(+++) SOUNDS FROM ALL OVER

Dave Flynn: The Cranning; The Cutting; The Keening; Stories form the Old World. ConTempo Quartet; IMO Quartet; Mick O’Brien, uilleann pipes; Breanndán Begley, voice. First Hand Records. $15.

Global Saxophone: Music by Arodi Martínez Serrano, Christian Lauba, Elliott Bark, Perry Goldstein, Lan-In Winnie Yang, and Jean Matitia. Scott Litroff, alto and soprano saxophone; Matthieu Cognet, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

Grieg: Sonatas Nos. 1-3 for Violin and Piano, transcribed for flute by Kaleb Chesnic. Kaleb Chesnic, flute; Nathália Kato, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     More interesting than the question of just what “world music” means for composers of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries is a consideration of whether such music, however defined, is intended to make points or score points. Some composers who still consider themselves “classical” look to music from various corners of the world to enhance and expand upon traditional European models, including European scales, tones, rhythms and harmonies. Other composers seem to be mostly interested in proving their own bona fides as articulators and exponents of music from specific regions or nations. On the basis of a new First Hand Records CD, Dave Flynn (born 1977) is in the latter group. Although two of the four works on the disc use a traditional string quartet, the music even in those two pieces, The Cranning and The Keening, seems focused primarily on showcasing Flynn’s knowledge of and commitment to traditional Irish musical material. The other two pieces on the CD, The Cutting and Stories from the Old World, both employ uilleann pipes – the national bagpipes of Ireland – to complement a string quartet (in The Cutting) and to accompany voice plus string quartet (in Stories from the Old World). This is not so much seeking exoticism for its own sake as it is a matter of Flynn steeping himself in Irish musical traditions and incorporating them into music intended for audiences specifically interested in Ireland and its music. In all these works, Flynn seems to be at pains to showcase “Irish-isms” of the music without any particular regard for how they relate to material from other traditions – that is, all these works are deliberately self-limited by Flynn’s focus on having them sound as Irish as possible. This puts Flynn’s music at the opposite extreme from works labeled with the name of a country even when their relationship to it is minimal or wholly subjective – such as Mendelssohn’s “Italian” and “Scottish” symphonies and, perhaps more to the point, Sullivan’s “Irish” symphony. Yet Flynn never really reaches out beyond national boundaries in the way that, say, Kodály did in his “Marosszék” and “Galánta” dances, or Bartók did in much of his oeuvre. There are a few hints of interest in a wider audience in the earliest work on the CD, The Cranning (2004-2005), which is Flynn’s String Quartet No. 2. The Keening (2007), labeled as String Quartet No. 3, is 50% longer (19 minutes vs. 13) despite being in three movements rather than four, and partakes of all the excesses (or strengths, depending on one’s viewpoint) of minimalist composition, developing its features very slowly and gradually throughout. The Cutting (2008/2020), labeled as Quintet No. 1 for Uilleann Pipes and String Quartet, relegates the strings to the background almost throughout, focusing attention on the pipes’ steady and largely repetitive material. And Stories from the Old World (2008), although given some aural variation by the mere presence of a voice, is spoken entirely in Irish, becoming at once an assertion of the importance of the language and a substantial barrier to understanding and enjoyment by anyone not thoroughly familiar with what is being said. Everything on the CD is performed quite well, and certainly offers listeners exposure to a musical tradition beyond the ordinary (at least in classical-music terms). But the disc is substantially and apparently deliberately self-limited in the assertiveness of Flynn’s compositions in demonstrating just how Irish they and their composer are.

     The focus is less on the composers and more on the performer on an MSR Classics release in which the world-music concept is explored partly with an eye toward investigating little-known contemporary material and partly with the intent of offering works written or commissioned by saxophonist Scott Litroff. Arrullo Caprichoso (2019) by Arodi Martínez Serrano (born 1977) and Garden by the Stream (2019) by Lan-In Winnie Yang (born 1980)  are single-movement alto-saxophone works written for Litroff; the former has a certain degree of swing to its rhythms, while the latter is quieter, more impressionistic, and thoughtful in its use of the saxophone’s lower range. The three-movement Three Places in South Korea (2020) by Elliott Bark (born 1980) was commissioned by Litroff, and this too is impressionistic music, focusing first on the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics, then on a sense of quiet permeating the harbor city of Busan, and finally on the hustle and bustle of Seoul – jazz influence is pronounced throughout the work. Also on the disc is Just a Song (2019) by Christian Lauba (born 1952), a bluesy and emotionally somewhat heart-on-sleeve exploration of the saxophone’s warmth; the two-movement Heaven (2007) by Perry Goldstein (born 1952), which opens with an extended saxophone solo and eventually contrasts a quiet and somewhat ponderous movement with one that expresses yearning at perhaps too great a length; and Crazy Rag (2008) by Jean Matitia (born 1952), a brief encore that concludes the CD with delightful ebullience that is entirely absent from the rest of the recording. Litroff plays everything with exceptional breath control and an excellent sense of pacing, and pianist Matthieu Cognet accepts his instrument’s secondary role throughout with good grace, providing top-notch backup without ever taking the limelight away from its intended recipient. Despite the varied provenances of the works here, there is in fact a certain sameness to their handling of the saxophone, a tendency to bow in the direction of jazz at any and all opportunities, producing music that lies well on the instrument but does less in the way of breaking new ground than listeners might expect from the very recent time frame within which all the music was written. Still, there is something salutary in recognizing the ability and desire of some contemporary composers, wherever they hail from and whatever their topics may be, being interested in producing music that fits an instrument well and has the potential to reach out to an audience interested in hearing some new material for that instrument.

     The music of Grieg is in many ways as Norwegian as that of Flynn is Irish, but it is far better-known – yet there is nevertheless a pleasant exploratory element to an MSR Classics release featuring Grieg’s three violin sonatas. This is actually a CD of world première recordings, because the sonatas are heard here in transcriptions newly prepared by flautist Kaleb Chesnic and performed by him with pianist Nathália Kato. Like Cognet on the disc featuring Litroff, Kato on this one knows enough to strive to remain in a supporting role, although she has a fair amount to do here simply by virtue of the way Grieg wrote the music. There is considerable nationalism inherent in these sonatas, especially the second, but Grieg uses the material expressively and it therefore reaches out well beyond Norway to an extent that Flynn has not accomplished if his desire is to get through to audiences beyond Ireland. Grieg’s first two sonatas date to the mid-1860s and are in some significant ways complementary: the first, in F, is generally bright even though it has its share of intense and troubled moments, while the second, in G, is deeper and darker and has a stronger sense of Norwegian identity. The third sonata is a much later work than the first two, dating to 1886, and is the most successful blend of strictly Norwegian elements (it uses folk melodies and rhythms as effective building blocks) with a wider scope that reaches out well beyond Norway’s borders. For example, the bleakness of the very end of the first movement, which comes at the conclusion of an otherwise lyrical coda, seems at once Norwegian and universal. Chesnic’s flute transcriptions are attractive and sensitive to the nuances of the material, and his playing is strong and assured throughout. Use of the flute is, however, considerably more successful in the first two sonatas than in the third. Lyricism is pervasive, in somewhat different guises, in the first and second sonatas, and Chesnic’s playing has an involving, at times soulful sound that fits the material very well. Even the Lento doloroso opening of the first movement of No. 2 sounds fine on the flute, precisely because Chesnic does not overdo the pathos of the passage; similarly, the gently lilting second movement of the second sonata fits the flute quite well. But the third sonata, In C minor, is less satisfactory as a work for flute and piano. The flute simply does not offer the tonal variety needed to, for example, contrast the lovely opening of the slow movement (in E) with the darkly brooding central section (in the tonic minor). There is nothing particularly wrong with Chesnic’s transcription, and certainly no deficiency in his playing, but the heartfelt nature of the third sonata, and its contrasts between light and dark passages, are simply not communicated as effectively by flute as by violin. This is a CD that flautists will certainly enjoy and that listeners who already know the sonatas may find a worthwhile alternative experience – once, anyway. But the main thing it does is to confirm just how well Grieg’s three violin sonatas, especially the third, fit the instruments for which they were originally written.

(++++) LIVING AS AN OUTSIDER

“Sarah’s Scribbles” Collection No. 4: Oddball. By Sarah Andersen. Andrews McMeel. $14.99.

A Tale as Tall as Jacob: Misadventures with My Brother. By Samantha Edwards. Andrews McMeel. $11.99.

     Most people feel from time to time as if they just don’t belong. Some people feel that way almost all the time. Some of those slide into depression or turn to alcohol, other drugs, obsessive social-media use, or other bad habits or addictions. A few, though, turn to art. And that is what Sarah Andersen does in her Sarah’s Scribbles chronicles of a 21^st-century twentysomething woman and her cat, dog, rabbit, brain, uterus and other cleverly drawn cartoon characters, some of whom even appear on stickers – the book includes a page featuring a dozen of them. Sarah’s Scribbles works unusually well because it clearly depicts cartoon Sarah’s foibles and concerns as a member of her generation – but also manages to touch on some multigenerational concerns that help it reach out beyond Andersen’s own age group. In fact, Andersen has an amusingly skewed view of aging, as in a four-panel offering called “Aging Millennial Humor” that shows a wheelchair-bound character (resembling a much older cartoon Sarah) talking about a dog while using slang that nobody around her understands anymore (“heccin good pupper,” “13/10 good boi,” etc.). And if that character does not quite fit in, neither does current-age cartoon Sarah in many other strips. “Anxious Friends” has her and another woman telling each other they are nervous about going to a party, clasping hands in solidarity, then standing together against a wall at the party while everyone else interacts. Elsewhere, cartoon Sarah is identified as being one among the group of “people who are terrified of vulnerability,” trying to cope with people who are empathetic. Still elsewhere, cartoon Sarah describes herself as “being an oddball with hyperspecific interests.” But not everything in Sarah’s Scribbles is about difficulty dealing with people and fitting in: some strips are about difficulty dealing with people and getting them to pay attention and understand things. In one of those, a woman keeps asking cartoon Sarah how she draws so well, Sarah keeps saying “practice,” and the woman blithely keeps re-asking the question or trying to figure out something other than “practice” that might explain it. In another, a fashion designer keeps asking what women want in clothing, completely ignoring cartoon Sarah’s repeated statements that she wants to be comfortable. And then there are the strips focusing on Sarah’s internal thoughts and everyday challenges. Andersen finds ways to make all her foibles relatable. For instance, a “How I Tell Stories” page shows cartoon Sarah walking from “Beginning” to “Middle” before turning in a new direction at “Detour” and then proceeding to “Another Detour,” and “Another Detour,” and so on, apparently ad infinitum. And “Suddenly Finding a New Obsession” shows a bored-looking Sarah, at a computer, suddenly perking up and becoming super-wide-eyed with involvement in something-or-other – with the fourth and final panel showing frog decorations all over the walls, shelves, computer itself, and even on Sarah (who is wearing a frog costume). Encapsulating Andersen’s feeling of being an outsider is one seven-panel page on which she is talking with her personified brain, which says “We are anxious because…” – leading cartoon Sarah to ask, again and again “Because why?” And her brain repeatedly answers, “Because.” That is all the answer Sarah is going to get. A somewhat different encapsulation is a four-panel strip in which cartoon Sarah, while watering her garden, talks about being kind to her peers because “support helps people grow,” after which a flower asks her, “What about being kind to yourself?” The final panel shows an angry Sarah about to stomp the flower. Well, being kind to yourself is tough for many people…

     Being kind to others can be a challenge, too, especially when their “otherness” is caused by significant physical and/or mental and emotional issues – such as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). That condition lies at the heart of Samantha Edwards’ graphic novel, A Tale as Tall as Jacob, and if that seems a very heavy topic – and a potentially heavy-handed one inviting a preachy story – the book will be a surprise. There is no attempt here to diminish the difficulties, heartbreak and family stresses caused by having one child who is developmentally normal (narrator Samantha), one who turns out to have a pronounced case of ADHD (Jacob, as in the book’s title), and eventually a third child born into the midst of all the family issues, disruptions and uncertainties (baby Luke). This book’s cover neatly summarizes its topic, showing Jacob looming large over everyone else in the family (twice the size of the parents), rampaging through the house and stomping on or near books, furniture, even the family pets. Complicating matters involving Jacob further, beyond the ADHD (which makes things complicated enough), Jacob has a speech impediment that develops because of a congenital problem with his frenulum (the flap of skin that anchors the tongue to the bottom of the mouth). The problem is surgically corrected, but Jacob’s speech difficulties continue, and Samantha is for a long time needed as interpreter – only she can understand what he is saying. It would be easy for A Tale as Tall as Jacob to turn into melodrama or soap opera, and certainly it has elements of both, but this is basically a realistic and unexaggerated more-or-less autobiography (of Samantha) and more-or-less biography (of Jacob), effectively told using standard graphic-novel methods. The chapter titles make the basic topics quite clear. For instance: “In which Samantha must learn to be nice to Jacob (but he makes it so hard).” And: “In which Jacob-zilla tries to ruin my life” (Jacob has a fascination with Godzilla and often seems to be trying to imitate the famous monster). Samantha is not above making comments to Jacob such as, “You ruin everything fun” and “You are the worst and I hate you,” but she also dances with him at a relative’s wedding, plays with him in a treehouse after the family moves in anticipation of Luke’s arrival, and is amazed when he uses his unusual strength (which has been apparent since he was a baby) to grab a tree limb and chase off three older and bigger bullies. What comes through repeatedly in A Tale as Tall as Jacob is that it is very, very hard to live with a child with ADHD, and at times seems nearly impossible despite all the medical advances in understanding the condition and treating it (doctors eventually find medicine that helps Jacob). It also becomes clear that even if Jacob will be a perpetual outsider in some senses, in others he certainly does belong – to his sister, to his family, and even (with assistance) to school and various age-appropriate activities, in which he can engage with suitable modulation and help. There is nothing easy about having ADHD or interacting regularly with someone who does. But like any medical condition, ADHD does not have to become the defining factor in someone’s life or in the lives of other family members. People with ADHD will always, in a sense, be outsiders when it comes to groups or activities involving those who do not have the condition. But when families and others are willing to do the hard extra work needed to accept those with ADHD, these outsiders can learn that they are welcome inside a place of caring, affection and love.

(+++) WHICH WAY?

Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches, Journey 1. By Michel Guyon. Illustrated by Zina Kostich. Andrews McMeel. $19.99.

     A cheap-shot ending and an irritating protagonist who grows only gradually and rather unconvincingly into a worthy central character on the one hand – some clever world-building, well-done use of fantasy tropes, and first-rate illustrations on the other. There you have Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches, a very worthwhile read for anyone willing to stick around until the title character, who never becomes consistent, at least turns into someone interesting. (Alternative: stick around until his sister, a cardboard modern teenager at first, actually becomes more engaging than her brother, who is described by the author himself as “something of a wimp.”)

     What Michel Guyon offers here is, in many ways, a formulaic alternative-worlds fantasy with all the expected elements: nerdy hero, feckless parents, even-more-feckless (in fact, ridiculous) authority figures in law enforcement, huge and old and maybe haunted house, smarmy and utterly cold-hearted villain through whom anyone except the adults in the story can see immediately, mysterious artifact that absolutely nobody can possibly figure out during hundreds of years (except that the protagonist does so almost immediately), benevolent older-generation family member who turns out to be evil or at least deeply misguided – the list goes on.

     However, Guyon often uses these fantasy-novel tropes in creative ways, which is a good thing in terms of keeping readers interested but a less-good one in that the creativity pulls the focus in many directions instead of maintaining it on the central character(s) – in other words, much of what is intriguing here comes in the form of descriptive material, background elements, and other not-the-main-story points.

     That main story features 12-year-old Archibald, who hates his name and does not know why it was foisted on him; and who knows just about everything, to the point of school being ridiculously unmotivating, but who does not know how or why he knows so much. The narrative also comes to feature his sister, 14-year-old Hailee, who is at first a bit player with formulaic older-sister issues and a preoccupation with her phone, but who sees Archibald disappear and as a result does rather a lot of growing up rather quickly and soon becomes a mystery-solver.

     Oh yes, that disappearance. After the family moves to a huge old house recently vacated by Archibald’s apparently deceased grandmother, Archibald becomes convinced that a Christmas present for him has been hidden somewhere in the place by his parents, who have done no such thing. In a search for the gift, he manages to stumble upon an extremely well-hidden, weird-looking globe that happens to have been made by Leonardo da Vinci and happens to have the power to transport people from Earth to a world called Lemurea. The only one with any idea of what is going on is the grandmother’s longtime servant/companion, Bartholomeo, who conveniently drops dead on page 30 without revealing anything, allowing the rest of the book to proceed.

     This is scarcely the only way in which the plot creaks. Archibald manages to get the globe to take him to the world of Lemurea, which turns out to be a place of refuge for witches, who have been brought there to protect them from evil characters on Earth who want to destroy them because, well, just because. Virtually everyone in Lemurea is a young girl, a fact that might be of more interest to Archibald if he were slightly older (and may become of interest to him in future books, Guyon hints, none too subtly). The problem is that Archibald does not know exactly how he made the trip and therefore cannot return to Earth, and nobody in Lemurea knows how the globe works, either, that being something that it falls to Hailee (back on Earth) to figure out, with the assistance of 15-year-old Oliver – whose father, a vicious and immoral drunkard, owns an antique shop into which Hailee goes in search of information. Hailee’s quest brings her and Oliver to the unwelcome attention of Jacob Heinrich, an evil sort-of-priest resembling the author of an anti-witch screed that dates to Leonardo’s time – in fact, Heinrich dates to Leonardo’s time, a discovery that will likely surprise very few readers.

     So while Hailee and Oliver try to figure out what the heck the Leonardo globe is and how the heck it works, Archibald and the witches of Lemurea – especially one named Faerydae, who takes Archibald more-or-less under her wing (so to speak: they do not really have wings) and teaches him the ways of Lemurean life – fight a bunch of monsters called Marodors and try to get some important information to Lemurea’s queen, who turns out (and this will be a spoiler only for readers who have never read any fantasy novels) to be Archibald’s grandmother, who is not really dead but also not really on the side of good (she is mostly on her own side).

     Along the way of the parallel quests of Archibald and Hailee, there are scenes involving very well-done fights with the Lemurean monsters (these fights are among the book’s best elements, easily overshadowing interest in the humans doing the actual battling); and there are multiple instances in which Archibald has no idea whatsoever of what something is or what is going on (so much for all his supposed knowledge: his ignorance of many straightforward things makes no sense after the initial buildup of his supposedly wide knowledge, and is one reason he is an unappealing central character through much of the book). Archibald is clearly no fighter, except when he has to be, and then he is (again, Guyon’s portrayal of him is highly inconsistent); he does turn out to be a somewhat creative thinker, though, deciding that Marodors can be tamed or cured (at least some are transformed humans) – an idea that no one else has thought of in 500-some-odd years. That idea starts to become important near the end of the book and will presumably be more fully explored in later series entries.

     Oh yes, the “series entry” thing. The book ends with a bang – literally – and a cliffhanger that is genuinely unfair to readers. Guyon does not seem to understand that even in novels for younger readers – this one is basically for preteens – one plays fair by providing a satisfying conclusion to the first book while also leaving open some matters to be explored further. This initial Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches volume does not just end in medias res – it ends in medias a mess. That is a significant authorial miscalculation.

     On the other hand, there is a lot of interesting material here that will be worth exploring if readers do not feel so cheated by the book’s conclusion as to turn their backs on later novels. The whole Heinrich thing, the real motivations of Archibald’s grandmother, the reason Leonardo da Vinci was so involved in protecting witches – these are a few areas worth investigating further. Then there are the magical weapons used by the witches against Marodors – weapons called golems even though that word has an entirely different meaning from the one it is given here. And there is the issue of just what the Marodors are and what can be done about (or to or with) them. Also, there are the names of the places within Lemurea, which seem vaguely to hint of additional stories that can be told, unless they simply indicate that Guyon is trying to make locations sound “fantasy-like”: Agrestal, Marrowclaw (a Harry Potter reference?), Beorbor, Spinkiden, Yolkenrof, Gristlemoth, Kakkerlakan, Gurguria, Worgonia, Arkæling, etc. And then there are the shape-changing keys (one of those minor details that are more interesting than major plot points): only one of them works with Leonardo’s globe, meaning the others must have stories yet to be told. There could even be language-related stories in future books, since much of the lightness in the narrative (yes, there is some) comes from dialogue in which synonyms and near-synonyms are thrown about hither and yon: “‘You think I’m buzzard-blind? …you know, squirrel minded. …It’s like chuckle-pate, but more like lourdish. Duncified, almost, but definitely more boobyish, if you know what I mean. …You know – witless, frost-brained, mossy, potato-headed?’”

     In any case, no matter what narrative weaknesses the book may have, the atmospheric and detailed illustrations by Zina Kostich are in and of themselves reason enough to spend time with Archibald, Hailee and the witches of Lemurea. Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches, Journey 1 is absolutely maddening in many ways, but there is enough cleverness in it, and there are enough twists in the tale-telling, to have readers eagerly anticipate a sequel – if they are not too dismayed by the heavy-handed way Guyon forces his readership to wait for another book in order to receive at least some degree of satisfactory closure.

(++++) TWO BY TWO

Egon Kornauth: Viola Sonata, Op. 3; Robert Fuchs: Sechs Phantasiestücke, Op. 117; Viola Sonata, Op. 89; Traditional, arr. Stephen Hough: Arirang (Korean folk song). Litton Duo (Katharina Kang Litton, viola; Andrew Litton, piano). BIS. $19.99 (SACD).

Ernest Bloch: From Jewish Life; Suite Hébraïque; Two Pieces (Meditation and Processional); Suite. Yevgeny Dokshansky, clarinet; Richard Masters, piano. Heritage Records. $18.

From Rags to Riches: 100 Years of American Song. Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano; William Burden, tenor; Steven Blier, piano. NYFOS Records. $20.

Wonderful World: An Ode to Nature. Christian-Pierre La Marca, cello; Sabine Devieilhe and Patricia Petibon, sopranos; Michel Portal, clarinet; Thomas Enhco, Thierry Escaich, Nathanaël Gouin, and Baptiste Trotignon, piano; Félicien Brut, accordion; Édouard Macarez, double bass; Lilly Wood & the Prick, voice and guitar; members of L’orchestre de Paris. Naïve. $19.99 (2 CDs).

     Anyone seeking a small silver lining amid the numerous dark clouds of COVID-19 can take a look (or, better, a listen) to the Litton Duo, which exists only because of the pandemic. To be accurate, it exists as a musical duo only on that basis, since Andrew and Katharina Kang Litton are husband and wife and are fine musicians on their own: Andrew as a conductor and Katharina as principal violist at the New York City Ballet. Their desire to communicate musically with each other and, eventually, with others outside their pandemic-induced lockdown pod led them to perform viola-and-piano works beyond the very few such pieces that are reasonably well-known, such as the viola versions of Brahms’ clarinet sonatas. In fact, the pieces on a new BIS recording are very decidedly Brahmsian in many ways – indeed, they have direct or indirect ties to Brahms himself: Robert Fuchs (1847-1927) knew Brahms and was well-regarded by him as a musician, and Egon Kornauth (1891-1959) was one of Fuchs’ students. Few listeners will likely know the music of Fuchs or Kornauth, but many will find these viola-and-piano pieces absorbing and quite moving, since both composers clearly understood the emotional intensity of which the viola is capable, and both wrote in sure-handed Romantic style even though the works, by date, are post-Romantic. Fuchs’ Sechs Phantasiestücke dates to 1927 but scarcely sounds like music by an 80-year-old. It is freshly conceived, highly lyrical, heartfelt, and very expressive – and played quite beautifully: the fourth movement, Andante sostenuto con espressione, is a real gem, and the final Allegretto con delicatezza has a winning crepuscular quality. And the third movement, Leicht bewegt, is as Brahmsian as can be. Fuchs’ viola sonata is somewhat earlier, dating to 1909, and more broadly conceived, with an impassioned first movement, a lilting and slightly melancholy second, and a pleasantly balanced finale. Kornauth’s sonata dates to 1912 and is one of the composer’s early works (Op. 3). Here the Brahms influence, whether direct or indirect, is quite pronounced, not only in the overall sound but also in the intensity of the material and the relative importance of the two instruments (with the piano quite prominent) – the opening of the second movement actually sounds like something from Brahms. The two Litton Duo members have tremendous involvement in all these works and play them with a sure grasp of the music’s style and the level of emotion suitable for Romantic-era conceptions. The SACD concludes with a nice little personal tribute: Stephen Hough’s arrangement of a traditional Korean folk song, which Hough gave the performers as a wedding gift.

     Everything is an arrangement on a new Heritage Records disc featuring clarinetist Yevgeny Dokshansky and pianist Richard Masters. The reason for this is simple: Ernest Bloch wrote no works for solo clarinet. But he did write a number of evocative pieces for viola, and as the Brahms clarinet/viola sonatas show so well, many pieces that are suitable for the violin’s larger cousin lie very well indeed on the clarinet. Suite Hébraïque and Two Pieces (both from 1951), as well as the Suite of 1919, were originally for viola; From Jewish Life (1924) was written for cello and requires somewhat more adaptation to work as a clarinet-and-piano piece. Dokshansky made all the adaptations heard on this CD, and did so with admirable respect for the originals as well as a fine sense of the clarinet’s expressive capabilities. Bloch is usually thought of as an American composer, but he was born in Switzerland and influenced musically by Jewish music he heard in Geneva. This is quite explicit in From Jewish Life, whose three movements are “Prayer,” “Supplication,” and “Jewish Song,” all performed with considerable feeling by Dokshansky and Masters. Two Pieces (“Meditation” and “Procession”) is cut from somewhat similar cloth, the two works here being nicely contrasted with each other and the use of the solo clarinet at the start of the first piece being especially effective. Suite Hébraïque, one of Bloch’s better-known works, consists of “Rapsodie,” “Processional,” and “Affirmation,” and is more strongly emotive and somewhat more intense – and less melancholy – than From Jewish Life or Two Pieces. The finale manages to be upbeat and positive without being overly celebratory – an emotional tightrope that the performers here walk very well. The simply titled Suite features a distinctly jazzy Allegro ironico opening that fits the clarinet especially well, a central Lento whose piano moodiness is foundational to an almost-lamenting quality, and a concluding Molto vivo that is nearly as long as the first two movements together and that has a bright bounciness bordering at times on the frenetic. Whatever the foundational Jewish influences of these four works may be – and they are stronger and clearer in some places than in others – the pieces provide considerable opportunities for the two performers to showcase their ability to handle the back-and-forth of some well-constructed music that flows from a specific religious/ethnic tradition but, in Bloch’s hands, reaches out effectively to a much wider audience.

     Songs and other vocal works reach out in a different way, the human voice giving them a form of connection distinct from that possessed by purely instrumental works. The New York Festival of Song, on a new CD on its own label, makes this point through works that are, in the main, for two performers – either mezzo-soprano or tenor plus piano. The pianist is NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier, and the entire (+++) disc clearly reflects his predilections and interests. The songs are not arranged chronologically – the oldest actually appears last: Robert Lowry’s 1868 How Can I Keep from Singing? The newest song, New York Lights by William Bolcom, is an aria from an operatic version of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge and dates to 1999; this is the 15^th track of 17 on the CD. So although the disc does include a century of American songs – more than that, in fact – it does not do so in any way pointing to musical or societal progress during that century-plus. Nor is the disc arranged by genre: some songs are operatic, some are jazzy, and some come from musical theater, with no particular sequencing; in fact, mixing things up chronologically and musically seems to be one of Blier’s main interests here. Stephanie Blythe and Willian Burden split the soloist-plus-piano songs, with five by Blythe and eight by Burden, the remaining four tracks being presented by “The Company.” Again, though, the rationale for the sequence of material is unclear. As for the composers, they include Scott Joplin, Will Marion Cook, Charles Griffes, George Gershwin, Marc Blitzstein, Eubie Blake, Samuel Barber, Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers, Thelonius Monk, Stephen Sondheim, Jonathan Larson, and Chris de Blasio, in addition to Lowry and Bolcom. The songs are not uniformly interesting but are one and all very well-performed, and Blier’s pianism fits the various musical circumstances adeptly and provides greater continuity to the CD than does anything else. Blier is also the arranger of eight of the songs. The disc would seem to be something of a vanity project if the whole thing did not sound so darned good – the material may be arranged willy-nilly and may be a confusing mixture of musical styles and types, but listeners who simply want to hear a bunch of American songs from the middle of the 19^th century to the end of the 20^th will find a great deal to enjoy here. Listening to the disc straight through does create a kind of musical whiplash, however – the CD is better heard in small doses unless, of course, one listens purely for the sake of hearing whatever unpredictable turn it may take next. If there is one recurring theme to the disc, albeit one that, again, shows up at unpredictable times, it is a kind of social consciousness: Cook’s My Lady Frog is about race, Larson’s Hosing the Furniture about feminism, Blitzstein’s Nickel under the Foot about classism, and Bolcom’s aria about the immigrant experience. The topics are handled very differently, but that may be the main point here: the variegated American musical-song experience.

     Social and societal issues are the be-all and end-all of a two-CD Naïve release featuring cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca and titled Wonderful World. Like Blier’s song collection, this recording features lots of unrelated music thrown together helter-skelter in the name of showcasing musical appreciations or interpretations of nature as a whole or individual natural phenomena of various kinds. La Marca, like Blier, mixes genres pretty much nonstop: the 29 tracks on the two discs include an arrangement of Over the Rainbow, one of Gershwin’s Summertime, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, an improvisation called Awake of Nature and another called Between Man and Nature, an orchestral arrangement of the Prayer from Bloch’s From Jewish Life that works much less well than Dokshansky’s arrangement for clarinet and piano, plus pieces by Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns – plus Moon River, the second of Piazzolla’s Las cuatro estaciones porteñas, a traditional Celtic Valse, and more. The connections among some of these pieces and the stated goal of providing an “Ode to Nature” are tenuous at best, and as with the Blier recording, the sequence apparently flows from a single source – La Marca in this case – and is not really apparent when one listens to the music. This is certainly an opportunity to hear a considerable amount of fine cello playing, mostly of very short works: Piazzolla’s, at seven minutes, is the longest, but two-to-three-minute duration is the norm here. Nature in all its guises is of course a longstanding inspiration to artists – painters and poets as well as musicians – and so, on the broadest scale, everything on this release connects to everything else. But this (+++) recording does not really have any significant point to make or, indeed, any significant reason for being. It is a feel-good release that allows La Marca and the other participants to do something on behalf of their art, and certainly that is an unexceptionable goal; and since one euro from the sale of each two-disc set is being donated to a group called the GoodPlanet Foundation, supporters of that organization may find their enjoyment of the material enhanced by the knowledge that some of what they pay for Wonderful World is going to a cause that they support. The idea that people should contribute to causes in which they believe by using their particular knowledge and talents is a very good one, and certainly the mixed-up mass of music here is performed well, with individual pieces more enjoyable than the recording is if heard from start to finish. There is, however, little more than a somewhat generic “cause” holding this release together – that, plus La Marca’s apparent sincerity and the quality of his cello playing. If those elements are enough for you, then you are a member of the target audience for this recording.