(+++) WINDS, ARRANGED

Music for Bassoon and Strings by Alexis Ciesla, François Devienne, Barbara Strozzi, Carl Jacobi, Édouard Du Puy, and Clara Schumann. Shannon Lowe, bassoon; Kristin Pfeifer Yu and Ken Davis, violins; Laurel Yu, viola; Steven Taylor, cello; Maurice Belle, double bass. MSR Classics. $12.95.

George Lewis: The Recombinant Trilogy—Emergent, Not Alone, Seismologic. Claire Chase, flute, with Levy Lorenzo, electronics; Seth Parker Woods, cello and electronics; Dana Jessen, bassoon, with Eli Stine, electronics. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

Ireland: Fantasy-Sonata for Clarinet and Piano; Sarnia—An Island Sequence; Prokofiev: Sonata, Op. 94a. Phillip O. Paglialonga, clarinet; Richard Masters, piano. Heritage Records. $18.

     Listeners with a taste for wind-plus-something music have a considerable amount of material from which to choose, some originally written for the combination and some arranged for it – often by the performers themselves as they look for new repertoire for their chosen instruments. Bassoonist Shannon Lowe, for example, has arranged two short works from very different eras: La Vendetta by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) and Die gute nacht, die ich dir sage (“the good night that I say to you”) by Clara Schumann (1819-1896). The pieces are expressive in their own, very different ways, and in fact expressiveness lies at the heart of Lowe’s entire recital on MSR Classics: she is one of many bassoonists who see the instrument as warm and pleasant, readily capable of heartfelt emotion quite distant from the more-comic role to which it was often relegated in the past. The Strozzi work has a distinct singing quality to it (Strozzi was a well-known singer), while Clara Schumann’s pretty offering to husband Robert is a lovely little piece, filled with warmth that is tender and never overdone. The remainder of this CD has a distinct aura of potpourri about it, collecting pieces that simply reflect Lowe’s performance interests rather than any particular theme. The disc opens with the most-recent work on offer, Dança de Lisboa by Alexis Ciesla (born 1967), which progresses from the bassoon’s darker register toward a brighter and more vivacious sound as it evolves. The two most-extensive works here are from 18^th-century France, a quartet by François Devienne (1759-1803) and a quintet by Édouard Du Puy (1770-1822). Both are in minor keys (G minor and A minor, respectively), but neither aims for or achieves depth, profundity or even melancholy. The Devienne has almost a dual-instrument focus, with violin and bassoon both cooperating and moving to the verge of competition. Du Puy’s work is more virtuosic, giving Lowe plenty of opportunities to shine and having, like Strozzi’s, some elements of vocalizing about it – Du Puy, like Strozzi, was a noted singer. Also on this disc is an intriguing Potpourri on “Zampa” by Carl Jacobi (1791-1852), featuring music from the now-rarely-heard opera by Louis Hérold. Some themes used by Jacobi are recognizable from the work’s still-familiar overture, while others point to just how tuneful the opera is despite an over-the-top plot that has much to do with its fall into obscurity. Lowe plays everything on the CD tastefully and with a fine sense of style, and if nothing here approaches the level of “great” (or even particularly significant) music, everything is certainly enjoyable.

     For a contemporary composer such as George Lewis (born 1952) – especially one who himself performs on electronics – the mixture of acoustic wind instruments with electronic alteration seems to come naturally. New Focus Recordings has released an hour-long disc of three works that Lewis collects as The Recombinant Trilogy. Like much electronic music, this is a matter of taste: those who enjoy digitized sounds and modifications that change the inherent acoustic properties of instruments will become involved in the way Lewis alters the properties of flute, cello and bassoon, while those who are more interested in the instruments’ inherent capabilities will find what Lewis creates overdone and definitely overlong. Certainly these three pieces require considerable virtuosity on the part of the instrumentalists; the question is to what end. If Claire Chase’s flute is turned into something screechy, its sound often on the verge of unpleasantness (by design); if Seth Parker Woods, who both plays the cello and modifies it electronically, creates a sound world in which the instrument’s rich tone and wide range are implied mostly by their absence; if Dana Jessen’s bassoon offers the rumblings of something approximating an earthquake or incipient invasion of the surface world by creatures from below – if all these sounds and modifications occur again and again, in works that grow from a kind of organic conception but without giving listeners any particular themes, rhythms, harmonies or pacing to which they can attach their expectations, then only an audience that actively seeks immersion in an electronic world will experience this material as Lewis intends. Emergent dates to 2014, Not Alone to 2014-15, and Seismologic to 2017, but all use identical sound-manipulative techniques, or at least strongly overlapping ones. The instrumentalists heard here are the ones for whom the works were created, so it is fair to call their performances definitive. It is also fair to ask what Lewis and the performers are trying to communicate, if there is anything beyond the basic notion of manipulable aural elements. Parts of Emergent sound shrill, while others are hollow-sounding and gloomy. Not Alone is filled with escalations and alterations of cello-playing techniques of all sorts. Seismologic extends the solo instrument to an even greater degree, pulling bassoon sounds far lower than they can be when produced naturally, while also creating layering effects that make the instrument sound like various natural phenomena. There is much in The Recombinant Trilogy that is intellectually intriguing; but, as is often the case in contemporary music, there is nothing here that is emotionally gripping – or is intended to be.

     In somewhat older music, though, the emotional connection of a wind instrument such as the clarinet can be substantial, as is clear on a Heritage Records CD featuring clarinetist Phillip O. Paglialonga. There is one work here, by John Ireland, that was written for clarinet, and another, by Prokofiev, that has been arranged for it. Ireland’s Fantasy-Sonata for Clarinet and Piano is the composer’s only piece for solo clarinet, and it covers the instrument’s complete range without ever trying to force it higher or lower than a performer can take it. Although notable for the virtuosity of the clarinet part, this work also asks a great deal of the piano, which partners with the wind instrument to a high degree and, when played with sensitivity, helps create an exceptionally well-balanced piece requiring considerable skill from both players. Paglialonga is very ably partnered here by Richard Masters, whose unerring sense of balance between the instruments prevents the piano from ever overshadowing the clarinet, and whose careful presentation helps give the piece a greater sense of structure than it sometimes seems to have (it is certainly more fantasy than sonata). Masters’ skill with Ireland’s music is also in evidence in the solo-piano work Sarnia, an impressionistic three-movement piece about the island of Guernsey (called Sarnia in Roman times). Although written, like the other works on this CD, during World War II, Sarnia sounds more like an oasis of quiet and peace, perhaps a throwback to more bucolic times, than a piece composed in wartime. There is some of the same feeling in Prokofiev’s Sonata, Op. 94a, an arrangement for violin and piano of the Op. 94 sonata for flute. Paglialonga thus plays an arrangement of an arrangement, but the clarinet version harks back in its lyrical elegance to the original one for flute. The feeling is on the sylvan side in the first of the four movements, although the leaps and bounces of the second movement – with distinct playfulness in both clarinet and piano – offer highly recognizable Prokofiev-wittiness material. The sonata as a whole is rather stately, classically proportioned and, in its finale, with some of the sound of a throwback to the much earlier Classical Symphony. The finale actually sounds especially bright and emphatic on the clarinet, while Masters’ underpinning of the material makes the sonata’s conclusion particularly effective. The works on this CD have little in common except temporally, but they collectively make for a very pleasant listening experience that neatly highlights three separate wind-related approaches: one original composition, one arrangement, and one work where the wind instrument is absent altogether – with all three works played with panache and a convincing degree of emotional connectedness.

(++++) LOVE, DARK AND SWEET

Fangs. By Sarah Andersen. Andrews McMeel. $14.99.

Thoughts of Dog. By Matt Nelson. Illustrated by Malory Pacheco. Andrews McMeel. $14.99.

     Most of the time, Sarah Andersen is content to chronicle the life of an everyday twentysomething woman – herself, thinly disguised – in her Sarah’s Scribbles comics. In Fangs, however, she chronicles the life of a decidedly non-everyday twentysomething woman, a 300-year-old vampire whose body is 26, in line with the form of vampire lore that has vamps retaining forever the appearance they had when “turned.” An almost-graphic-novel – this is a story told entirely in graphic-novel form, but in episodic vignettes more akin to traditional comic-strip episodes – Fangs follows the evolving relationship between Elsie and Jimmy, who overhears Elsie saying she much prefers dogs to cats and who is instantly interested in her, since he happens to be a werewolf. No particularly big deal is made as the two supernatural beings explain their nonhuman elements to each other: Elsie bemoans being “a monster,” and Jimmy simply says, “Girl, I’m a werewolf,” and soon they are kissing passionately. There are some amusing getting-to-know-each-other moments here – the undercurrent of amusement is something Andersen does particularly well in Sarah’s Scribbles, too. For instance, Elsie asks Jimmy what type of music he likes, and he – thinking of the howls of the pack – says “Wolf,” then quickly changes it to “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: I am very refined.” Later,  when Jimmy asks Elsie what she is listening to, Andersen shows the title “assorted agonized screams” on her phone, but Elsie answers, “Beethoven.” In Fangs, there is actually considerable subtlety to what is essentially a lighthearted love story. For example, thinking about what to watch on TV, the lovers decide on “something light, maybe funny,” and select The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. OK, maybe that one isn’t so subtle, but this is: on another TV night, they watch what appears to be some sort of health-oriented show, on which they are told, “Eat lots of vegetables.” Elsie’s immediate reaction: “Eat?” (Of course, she does not eat – she only drinks blood.) Jimmy’s simultaneous reaction: “Vegetables?” (Of course, he only eats meat.) Andersen has a lot of fun with the whole vampire/werewolf combo, although for full appreciation, a rather dark sense of humor is obligatory, as when by-now-thoroughly-smitten Jimmy says, “We should have a baby.” Then there is one of those wordless panels used in comics to indicate thoughtfulness, puzzlement, uncertainty – and then a panel in which Elsie says, “For dinner?” Not everything here is so darkly playful, though: the episodes in which Elsie and Jimmy casually display their powers and limitations are much lighter. For instance, Elsie, who ignites in sunshine, deliberately puts one finger into the sun at one point so she can light an incense stick for Jimmy. As for Jimmy, he shaves one morning, goes for a walk, and notices himself already with substantial facial hair – remembering, “Full moon tonight.” There are almost no characters in the book other than Elsie and Jimmy, although Andersen occasionally uses a walk-in for a specific purpose. For instance, one of Jimmy’s friends wants to see Elsie on social media, so Jimmy snaps a selfie, but only he is visible in it and there is a complete blank next to him (in other sequences, Elsie’s clothes are visible in mirrors and so is the shape of her lips when she applies lipstick; but consistency is not the point here). The characters are appealingly drawn, and Andersen never shows Elsie feeding (she now uses blood-bank blood) or Jimmy metamorphosing (although Elsie’s tenderness toward him just after he transforms, in either direction, is touching). What makes Fangs so engaging is the way Andersen mixes an ordinary story of two young lovers discovering each other in a deepening relationship with the tropes of vampire and werewolf legends. There really is something special about the humor here: the full-page single drawing in which Elsie is flossing one of her fangs is just one of the laugh-out-loud moments.

     The laughs are much gentler and the overall story much more mundane in Matt Nelson’s Thoughts of Dog – which simply imagines how a much-loved and always-loving golden retriever (Nelson has two of them) would think about the experiences of ordinary life with humans. This is a gift book – a square hardcover volume suitable for dog lovers everywhere – and features illustrations by Malory Pacheco, in which the pooch and “my stuffed fren sebastian” (a plush elephant) are given appearances that would fit nicely into a children’s book. Thoughts of Dog intends to span the age range from kids to adults, though. The sections are called “Winter,” “Movie Night,” “Sebastian Goes to Work,” “Beach,” and so forth, and are all narrated by the dog in short or partial sentences with no capital letters. In “4^th of July,” for example, “the human and I are headed to the shelter. to comfort some pups who don’t yet have. someone to hold them. i made sure to bring my stuffed fren sebastian. he helps everyone feel better.” Elsewhere, Sebastian loses an arm (“my human is a surgeon” and sews it back on); the friends make a “new pumpkin fren” at Halloween and another during a car ride; and there is a touching final story in which the dog and Sebastian gradually befriend a mailman who, initially skittish, eventually reveals that he had a dog who died not long ago (Sebastian realizes this when he sees a photo). It turns out that that dog also had a stuffed friend, which the mailman ends up giving to the dog narrator so that, at the book’s end, we see the smiling golden retriever with both Sebastian and a much-loved (and much-chewed) stuffed bear looking out a window as the mailman arrives. On the one hand, that final story lays things on rather thickly; on the other, dog lovers will likely tear up at it as they recognize all the emotions being called up by the very simple prose and the pleasantly stylized illustrations. Thoughts of Dog draws on Nelson’s social-media accounts and, thanks to the warmth of the writing and the sweetness of the pictures, moves very successfully out of the Internet and into the world of books.

(+++) THEM BONES

The Bone Maker. By Sarah Beth Durst. Harper Voyager. $17.99.

     A well-structured, well-written, well-paced novel with some questionable central elements that make it less appealing than it could have been, Sarah Beth Durst’s The Bone Maker has enough intriguing parts to pull a great many readers into its world even if some of those readers end up deciding they would just as soon be elsewhere. At the heart of the issues with the book is that Durst is a creator of fantasy series, in which she takes the time to develop multiple characters and create in-depth versions of believable worlds. But The Bone Maker is a single, standalone book, and while that makes for a slew of opportunities to speed the action and press on with plot points, it also undercuts some of Durst’s major authorial strengths. The book ends up feeling a touch superficial, a bit like a young-adult novel even though it is quite clearly intended as heroic fantasy for older readers – ones who will appreciate and empathize with the five middle-aged heroes around whom the story is structured.

     Foundationally, this is a story of what happens after “happily ever after.” The tale looks back to a time 25 years earlier, when Kreya – the “bone maker” of the title – chose four others to help her defeat an evil magician named Eklor, who also used bones to further his ends, but whose ends were nefarious ones (the comparative absence of attention paid to Eklor’s background and motivations is one of the flaws in The Bone Maker that Durst would likely have addressed in a multi-book series). Banding together with Kreya were Zera, who creates animal-bone talismans that bring their users power, strength and speed; Marso, a bone reader who can see the past, present and future; Stran, a powerful warrior made even stronger through bone magic; and Jentt, a onetime thief who is Kreya’s husband and who is adept at using talismans of speed and stealth. The book gives little time and little authorial attention to Marso and Stran – another element that would likely have been corrected in a series – and not much more to Jentt, who dies in the battle against Eklor and whom Kreya is determined to resurrect, even though every day of his new life requires her own time among the living to be shortened by a day.

     Kreya is the central figure here, but Zera is a useful foil, often a scene-stealer thanks to her providing a level of dry humor that helps prevent the book from being entirely dark all the time. Still, most of the book is dark, including Kreya’s musings on what, if anything, really makes her all that different from Eklor: “Maybe there were no perfect choices for anyone to make, hero or villain. …Some of us are better at hiding it than others, but we are all broken. You can’t live without breaking a few times.”

     The Bone Maker is essentially a sequel to an earlier fantasy that was not written, the story of the war against Eklor and the toll it took on those who defeated him. “Defeated,” it turns out, does not mean “destroyed,” because the plot here revolves around Eklor having survived and having begun rebuilding his bone-based army. Kreya discovers this when she enlists Zera’s help recovering unburied bones left on the battlefield of the long-ago war: Kreya needs those bones to resurrect Jentt, but the use of human bones is very strictly forbidden in this world of Vos (exactly why is never explained; again, a story told at greater length would likely have gotten into this topic). The Faulknerian notion that “the past is never dead – it’s not even past” is central to The Bone Maker, and in fact Durst relies rather too heavily on the legendary reputations of the heroic band: the action in the current crisis seems somewhat truncated, and the conclusion of the book is rather rushed and superficial. In fact, the world building, at which Durst usually excels, is also on the superficial side: Vos has the usual faux-medieval elements so common in heroic fantasy, and overall seems rather primitive; but on the other hand, it has cable cars and crawling carriages (propelled by magic). Once again, if Durst had had time and inclination to delve more deeply into the history of this world and the way it became what it is, the story would have felt heftier.

     Despite the many shortcomings in specific elements, though, The Bone Maker is an involving read for anyone who appreciates Kreya’s musings and enjoys the intricacies of bone-magic use and the after-the-supposed-ending nature of the tale. The ways the long-ago heroes have drifted apart and tried to manage their lives since the decades-ago defeat of Eklor ring with believability, and their willingness to get together once more to finish what they started – while scarcely an original concept – lends the story a sense of inevitability, combined with despair at the need to dredge up long-gone events and their consequences, and complete tasks thought to have been finished many years back. It is certainly true that there is predictability to the plot – of course Eklor will again be defeated, for good this time – but it is also true that there are enough twists and turns in the tale, along with some enjoyable banter among the reunited heroes, to maintain reader interest in The Bone Maker. Whether Durst will do other standalone fantasies, perhaps a bit more adeptly than she has done this one, or will continue to focus primarily on the greater breadth made possible by multi-book series, remains to be seen. Certainly The Bone Maker shows that Durst can, if she wishes, handle herself well when working in single-novel form – even though it also shows that, in heroic fantasy, greater length can more than make up in depth of tale-telling for what it, by definition, lacks in brevity.

(++++) PIANO, COMBINED AND ALONE

Idil Biret: Best of Chamber Music. Idil Biret, piano; Irina Nikotina, violin; Julya Krepak, cello; Ruşen Günes, viola; Borusan Quartet; Roderic von Bennigsen, cello; London String Quartet; Yehudi Menuhin, violin. IBA. $29.99 (4 CDs).

Georg Schumann: Piano Music—Drei Stücke, Op. 1; Stimmungsbilder, Op. 2; Drei Stücke, Op. 23; Sechs Fantasien, Op. 36. Michael van Krücker, piano. CPO. $16.99.

     The difficulty facing a top virtuoso pianist in performing chamber music is not to be taken lightly. It is not that chamber music is exceptionally difficult by its very nature – but it is, by its very nature, music in which performers are more-or-less equal, and domination by any one of them tends to throw off the balance of the material and reduce the quality of the composers’ communication. It is not surprising that some first-rate pianists, used to playing as solo performers or in concertos that keep them front-and-center much of the time, are less successful in chamber music: their discomfort at being in a fully collaborative environment (or even one in which the piano is “first among equals”) comes through, although not necessarily consciously, and can make performances less worthy than would be expected on the basis of the sheer skill of the players. Happily, Idil Biret is, most of the time, able to subsume her prominence as a soloist into the needs of the conversational elements of chamber works – with the result that a new package of previously released performances by the Turkish pianist, offered as a boxed set by IBA (Idil Biret Archive), is pleasurable most of the time, both for the chance to hear Biret in this repertoire and for the overall quality of the music-making in which she takes part.

     The CDs are compiled from performances recorded during multiple decades. The oldest recordings are of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas Nos. 5, 7 and 9 with Yehudi Menuhin. They date to radio broadcasts from 1973. Mahler’s quartet movement, with members of the London String Quartet, was recorded in 1980, as was Brahms’ Piano Quintet with the full LSQ. The rest of the material here is newer. Movements from Berlioz’ Harold in Italy and Brahms’ second viola-and-piano sonata, with Ruşen Günes, date to 2011; Schumann’s Piano Quintet, with the Borusan Quartet, comes from May 2014; Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2, with Roderic von Bennigsen, is from September of the same year; and there are two concert performances dating to as recently as October 2019 – Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, both with Irina Nikotina and Julya Krepak. This is a wide variety of music and a wide-ranging set of accompaniments for Biret, providing an opportunity to hear her interacting with some musicians who tend to be a bit too deferential to her (the Borusan Quartet) and others who play and emote entirely at her level (Menuhin).

     There are, on balance, far more pleasures than shortcomings here. The three Beethoven sonatas with Menuhin, despite dated sound and a not-always-quiet audience, are examples of wonderful music-making, from the delicacy of No. 5 (“Spring”) to the lovely No. 7 to a fast-paced No. 9 (“Kreutzer”) whose finale absolutely sizzles, with Menuhin seeming to push his own tremendous talents to the limit in the pacing of this Presto. The Tchaikovsky Trio and Brahms Quintet are also absolutely top-notch readings, full of warmth and emotion, well-paced throughout and impressively balanced. The Schumann Quintet, despite sounding as if Biret is a touch too prominent, is also well-paced and is impressively emotive. The Mahler movement – the composer did not finish the quartet – sounds fine but, as music, is somewhat underwhelming. The Brahms Cello Sonata No. 2 is engaging in its collaborative dialogue but somewhat heavy-handed, beautifully played but tending to bog down from time to time. The only full-length piece that misfires is the Mendelssohn Trio, whose first movement drags and is scarcely agitated (the tempo indication is Molto allegro agitato) and whose overall presentation is not particularly convincing. It was also a flat-out mistake to include in this set only single movements from Berlioz’ Harold in Italy and Brahms’ second viola-and-piano sonata: these are not encore pieces but portions of larger canvases, carefully integrated by the composers into the totality of the works in which they appear. Pulling the movements out of context this way is simply embarrassing, no matter how nicely Biret and Ruşen Günes play. As a whole, though, this well-priced release is a very worthwhile one for fans of Biret, who will relish hearing her blending rather than dominating; and the performances that do work well are absolutely first-rate in their own right.

     The works offered in the IBA set are almost all chamber-music standards, but the piano, as a solo instrument, can be exceptionally useful in introducing audiences to music that has fallen into obscurity – or that never rose from it. The piano works of Georg Schumann (1866-1952; no relation to Robert), at least those heard on a new CPO disc, are comparatively lightweight, although not intended as salon pieces. Schumann was a fine pianist – he started performing at age 17 – and an accomplished conductor, but he spent most of his life (more than 50 years) as director of the Berliner Singakademie, and his compositions took a back seat to his academic endeavors. Still, he created a considerable amount of piano music, and it is quite interesting to hear even though the works on this disc are not especially innovative. Michael van Krücker plays the four collections of short pieces on the CD very well, allowing each individual item to paint its own sound picture while uniting the collections to the extent that their design makes that possible. Schumann’s Opp. 1 and 2 date to 1886, the former in three movements and the latter in five. The middle piece in Op. 1 is a particularly pleasing Barcarole, while Op. 2 has a highly chromatic second piece that contrasts particularly well with the one that follows, whose dotted rhythms are effectively used. Schumann then took an extended break from piano composition: Op. 23 dates to 1901 and Op. 36 to 1904. These later suites of character pieces are nevertheless not very different from the earlier ones. Op. 23, in three movements, offers contrasting portrayals of morning and evening, then concludes with another Barcarole – a form to which Schumann was clearly attracted. The six-movement Op. 36 is the most varied of these works, including everything from a graceful minuet to a waltzlike movement called “Visions after a Ball” to a dense and impressive fugue titled “At Evening in the Cathedral.” Despite some musically interesting material and some very fine pianism, though, the CD leaves the impression that Schumann did not handle the piano with great seriousness, preferring small fantasies and character pieces to anything more substantial. But there is more to his piano music, and it would be worthwhile for van Krücker, who obviously has a feel for this music, to offer Schumann’s Durch Dur und Moll (24 pieces in every key: “Through Major and Minor”) and/or his set of variations and rondos on a theme by Mozart. There is more to Schumann than this disc indicates – it would be worthwhile to use the piano to extract and display still more of his neglected music in the future, and thus perhaps to show that Schumann was a more-substantial composer for the instrument than is fully evident here.