Bunny Beck, both arranged by Juan Manuel Ceruto, are closely attentive to multiple Cuban styles in ways that may remind some listeners of Gershwin’s Cuban Overture. The second CD opens with Alarcón Madrigals, Book 3, by Roger Bourland, a work less Cuban in focus than multinational: it uses the bilingual poetry of Francisco X. Alarcón in five well-structured movements. Burlesque by John A. Carollo is another five-movement work, making a strong contrast to Bourland’s through lighthearted humor delivered by the unusual instrumental mixture of trumpet and guitar. Warm Winds in Havana by Margaret Brandman is a pure quartet – it happens to be for saxophones – and has some very evident and pervasive Cuban touches. Coloring with Water by Mel Mobley is also for brass, this time a trio, and proffers interesting sonic combinations throughout its brief duration. Finally, the release ends on a serious note about change, albeit not specifically involving the United States and Cuba. This is After the Fall by Michael Murray, which uses the poetry of Jodi Kanter to express the intensity of loss felt by so many after the terrorist murders in New York City on September 11, 2001. The title of the final movement, “Changing Home,” has resonance not only for all who remember that viciously murderous event but also, in the context of this release, for all who hope for a new and better era of interaction between Cuba and the United States, in spite of the profound political and philosophical differences that remain between the two countries and the checkered history of their relationship in the past.

     Quartet usage is more straightforward on a new Navona CD of music by Fred Boer. The composer’s String Quartet No. 8 is music that sits comfortably in the mainstream of contemporary quartet writing, being generally atonal and moderately acerbic. It features longstanding quartet elements, such as solo passages contrasted with unison ones, and uses a recurrent approach in which orderly, even rather banal elements, such as an ostinato, are set against more angular and argumentative ones. The juxtaposition of energy and lyricism is clearest in the final movement, but all three use this compare-and-contrast approach to some degree. The music is well-made and well-played by the New England String Quartet, but it is not especially memorable. It is paired on the disc with four solo-piano works performed by the ever-diligent Karolina Rojahn, one of the strongest performing advocates of contemporary music for piano. Like the quartet’s movements, the piano works are studies in contrast: No. 2 contains multiple mood changes, No. 5 uses an ostinato-like bass theme and a brighter treble one, No. 6 is playful and makes much use of the instrument’s extreme registers, and No. 8 – the longest piece by far, running 12½ minutes – is mostly dark-hued and agitated until its unexpectedly ethereal ending. Like the quartet, the piano pieces are well-constructed and show strong command of modern compositional techniques, without bending over backwards to sound “different” for the sake of modernity. But also like the string work, those for piano are not especially involving or memorable: they contain interesting elements, but even the shortest seem to go on longer than their elements justify. This is therefore a (+++) CD that will mostly interest listeners already familiar with Boer’s works.

     The situation is somewhat similar as regards the music of Elliott Miles McKinley on another (+++) release from Navona. Here, however, the String Quartet No. 7 (2013) has more colors and shows more influences from varying sources, and it is also substantially longer than Boer’s String Quartet No. 8 or most other quartets, whether contemporary or not. McKinley’s work runs no less than 45 minutes, offering six movements whose titles are supposed to evoke their content and, indeed, actually do so to a greater or lesser extent. “Cathedrals of Light and Shadow” opens the piece and features chords of stacked fifths – the stacked-chord approach is a longstanding one in 20^th-century music, and still popular with some composers. “Scherzo and Fugue” offers just what its title says, and “Three Vistas” contrasts a recitative-like section with more of the stacked fifths. “A Little Dance” moves from a pizzicato opening to a kind of slow dreaminess. “Riding into the Sky,” the longest movement, is most interesting for its strong jazz influence. The brief “Coda: Toward an Endless Golden Sunset” brings back the stacked fifths and eventually, unsurprisingly, fades away. The work is played by the Martinů Quartet, which commissioned it in memory of the ensemble’s founding violist; the work is not particularly viola-weighted, but treats all the instruments more or less equally in longstanding quartet tradition. It is accompanied on the disc by Three Portraits (2012), another work here performed by the group that commissioned it, in this case the SOLI Chamber Ensemble. Like the quartet, this is a more-extended piece than might be expected, lasting more than 28 minutes. And even more than the quartet, this work displays multiple influences in three movements that are all called “Watercolor” and are associated with three months of the year: July, August and September. The contrasts among the movements are the most attractive element of this work: July’s, marked “warm and breezy,” features trills and chords against one ascending theme and one that descends. August’s, marked “reggae-pop,” mingles those two styles in rather ingratiating fashion. September’s, marked “groove variations,” features lively electronics contrasted with mostly static entries from the instruments, and ends in a playful mood. There is much pleasure in McKinley’s music, which does, however, tend to outlast its welcome: the enjoyment wears down before the pieces’ conclusions.

     Enjoyment is not at all the point of Loretta K. Notareschi’s String Quartet OCD, yet another work commissioned by the performers who have now recorded it – in this case, the Playground Ensemble String Quartet. Notareschi here uses not the conversational elements of quartets but their personal ones, employed not by Haydn or Mozart but by Beethoven in some of his quartets and thereafter by many other composers. Notareschi’s work is highly personal and was written for specific purposes – therapeutic ones. It is intended to reflect Notareschi’s experience with postpartum OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), and to draw attention to the condition, which is estimated to affect up to 5% of mothers. Like other trauma-related disorders, such as PTSD, postpartum OCD has distinctive characteristics that nevertheless differ from individual to individual. Notareschi seeks a musical way to display hers and at the same time to draw attention to the condition as it manifests in general. Thus, the four-movement quartet starts with “Intruders,” which aims to showcase the intrusive, obsessive thoughts that are characteristic of the disease and is accordingly full of sudden, violent outbursts. “You Must Think I’m Made of Candy Glass” is a repetitive movement based on the verbal and musical patterns that Notareschi felt compelled to produce obsessively in her mind during her bout with postpartum OCD. “Shame,” the most deeply felt movement, is an expression of the grief and despair the composer experienced because of the condition. “A Second Delivery” brings a message of hope at the end, asserting Notareschi’s recovery while at the same time indicating that it was not easy. Unlike many highly personal pieces, String Quartet OCD works rather well as music, the story arc of disease and recovery fitting fairly neatly into four-movement form. The parallels between music and events in Notareschi’s life are not apparent without knowledge of what she went through, but the music makes it clear that trouble of some sort has been encountered, has led to suffering, and has eventually been overcome. The way in which Notareschi communicates her feelings through music is not, in truth, especially distinctive; that reality, plus the fact that the 20-minute quartet appears as the sole work on a Disegni Music CD, means that this is a (+++) release whose advocacy elements are as likely – or more likely – to be attractive to buyers as are its strictly musical ones. The performers handle the quartet with feeling and intensity, with the result that listeners who do feel a commitment to the cause of postpartum OCD may nevertheless find they do not want to relive Notareschi’s experience through this music particularly often.

     The quartet – actually a quintet, but who’s counting? – is more unusual in its makeup on a new MSR Classics CD featuring the whimsically named Tromboteam! Yes, the name comes with an exclamation point. Actually, this group does perform quartets, such as the James Kazik Trombone Quartet No. 3 heard on this CD. But it also performs in other configurations. All the works here were commissioned by the performers in a single year, 2013, so certainly they have kept composers (and themselves) busy. The whole project started as a Kickstarter campaign – the crowdfunding concept is an intriguing new development for music and musicians, along the lines of self-releasing CDs, now commonplace but much less frequent a few tears ago. The performers gave the composers little direction for their music, beyond time guidelines, so it is no surprise that the works here are of variable intent and quality. In addition to Kazik’s, which is lighthearted (one movement is labeled “Scherzo-ish”) and swift (four movements in nine minutes), the pieces are Kevin McKee’s Last Lap, which gives the disc its title; Nicholas A Drake’s Fanfair Play; Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Pavana; Inez S. McComas’ Spinner; Greg Danner’s three-movement Ice Cream City; Dorn Younger’s Five Cousins; Kathryn Salfelder’s Fanfare and Fugue; and Alan Thiesen’s three-movement Crescent City Postcards. The composers were mostly born in the 1970s and 1980s – the exceptions being Danner (born 1958) and Younger (1940-2015) – and the music shows both the verve and the stylization affecting (or afflicting) classical works by creators of a certain age. What unites the works, admittedly tenuously, is a certain flair for exploring varying sound worlds within the restrictions of trombone capabilities. The pieces call on varying performance techniques to achieve their aural differences, and the performers rise to every occasion with skill and, apparently, good humor. Indeed, the whole CD is bright and upbeat, even when individual elements aim at somewhat deeper emotions (for instance, the third movement of Kazik’s quartet is marked “Tribute,” and the second movement of Thiesen’s work is called “All Last Night Sat on the Levee and Moaned”). Over an hour of Tromboteam! is rather a lot – after a while, a listener may wonder if the punctuation ought to be a question mark rather than an exclamation point – but there are many individual highlights in this (+++) CD, and the exhilaration underlying the whole project comes through to a considerable degree. It would be stretching things to suggest that these trombone quartets and quintets are conversational in the sense of Haydn’s string quartets, but many do show an awareness of where small-ensemble music has come from, even as they seek to move it into new territory.

(++++) ANIMAL AMUSEMENTS AND AMAZEMENTS

Bertram and His Funny Animals. By Paul T. Gilbert. Pictures by Minnie H. Rousseff. Pomegranate Kids. $24.95.

Cat Book. By B. Kliban. Pomegranate Kids. $10.95.

The Great White Shark Scientist. By Sy Montgomery. Photographs by Keith Ellenbogen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $18.99.

     The first Bertram book by Paul T. Gilbert (1876-1953) is long overdue for republication, and Pomegranate Kids – which wisely touts its books as being for ages three to 103 – deserves heaps of praise for bringing it back. Originally published in 1934, Bertram and His Funny Animals has as much outlandish charm and gentle humor in the 21^st century as it did in the first half of the 20^th. The concept is simple: young Bertram always asks for animals to play with at home, but never anything as mundane as a cat or dog – in this volume, for example, he wants (and gets) a hippopotamus, dancing bear, giraffe named Rudolph, South American tapir, kangaroo, circus elephant, ticklish rhinoceros, baboon, and “troublesome camel.” Yes, yes, this is all politically incorrect, since every right-thinking bastion of political correctness celebrates not having bears that dance and elephants that perform in the circus; but anyone willing to put aside all the PC nonsense will have a grand time with Bertram’s modest adventures (those unwilling to compromise this week’s eternal principles can hope soon to see a reprint of the second book in this series, Bertram and His Fabulous Animals). In every story, Bertram’s mother – sometimes complicit, through misspeaking, in agreeing to let Bertram get an animal, sometimes simply bemused by all that is happening – puts up with the inconveniences and irritations of the animal until she has had more than enough; then it generally falls to Bertram’s father, usually upon his return from a business trip to Omaha, to straighten things out. Part of the fun of these stories – and part of what makes them great for kids – is that they all follow essentially the same formula, but present enough variations on it so that children and adults alike will find them to be plenty of fun. All the animals talk – to everyone, not just to Bertram – but they also exhibit some real-animal behaviors. The hippopotamus, for example, complains about the paltry amount of food Bertram brings him (although the poor boy eats almost nothing for several days so he can feed the hippo) – and then it turns out that what the hippo wanted all along was hay, not suburban-family food. The tapir becomes a problem for Bertram because it is nocturnal and insists on roaming at night and eating watermelons planted by Mrs. Cree, the next-door neighbor, who then blames George Fish, another boy in the neighborhood – and when Bertram tries to make amends, things only get stickier (largely with watermelon juice). All the animals turn up right in Bertram’s neighborhood, although sometimes he has to go looking for one – for example, Bertram learns that kangaroos live in Van Diemen’s land (the old name for Tasmania), so he finds a neighbor named Mr. Van Diemen and, sure enough, can buy a kangaroo from that gentleman for 47 cents (money later returned to Bertram when he brings the kangaroo back after it causes havoc). There is something so good-humored about all the Bertram adventures, so resolutely offbeat and so normal-seeming at the same time, that Bertram and His Funny Animals is a real feast for readers – and for viewers, too, thanks to Minnie H. Rousseff’s lovely full-color cartoon illustrations, done in attractive 1930s period style. Some Bertram books are unlikely ever to reappear, such as With Bertram in Africa, whose racial stereotypes would offend political correctness to a degree beyond acceptability in these “offend no one” times. But having Bertram and His Funny Animals back is wonderful, and hopefully the sequel from 1937, with fantasy animals and more Rousseff illustrations, will also show up again.

     More-recent animals, and ones in which reality and fantasy blend to delightful effect, are the cats created by B. Kliban (1935-1990), some of which can be seen in a wonderful board book with rhyming text by Zoe Burke. Both readers familiar with Kliban’s plump, big-eyed, sort-of-anthropomorphic cats and those encountering them for the first time will find plenty of amusement here. “Sneaker Cat has bright red feet,” says one page, on which a cross-eyed feline walks from left to right while wearing four bright-red sneakers; “Ice Cream Cats love stuff that’s sweet,” says the next page, showing two shirt-wearing cats happily licking ice cream cones. Then there are the cat contrasts. On the left, “Tea Time Cat enjoys a cup,” this cat having eyes closed in bliss and the tea cup having a fish sticking out of it; on the right, “AerobiCat is bouncing up,” with a suitably sweatband-attired cat using its spring-coiled tail to bounce about. Kliban (whose first name was not “B.” but Bernard) had a great sense of fun and the ability to make his cats look almost alike but not quite – a classic drawing here shows seven of them, the largest on the left and the smallest on the right, each leaning on the next one and each in a different color. Simple enough for use with pre-readers and early readers, packed with enough fun for adults (perhaps even ones above age 103), Kliban’s Cat Book is one of those deceptively simple productions that readers will find themselves returning to again and again, just for the fun of it.

     Real real-world animals are much less fun, although learning about them is enjoyable in a different way. Sy Montgomery’s The Great White Shark Scientist, one of the always excellent “Scientists in the Field” books, follows shark researchers as they try “to smash a whole year’s worth of study into just two months,” as one puts it, because access to sharks is complicated by weather, migration patterns and various circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Montgomery’s book is packed with facts about sharks, such as his note that there are 500 shark species, of which three (bull, tiger and great white) are responsible for two-thirds of shark attacks on humans. Keith Ellenbogen’s first-rate photographs are coupled with well-executed illustrations, notably one showing the parts of a great white shark and explaining what each does. Some sharks, for example, can hear struggling fish 820 feet away; one-quarter of a shark’s brain is devoted to smell; sharks have distinctive patterns where their light and dark colors meet, making it possible to identify individuals; and much more. As in all the books of this series, everything shown and discussed is a work in progress: there is drudgery aplenty in the hunt for sharks to investigate, but there is also high drama, as in a photo sequence showing how to tag a tiger shark (hint: very carefully). Montgomery is careful to pause periodically in his science narrative for some fascinating facts. For example, in one year (1996), 13 Americans were injured by sharks and 43,000 were injured by toilets; and the single species of humans numbers about the same as the 500 species of sharks (seven billion). Montgomery and Ellenbogen are careful not to try to humanize or “prettify” sharks, and indeed the book shows quite clearly why these fish so capture humans’ imagination and are so frightening: one photo of a swimming shark clearly shows its overbite and huge number of teeth (sharks may have 300 teeth at any given time and can produce 300,000 in their lives), as well as one of its very dark and (to humans) baleful-looking eyes. Although the actual danger from sharks is statistically small, it makes good sense to avoid attracting their attention, and the book ends with some recommendations that are blithely delivered but quite serious, such as: “Avoid areas where many fish are congregating and sea birds are diving (don’t swim with the menu!).” An excellent blend of education and flat-out fascinating information, The Great White Shark Scientist will show young readers – and older ones, too – why sharks are ecologically important, what is being done to learn more about them, and why the likelihood that their numbers are decreasing significantly may be of greater concern than any worries about “monsters from the deep” attacking human beings. The motto of the “Scientists in the Field” series is “Where Science Meets Adventure,” and this is one book in the sequence that fits that description perfectly.

(++++) WHERE COLORS MATTER

Dream Jumper, Book One: Nightmare Escape. By Greg Grunberg & Lucas Turnbloom.  Color by Guy Major. Graphix/Scholastic. $12.99.

Wise Words to Color. By Zoë Ingram. Harper. $15.99.

     Graphic novels such as the first in the Dream Jumper series have an impact through the interplay of words and pictures, which in the really good ones – and this is a good one – feed effectively off each other, so the result is novelistic in pacing despite comic-book-like illustrations. Greg Grunberg and Lucas Turnbloom – the former an actor producing his first book, the latter an experienced graphic novelist and cartoonist – have here created a just-believable-enough world with just enough blending of straightforward narrative and offbeat (even amusing) illustrations to keep readers involved, and to be sure they are distracted from the fact that the foundational plot here is the standard one of good vs. evil and about as formulaic as it can possibly be. Interestingly, one reason Nightmare Escape works as well as it does is the way it uses colors – and those are created not by Grunberg or Turnbloom but by Guy Major, who is experienced with comic-book and graphic-novel coloration and has created a palette for Nightmare Escape that really pulls readers into the story. For example, the “back story” here involves a long-ago good-against-evil war in which the main bad guy is called the Nightmare Lord. The concept is scarcely original, and the portrayal of the bad guy as a grey-clad, wrapped figure whose clothing (an all-concealing robe, of course) comes to a point like a wizard’s hat, but whose body is completely invisible within it except for one skeletal protruding hand, is nothing special. But the way the lower part of his body blends into or turns into a black cloud emitting tendrils of darkness in all directions is impressive, and the setting of the portrait against a background that subtly shades from purple at the bottom to a blood-red sky containing flesh-colored clouds is far more impressive than the appearance of the evil character. Likewise, the mysterious Ward Z where sleepers who are trapped in nightmares are monitored by sleep expert Dr. Alexson is well contrasted between the hospital-like corridors and the shades of blue in which the patients and their surroundings are rendered. Major’s colors are never intrusive, and he keeps them ordinary when that is what the story needs – many everyday-world characters have nothing special about their appearance, which is part of the point here. But when touches of bizarrerie are needed, Major adeptly helps Grunberg and Turnbloom supply them. The story involves a boy named Ben whose nightmares have a connection with reality that he decides he has to figure out when Kaylee, a girl he likes, goes to sleep and cannot be awakened – and ends up in the aforementioned Ward Z. Ben’s background is typically heroic: his father is dead, his extremely worn-out-looking mother is at her wits’ end trying to deal with life and with Ben’s dream issues, he has a comic-relief friend named Jake, and in the nightmares he ends up with a “tutor figure” who happens to be – a rabbit. That is one of the touches of humor here, as is the appearance of several other humans disguised as animals – although it turns out that there are serious reasons for their transformations. This first book of the Dream Jumper series neatly sets up the premise and introduces the characters, and it gives Ben an initial victory over one of the lesser baddies as he starts to discover his powers. Yes, this is extremely derivative plotting, to the point of almost being thin enough to see through. But it works. That is partly because of the pacing of the plot, partly because of the attractive use of multiple panel sizes and shapes, partly because of the quality of at least some of the dialogue – as when Ben unleashes some sort of force from his hand and then asks the rabbit, “What’s with this random energy blast thing I can do now? What am I, a Tesla coil?” Furthermore, the colors of Nightmare Escape are themselves involving enough to encourage readers to keep turning the pages – and to wait eagerly for the series’ next installment.

     It is up to readers themselves – or perhaps the word is viewers, or colorers – to provide the palette for Wise Words to Color, the latest attractive Zoë Ingram book in which elaborate designs are delightful in black-and-white and are also available for expressive color rendering. Ingram likes to sprinkle sayings throughout her coloring-books-for-all-ages, but in this book she does not just sprinkle – she pours. The whole point of the book is the words, an unusual idea for a coloring book. Ingram makes some of the words themselves into artistic designs, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s comment, “Always do what you are afraid to do,” which features some letters in block print, some in cursive, some larger, some smaller, some decorated with leaves and some with circles and some plain. Other pages have decorated borders but comparatively plain type, as in the comment from Mark Twain, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Others feature lettering so elaborate that it is almost impossible to color, and would likely be diminished by so doing – although the area around the words could be interestingly colored, as for Emily Dickinson’s poetic thought, “We never know how high we are till we are called to rise; and then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies.” Ingram interweaves some pages without any words among the ones containing them, so there are things to color here even for people who choose to let the words remain in black-and-white. The quality of the chosen quotations is variable, and the attractiveness of this book will largely depend on the extent to which the thoughts resonate with each individual – and how appropriate people consider the book’s whole concept to be. Some quotations here are well-known, such as this from Lewis Carroll: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Others are less familiar, such as this from Friedrich Nietzsche: “If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how.” This is a (+++) book for a specialized group of readers: ones attracted by the concept and by the specific quotations chosen, and ones who believe that a coloring book focused on philosophical thoughts (at various levels of depth) is enjoyable. “What must be done is best done cheerfully,” comments Laura Ingalls Wilder on one page here – and although there is nothing that must be done in Wise Words to Color, those who wish to approach the book cheerfully will certainly find some words here to encourage them to do so.

(++++) NO LATER THAN TOMORROW

The God Wave. By Patrick Hemstreet. Harper Voyager. $24.99.

     This could be happening right now. Patrick Hemstreet’s debut novel, the first book of a trilogy, starts with a title clearly taken from the biggest news in science in decades: the discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called “god particle.” And if a particle, why not a wave? But this is a story of biology, not physics, its intriguing title being only the first of many twists and turns, some of them remarkably subtle, in a tale made chilling primarily by the distinct possibility that if it is not happening yet, someone just might use the precepts of The God Wave to make it happen mighty soon. It’s that realistic.

     The wave of the title is a brain wave, so far undiscovered (as far as we ordinary humans know), that operates above the measurable frequencies of alpha, beta and gamma waves and that can lead to manifestation of superhuman abilities (which Hemstreet says are really human abilities) in the 90% of the brain that generally goes unused (that is a fiction, but one of such long standing that Hemstreet’s employment of it is not too big a strain on one’s credulity).

     The primary characters here are well-meaning, if flawed, scientists, and yes, they are types to some extent; but Hemstreet does a good job of humanizing them. One is idealistic Chuck Brenton, a neuroscience researcher at Johns Hopkins. He is looking for real-world applications of brain waves. After all, if they can move the needle during an electroencephalogram, why not use them to drive cars or paint pictures? In today’s real world, there are already experimental systems that let quadriplegics and other severely physically limited people use their brains for certain types of functionality. Hemstreet’s creation of a desire by Brenton to go just a bit beyond that readily passes the believability test. The problem for Brenton is that math is not his expertise, and he needs help using very complex aspects of it to turn brain waves into commands and actions.

     That is where MIT professor Matt Streegman comes in. A borderline misanthrope who is a genius in his own field, Streegman hears an interview with Benton and thinks immediately of how Brenton’s research, if pushed just a bit farther, could benefit Streegman’s wife, Lucy. She is hospitalized and comatose, but has active brain waves. Perhaps Brenton’s findings – aided by Streegman’s math expertise – could let Streegman communicate with Lucy. Besides – and this plot point does strain credulity a bit – it just so happens that Streegman works not only in higher mathematics but also in robotics. Anyone who remembers Edgar Allan Poe’s deeply chilling “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” will see just how wrong things could go in this scenario, although that is not quite the way they actually do go wrong. (In fact, Lucy more or less disappears from the story after being used to set up Streegman’s background. A little more attention to her would better have humanized her husband.)

     It is the partnership of Brenton and Streegman that gets the book going (the scene-setting is a touch on the slow side, but after all, this is the start of a trilogy). The two form Advanced Kinetics, gather the usual variegated mixture of subjects – gamer, artist, martial-arts specialist, construction worker – and engage in intense research. And fault lines between the men develop soon enough. Brenton’s goal is to aid the handicapped and make sea and space exploration easier and safer. Streegman, far less altruistic and more focused on a big financial payoff, is quite willing to get military rather than medical backing for their lab, and his stronger personality soon leads to the involvement of one General Howard, who really is a cardboard character: he gets the lab working on complex research, for military purposes, with the super-secret Deep Shield, and Brenton does not realize what is happening until there is no turning back. But the test subjects themselves (Lanfen, Mike, Mini, Sara and Tim) know that military control of their growing abilities can lead to disaster, and those newly developed capabilities give them powers of which even Brenton and Streegman are unaware. No, this is no Frankenstein or R.U.R., but Hemstreet calls up elements of those tales as the plot of The God Wave enmeshes the characters more and more tightly. The book fits firmly in the SF/action genre while raising the sorts of questions that only the greats in that field raise consistently: philosophical queries about individuality, creativity, and what it means to be fully human. Hemstreet also manages to employ some sly humor from time to time, with references to films ranging from The Matrix to Independence Day to Transformers. The result is a provocative novel that is not only fast-paced and fun to read but also unusually thoughtful and involving. And its cliffhanger ending, which is quite well done, promises more of the same when the series continues.

(++++) WAR STORIES, ANCIENT AND MODERN

Saladin: The Sultan Who Vanquished the Crusaders and Built an Islamic Empire. By John Man. Da Capo. $26.99.

The Castaway’s War: One Man’s Battle Against Imperial Japan. By Stephen Harding. Da Capo. $26.99.

The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II. By Robert P. Watson. Da Capo. $25.99.

     Not many people relish war nowadays except for the Daesh murder cult and its ilk. But stories about war are another thing: they have unending (“undying” sounds like a bad pun) popularity, and new books focusing on widespread mayhem are enduringly popular and show little sign of becoming any less so. Occasionally – not often, but occasionally – a war-focused book not only explains events of the past but also proves to have potentially significant relevance to events of our own time. So it is with John Man’s well-written, well-researched Saladin, a biography of the sultan Salah al-Din (1138-1193), who retook Jerusalem from European Crusaders, united the Sunni and Shi’ite sects of Islam, ruled an empire that included Syria, Egypt, part of Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and earned the respect of his Christian opponents despite the undeniable brutality of his battlefield and post-battle tactics (largely because the Christians were even more brutal and were impressed by Saladin’s comparatively merciful handling of those he conquered). Saladin was purely a man of battle and rule, leaving behind no writings and no contributions to Islam. He did, however, found the Ayyubid dynasty, which briefly ruled much of the Middle East (1171-1260). Intellectual and economic pursuits flourished under the Ayyubids, and it is no wonder that modern Muslims wishing for a resurgence of Islamic power – including the vicious Daesh pretenders – look to Saladin as a role model. Saladin himself looked to his own mentor, Nur al-Din (1118-1174), as an exemplar of the sorts of battlefield and political techniques that would eventually cement the Ayyubid dynasty. It was the death of Nur al-Din that opened the way to consolidation of power by Saladin, who married his mentor’s widow and use Nur al-Din’s own techniques to defeat his mentor’s son and other claimants to the throne. Man’s book focuses with intelligence and perspicacity on Saladin’s battlefield and post-battle successes, on his methods of building alliances, on his willingness to be comparatively gentle with enemies when that served his larger purposes – and his unquestioned brutality when that advanced his cause. Man sheds considerable light on an era in which Islamic civilization was considerably more advanced than European, which was still mired in the Dark Ages of a religious supremacy every bit as brutal as Islam and a great deal more hostile to secular knowledge. The great battle that opened Saladin’s way to conquest of Jerusalem, that of Hattin in 1187, is well described and well explained, and Man also spends considerable time on the extraordinary patience with which Saladin planned his campaign against the Crusaders – an undertaking that took him 20 years. Saladin’s willingness to bide his time was extraordinary, and his ability to unite his own Sunnis with Shi’ites was as well. His decision to use Shia-dominated Egypt as his power base was a brilliant one, and his care not to alienate any Muslims for long made it possible for him to assemble the force needed to oust the Crusaders. It is worth mentioning that Man has to pick and choose among sources to put together his narrative – his remark at one point could stand for the book as a whole: “Details vary; this account is a compromise.” But what comes through again and again is that Saladin, whether or not regarded as a humane man by the standards of his time, was a very determined warrior and a very fine strategist and tactician. His patience and bridge-building with other Muslims are the antithesis of the internecine warfare and mass murder of Muslims as well as Christians by the Daesh of today, who claim him as an inspiration. His direct influence did not long outlast his own lifetime, but the acclaim for his deeds and his willingness to turn the enemies of today into the allies of tomorrow remains even in our own time. His personal probity and austere lifestyle earn continued praise as well, to such an extent that he appears in many forms in statuary and other permissible types of display in Muslim countries – despite the fact that not a single contemporary portrait of him exists and no one knows what he looked like.

     Given the remoteness of Saladin’s time, it is scarcely surprising that so much about it and him is unknown. But there is apparently plenty still to be discovered close to our own time as well, as the unending succession of books about “untold stories” of World War II indicates. Serious and generally written and researched with skill, these (+++) books are strictly for people for whom the phrase “glories of war” is not an oxymoron, people seeking to relive what they consider grand moments of their own past or that of members of their family, and people enamored (that is not too strong a word) of the intricacies of gigantic battles and the many, many human stories of which those conflicts consist. Both The Castaway’s War and The Nazi Titanic fit this particular subgenre neatly, and both will appeal to the target audience of war fanciers (“groupies” seems an unkind overstatement, although the word sometimes rings true). Stephen Harding’s The Castaway’s War is a sort of Robinson Crusoe tale with espionage and bullets. Set in 1943, it is the story of a Navy lieutenant named Hugh Marr Miller Jr. who survived a Japanese torpedo attack on his ship, the destroyer USS Strong, which was near the Solomon Islands. Miller drifted on a floater net until he was eventually beached on Arundel Island (Kohinggo), where he found food (coconuts) and shelter (thanks to the trees), but also found he was in the same place as two Japanese infantry regiments. For 39 days, Miller not only survived but also spied on the Imperial Japanese Army, gathering information that – after his rescue – was used in helping determine and focus Allied tactics in the Solomon Islands region. Miller won the Navy Cross for his accomplishments, and on the basis of what Harding details in The Castaway’s War, he certainly deserved it for his bravery, self-reliance and survival ability. Miller died at age 68 in 1978, and Harding’s book is a more-than-fitting memorial to his wartime exploits and to the quiet bravery of innumerable soldiers, sailors, pilots and other warriors who did their duty and did it well – often even better than anyone had any right to expect. But in a sense, that is the problem with this book and the many, many similar ones: even the 16 pages of interesting period photos could just as well have come from (or been included in) many other stories about the everyday heroism shown again and again by the men and women in uniform during World War II. It does them no disservice to state that there were so many heroes that, after a while, their untold stories – once told – start to blend.

     The story of the ship Cap Arcona is yet another previously untold one, somewhat less than run-of-the-mill because of its focus on a ship rather than a person, and also somewhat more strained in trying to engage 21^st-century readers in the story of the ship’s adventures and destruction. Robert P. Watson’s book is called The Nazi Titanic because of a tenuous connection between the Cap Arcona and the notorious White Star Line ship – and because the name “Titanic” in a book title is sure to garner attention. The Cap Arcona was largely designed to look like the Titanic, although it was smaller and had three rather than four funnels. For a time it was, like the Titanic, a luxury liner, one that had more than a single ill-fated voyage. But when World War II began, the ship, like many others, was converted to military uses. It was a barracks, a naval training platform, and a rescue ship. It was used in a propaganda film and was, indeed, a stand-in for the Titanic itself. And then, toward the end of the war, it was loaded with prisoners and became a kind of floating concentration camp – a disastrous final use, because British bombers sent to disrupt German shipping destroyed the Cap Arcona and killed so many people that the incident became the biggest case of death by “friendly fire” in the whole war. This final, tragic role of the Cap Arcona is the central point of the book but is not enough to fill a book-length manuscript. Furthermore, the fact that the death of so many prisoners aboard the ship has been largely unknown does not seem to be the result of some sort of malfeasance or official cover-up – the bombing occurred after Hitler’s suicide, in the last days of the war in Europe, and simply became part of the mop-up operation as attention turned to ending the war in the Pacific. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred not much later and was far more riveting than the story of the destruction of one German ship – and the mood of the times was celebratory, not regretful of inevitable wartime mistakes. Watson tries to rectify the neglect of this final chapter of the Cap Arcona story through this book, and certainly his careful exploration of what happened and why (including the likelihood that the Nazis would have scuttled the ship if the British bombers had not sunk it) is intriguing and raises meaningful issues from a vantage point more than 70 years later. And the eight pages of photos here tie very directly to this specific story, including one of the death of the film director who used the Cap Arcona as a Titanic stand-in but fell afoul of his Nazi bosses, another of the ship on fire after the British bombed it, and one showing it capsized after the attack. Readers drawn into the story by a book title with the word Titanic in it will find considerable intriguing material here. But neither the somewhat strained Titanic connection nor the truly horrific final use of the Cap Arcona can give Watson’s book general appeal: it is just another formerly untold war story among so many others, gripping for those already inclined to be gripped by the topic but unlikely to convince others that there are reasons to revisit the World War II environs again, again and again.

(++++) SYMPHONIC STATEMENTS

Dvořák: Symphony No. 8; Carnival Overture; Suk: Serenade for Strings. Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Mariss Jansons. BR Klassik. $16.99.

Scriabin: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. LSO Live. $19.99 (2 SACDs).

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9. Benita Valente, soprano; Janice Taylor, mezzo-soprano; Richard Leech, tenor; William Stone, baritone; Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Robert Shaw. ASO Media. $18.99.

     There are two ways in which recordings of symphonic works have something to say to listeners. One is that the composers themselves are trying to communicate through the form. The other is that the conductors, with their orchestras, are trying to indicate what they have to say about the music. And that may be something different in a live performance from what it is in a studio recording. That certainly seems to be the case for Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, for whom a new BR Klassik release combines two live recordings of music by Dvořák with a studio one of a work by Josef Suk. Jansons here seems like a conductor who, in live concerts, plays to the audience as well as for it. The orchestral sound in the Dvořák works is excellent, and the bright, sunny, nature-filled, optimistic Symphony No. 8 fairly sings with imitative bird songs and the joy of country living. To accentuate the emotion, though, Jansons wrenches the music about through uncalled-for or overdone rubato and tempo changes, so that, for example, both the first and fourth movements end rousingly but in a way that is out of character for their content. The finale, in particular, rushes over-eagerly to an ending that clearly delights the audience but that denies Dvořák a level of expansiveness that is one of his salient characteristics even in this comparatively short symphony. Likewise, the popular Carnival overture – the second of the three tone poems that Dvořák collectively called Nature, Life and Love – is all ebullience at first, but then becomes somewhat too stretched-out when the composer introduces reminiscences of the first of the three works, In Nature’s Realm. Jansons does not come across as a headstrong conductor, and seems to have thought out his approach to the symphony and concert overture carefully, calculating what would best reach out to a live audience and bring its members to their feet (perhaps literally?). The reason this all seems rather calculated is that in the studio recording of Suk’s somewhat neglected Serenade for Strings, Jansons delivers a less-fussy, more-straightforward performance that thoroughly explores the work’s many beauties without overdoing their presentation. This early work by Suk clearly shows the influence of the composer’s father-in-law, Dvořák, but is not exactly a tribute: elements of Suk’s own style are already apparent. The piece flows gently enough so that the adjectives grazioso (second movement) and giocoso (fourth) seem to have emerged from the themes and their development naturally, without being imposed by the composer. This is very pleasant music with folk/nationalist feelings underlying it, and the performance, because it does not overdo tempo changes or other structural elements, is thoroughly satisfying.

     The Scriabin symphony cycle completed by Valery Gergiev with a new two-SACD release of the composer’s first and second works in symphonic form is satisfying in a different way. These are live recordings on the London Symphony Orchestra’s own label, and Gergiev, a frequently uneven and even quirky conductor, is at his best in live performances. There is no question about his playing to the audience: he very definitely does so, not only in shaping music but also in a podium manner that has something in common with the highly personal and strongly accentuated one of Leonard Bernstein. Gergiev made it clear in his previous Scriabin symphonic recording, of La Divin Poème and Le Poème de l’extase, that he sees the composer’s mystical and often unusual sound world as fitting quite well into traditional Russian symphonic style, with lush-sounding strings paired with finely rounded, burnished brass tone and woodwinds that are about as far from being shrill as it is possible to be. Indeed, Gergiev has figured out how to get something approximating the gorgeous sound of Russian orchestras from the London Symphony – no mean feat, since this very fine orchestra generally has a cooler, clearer and more transparent sound. The Russian sound world is highly appropriate for Scriabin’s first two symphonies, in which the composer had not yet found his mature musical voice but was clearly striving for a way to bend symphonic form to his thinking. The first symphony (1899-1900) has six movements, the second (1901) five. The first features two solo voices and a chorus in the finale, and although that naturally makes modern listeners think of Beethoven, the relevant work is not that composer’s Symphony No. 9 but his Choral Fantasy, which concludes with praise of the ennobling power of art. That is exactly what Scriabin’s words – he wrote them himself – also proffer. This is an ambitious and expansive symphony, and one that can easily sprawl and feel disconnected – a situation that Gergiev avoids partly through generally quick tempos and partly through dwelling on the work’s many beauties while passing over its more-ordinary elements without accentuating them. Gergiev favors speed in Symphony No. 2 as well: the work usually lasts 45 to 48 minutes, but Gergiev goes through it in 41. It does not sound rushed, however: instead, it sounds fleet, which is not an adjective usually associated with Scriabin. The Second is the most conventional of Scriabin’s symphonies and, although shorter than the First, sounds, in places, more bloated and bombastic. Its final 10 minutes constitute a gigantic climax-upon-climax, and here Gergiev is at his best and most intense, pulling out all the stops to produce a conclusion that, although overwrought, is undeniably highly effective. Neither the formal experimentation of the First nor the structural strength of the Second will really prepare listeners for the sound and approach of Scriabin’s later music; these symphonies stand primarily as examples of late-Romantic Russian symphonic style, written by a composer who would soon move in a different direction – utilizing some but by no means all of the lessons he learned through this music. Gergiev’s intensity and stylistic aplomb in this music make this release a highly attractive one for listeners who know Scriabin only from his later music, and for anyone interested in exploring some less-known products of Russian Romanticism.

     Whether or not Scriabin was influenced by Beethoven’s Ninth in his own Symphony No. 1 is arguable; the fact that Beethoven’s last completed symphony remains a preeminent one in all music is not. It is used again and again for musical and political statements, as when Bernstein conducted it after the fall of the Berlin Wall and had the chorus sing of freiheit (freedom) rather than freude (joy). So it certainly makes sense that Beethoven’s Ninth would be used on May 21, 1988, in Robert Shaw’s final concert as music director in Atlanta. The live recording of that performance is now available on the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s own label, and it will be an unalloyed joy (yes, freude) for fans of Shaw, of whom there are still many. Those who do not know him may, however, wonder why Shaw (1916-1999) remains so unremittingly popular among many music lovers, and not only in Atlanta. Shaw was first and foremost a choral conductor, and a brilliant one. The finale of this Beethoven Ninth is absolutely splendid, so clear-voiced (clear vocalization was one thing to which he was fanatically devoted) and delivered with so much enthusiasm that listeners may well be left breathless, no matter how many times they have heard this music before. Indeed, this CD is worth owning for the symphony’s finale alone (and kudos to the producers: there was a famous nine-minute ovation at the end of the performance, and it is included here, but as a separate band, for those who may want to revel in the symphony’s ending without the overwhelming applause afterwards). However, Shaw was in many respects an old-school conductor – perhaps one reason that he garnered some well-known praise from Toscanini – and it is clear that he sees the finale of the Ninth as the whole point of the work, to such an extent that the first three movements are comparatively drab. This used to be a standard view of the symphony, but in recent decades the excellences and innovations of the first three movements have been more closely studied and more fully explored in performances. Shaw’s handling of them is comparatively perfunctory: everything is where it belongs, but there is little of the intensity and sense of drama and delight that Shaw brings so wonderfully to the work’s conclusion. There is no question that the finale of this Beethoven Ninth deserves the reputation it has retained for more than 25 years: it is a capstone not only for the work itself but, as intended, for Shaw’s leadership in Atlanta. The overall performance of the Ninth, however, deserves more-muted respect: it is fine, nicely paced and well-played, but it is only in the last movement that everything comes together in a blaze of glory. Listeners who prefer a Beethoven Ninth approach of this sort will delight in this one.

(+++) DUAL FOCUSES

Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante; Cello Sonata. Zuill Bailey, cello; North Carolina Symphony Orchestra conducted by Grant Llewellyn; Natasha Paremski, piano. Steinway & Sons. $17.99.

Janáček: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Stravinsky: Duo Concertante for Violin and Piano; Prokofiev: Five Melodies for Violin and Piano; Ravel: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano. Sarita Kwok, violin; Wei-Yi Yang, piano. Genuin. $18.99.

James B. Maxwell: Serere for Cello and Harp; Serere for Cello, Harp and Electroacoustics; Nico Muhly: Clear Music for Cello, Harp and Celeste. Couloir (Ariel Barnes, cello; Heidi Krutzen, harp). Ravello. $9.99.

Carl Vollrath: Concertos Nos. 1-3 for Piano and Orchestra. Karolina Rojahn, piano; Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Vronský. Navona. $14.99.

Vincent Persichetti: Songs. Lee Velta, baritone; Sherry Overholt, soprano; Joshua Pierce, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.

     The rich, warm and elegant tone of Zuill Bailey’s 1693 Matteo Gofriller cello is the primary attraction of a new Steinway & Sons recording of major Prokofiev forays into cello composing. The shadow of Mstislav Rostropovich looms large over these works and over any cellist who undertakes them: both the Sinfonia Concertante and the Cello Sonata were created with Rostropovich in mind. Rostropovich had a grand, warm and all-encompassing technique of a very Russian type, and he was prone to large gestures, extended bowing and intense emotional identification with the music he played. Bailey is more reserved, his tone more moderated, his approach to the music somewhat cooler, more cerebral than emotionally intense. Rostropovich sometimes had a tendency to wallow; Bailey will have none of that. In the Sinfonia Concertante, whose orchestral part is more prominent than it would likely be in a full-fledged concerto – so that the cello is at times more an obbligato participant than a full-fledged solo – Bailey has no apparent concern about fading somewhat into the background when the music calls for him to do so. The result is that when he does come forward, his participation is all the stronger and more assured. The structure of the Sinfonia Concertante is unusual, with two Andante movements flanking a central Allegro giusto nearly as long as the other movements put together; and despite the very Russian sound of the music, it is not intended to be heavy-handed or delivered with doom-laden portentousness. Bailey balances the faster and slower sections expertly and maintains throughout a fine balance of reserve and emotive intensity. Unfortunately, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra under Grant Llewellyn is less impressive. It is a perfectly fine regional orchestra, but is rather lacking in the sort of nuance that Bailey possesses in abundance. The accompaniment is at least workmanlike and at best skilled, but there is little fire in the performance and little of the warm string sound and elegant brass that give this music so much of its effect. The result is that when Bailey is not playing or is not doing so in the forefront, listeners will miss him. The balance of performers is somewhat better in the Cello Sonata, where Natasha Paremski gives Bailey his due but also takes the lead as appropriate, resulting in a performance that generally sounds like a genuine musical dialogue. This sonata is late Prokofiev and is one of his attempts, like his Seventh Symphony, to satisfy the Soviet apparatchiks who dictated what was and was not acceptable “socialist realism” in music. It is a very pleasant work, albeit one without the bite and sarcasm to which Prokofiev took naturally but that the musical censors would have found unacceptable. Bailey and Paremski make no attempt to give the sonata a profundity it does not possess, but they effectively mine it for its many beauties and produce a warm and satisfying, if occasionally rather superficial, rendition.

     The string instrument is the higher-pitched violin on a new Genuin CD featuring Australia’s Sarita Kwok and Taiwanese pianist Wei-Yi Yang, but the Prokofiev on this disc shares some of the same reserve that the composer’s Cello Sonata possesses. The Five Melodies heard here, originally songs without words in Mendelssohnian mode, are on the cool side, musically a bit distanced and distancing, although they are quite well played by both performers. Likewise, Stravinsky’s Duo Concertante, the composer’s sole original violin-and-piano work, withholds any strong emotional connection by design: Stravinsky here seems deliberately to seek lack of expressiveness, a kind of retreat into formality and formalism (the “sin” of which his countryman Prokofiev was accused). The work is pleasant enough and certainly well-made, but ultimately seems to have little to say. Ravel’s Sonata No. 2, on the other hand, seems to want to say everything. Opening with a moody movement and closing with a perpetuum mobile, the work switches feelings, moods and rhythms nearly constantly, making it a challenge to perform technically and a difficult piece to bring off artistically. Kwok and Yang rely on their substantial technical abilities to communicate the quicksilver changeability of this work, allowing it to flow – or jump – from element to element, and inviting listeners to follow. The approach is exhilarating if at times a trifle standoffish and uninvolving. The real gem of this recording is the Janáček sonata, a work of intense anger and passion that requires both performers to dive into its depths and remain there throughout, pulling listeners into a sound world in which the composer seems to keep trying harder and harder to get through to listeners – to the point that the music often sounds overwrought. Musicians who can deal with this work’s intensity without letting it get out of control produce performances that have a visceral impact on the audience, and that is just what Kwok and Yang manage here. There is a bluntness to this music, an insistence that people (performers and hearers alike) pay close attention to it – it is not an easy work to play or, often, to listen to, but with a fine reading such as this one, it is well worth the effort to make the music’s acquaintance.

     The second instrument featured on a new Ravello CD of the music of James B. Maxwell and Nico Muhly is not the piano but the harp: this is material for the unusual cello-and-harp duo called Couloir. The target audience here is people who really, really want to hear Maxwell’s Serere, a 20-minute-plus, largely static soundscape that is presented twice, once with electroacoustic elements and once without. This is “music of the spheres” background music along the lines of innumerable New Age pieces and film scores depicting infinite cosmic spaces. It is intended in part to deliver the sound of pencil on paper, because in concept it is a piece about forms of writing, including handwriting and calligraphy. It is all very abstruse and minimalist and self-consciously contemporary; it is exactly the sort of modern music that either expands a listener’s ears or comes across as self-parody, depending on each individual’s interests and expectations. Between the two lengthy versions of Maxwell’s work (20 and 26 minutes respectively) is Muhly’s Clear Music, whose point of origin explains why it has an easier time making at least a basic connection with listeners who are not automatically enamored of all things new: this is a new look at something quite old. Muhly chose a single measure from the motet Mater Christi Sanctissima by John Taverner (1490-1545) as the basis of a 10-minute meditative contemplation using cello, harp and celeste. Although scarcely tonal, the music dips periodically into tonality and then exits to realms that are sonically interesting even if they are of no particular revelatory depth. The Muhly work is nevertheless significantly more involving than the double dose of Serere, although that does not mean it is sufficient in itself to encourage most listeners to buy this recording.

     If the dual focus of the Couloir disc may be said to involve cello and harp or, alternatively, instruments and electroacoustic sounds, that of a new Navona release of the music of Carl Vollrath is much easier to pin down: the two focuses here are the piano and the orchestra. But although these three works are labeled piano concertos and are essentially structured that way, each being in three movements simply designated Movement I, Movement II and Movement III, the treatment of the two focuses is non-traditional for works of this type. There is little flash to the piano part and little intensity to the relationship between soloist and orchestra. Instead, there is cooperation of almost a chamber-music sort in the service of vaguely Impressionistic music that Vollrath intends to use to evoke mild colors: the concertos are titled “Pastel I,” “Pastel II,” and “Pastel III.” Imprecisely programmatic, the three works evoke no particular scenes but are instead a series of musical brush strokes in which pitch, rhythm, harmony and volume are all applied with considerable gentleness and, often, a vaguely Oriental sound. The influence of folk music and jazz is also clearly present in some parts of these works, which meander pleasantly from unspecified scene to unspecified scene; where they eventually end up is more for listeners to decide than for the composer to determine. Karolina Rojahn and Petr Vronský make a particularly good pair for this music, in which soloist and conductor have to cooperate most of the time and hand off the music only on occasion: there is no sense here of competition, and while that reduces the concertos’ drama, it heightens their evocative elements. Like pastel colors, whose softness and delicacy can be highly pleasant in moderation but may become cloying when overdone, these concertos offer enjoyable moments within the movements but are blander and less distinctive when considered as a whole. Listeners will likely find it more pleasurable to listen to the works one at a time than to hear the whole CD from start to finish.

     The listening situation is somewhat the same, albeit for different reasons, when it comes to a new MSR Classics release of 41 songs by Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987). There are 24 songs here for baritone (Lee Velta) and 17 for soprano (Sherry Overholt), all of them with accompaniment on the piano (Joshua Pierce, who studied and collaborated with Persichetti); the two focuses are thus voice and piano. But they are also, in a more general sense, words and music – and the different ways those two forms of communication come through to an audience. These songs, all of them world première recordings, are in 10 groups, written to words from a wide variety of sources: Carl Sandburg, Sara Teasdale, e.e. cummings, James Joyce, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Hilaire Belloc and more. Most of the songs are quite short, with the song cycle A Net of Fireflies presenting 17 of them in less than 17 minutes. The settings are also quite varied: Persichetti shows considerable sensitivity to the lyrics and weaves differing piano lines according to the emotions expressed in the words and the sounds of the words themselves. As a practical matter, what this means is that the CD is difficult to listen to straight through, because so many elements of the music change so often. The song groupings are arranged chronologically, which is very helpful for following the development of Persichetti’s style from 1945 (the cummings songs) to 1970 (A Net of Fireflies). However, the arrangement means that Chinese songs are juxtaposed with English ones, Carl Sandburg’s plain-spokenness with James Joyce’s abstruse thinking, and so forth. There is something salutary in all this: hearing words and thoughts in a sequence that would not normally be one that readers or listeners would encounter stretches the ear and mind in intriguing ways. But to get the full flavor of the individual groupings and the songs within them, it is better to listen to the disc a bit at a time than to try to absorb it all at once. Velta and Overholt both handle the music skillfully and with careful control and considerable sensitivity, and Pierce’s pianism is exemplary throughout. Listening to 41 short songs by a still-underrated 20^th-century American composer will not be an experience that will appeal to all listeners, but those willing to try it will find many pleasures here.