(++++) GETTING HERE, GETTING THERE

What a Map Can Do. By Gabrielle Balkan. Art by Alberto Lot. Rise x Penguin Workshop. $18.99.

     Maps are everywhere in life today – and nowhere. With the rise of cellphones and GPS-enabled car tracking systems, people are using maps more than ever in their daily lives, whether to explore an unfamiliar area or to pin down the closest neighborhood pizza shop. But today’s maps are mostly just part of the electronic background, simply apps into which users enter requests for the information they want and from which they get instructions on how to find the place to which they want to get. Map locations are “factoids,” similar to what users find when looking up details on a favorite movie or TV show or sports event. And as in looking up those other tidbits of information, users do not really think about how a map gets them what they want to know and takes them where they want to be. Some sort of primer on understanding maps would be a big help.

     What a Map Can Do is that primer. Gabrielle Balkan attentively and attractively delves into the basics of how maps work, with Alberto Lot’s amusing cartoon illustrations making map-following an enjoyable journey no matter where the maps may take young readers. These are old-style non-electronic maps, the sort people still encounter in specialized situations here and there.

     A smiling young raccoon is readers’ guide to what maps are, how they work, and what they do, explaining how a map can give information on anything from a very small space to a very large one. The raccoon first presents a map of his room that “shows where the important things are, from above,” and asks readers to take part in using it by pointing to his stuffed animal – which, the map indicates, is on his bed. Then he shows a map covering a larger area: his whole house. On this map, each room is labeled, and kids are asked to find the gray toilet in the bathroom, the scooter in the hallway, and other things in the raccoon’s home.

     Widening the perspective still further, the raccoon next offers a map of his neighborhood, explaining where on the map his house is located and how readers can plot the path from the house to the playground, figuring out how many other houses they will pass on the way. And so it goes, page after page: there are maps of so many things – the city, a bus route, a museum and more. Balkan and Lot do a fine job of showing the different ways in which maps are used in different circumstances: to find a bus stop, for example, and to locate specific exhibits within the museum, and – on a larger scale – to figure out how to “travel from one city to the next, one state to the next, and even one country to the next!”

     What a Map Can Do is also helpful in some unexpected ways. At one point, the raccoon narrator offers “a map of the inside of my body” as he explains that a map “can show us things we cannot see,” such as the path that the animal crackers on which he is snacking “will take to get from my mouth to my stomach.” The map key in this particular case shows where to find bones, brain, heart, stomach and the swallowed snack. Elsewhere, on a visit to a National Forest, the raccoon explains that “a map can show us what to expect,” such as easier and more-difficult trails to follow, longer and shorter ones, and so on. And he points out that maps are not just used for physical locations that someone may want to explore: a weather map “shows us if it will rain or snow or hail or shine in our area,” and a star map “can help us understand the sky.” It is significant that there is not an electronic map in the entire book: the basic maps are the old-fashioned paper kind that fold up and then open out to reveal whatever they are designed to show. Given the reality that electronic maps likely dominate most kids’ and families' experiences today, it is refreshing to have a book that goes back to basics and shows the purposes for which maps are made and the ways that maps created on paper can be used. In fact, paper maps can do one thing that electronic ones never can: readers who remove the book jacket will find that the book’s actual cover shows a paper map folded into airplane shape and flying across the page. Just try that with an app!

(++++) SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

Hummel: Piano Quintets in D minor, Op. 74, and E-flat minor, Op. 87. Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet (Riko Fukuda, fortepiano; Franc Polman, violin; Elisabeth Smalt, viola; Jan Insinger, cello; Pieter Smithuijsen, double bass). Brilliant Classics. $19.99.

Hovhaness: Mountain Fantasies for Piano. Haskell Small, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     It is common knowledge among music lovers that Schubert’s piano quintet in A, D. 667, was inspired by his earlier song Die Forelle (“The Trout”), with the fourth of the work’s five movements being a set of variations on that lied. Much less known, however, is where Schubert got the idea for a quintet using piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass – a highly unusual instrumental complement. The answer is that Schubert’s 1819 quintet was directly inspired by Hummel’s Op. 74 of 1816 – which in turn is Hummel’s transcription for piano quintet of his own septet (with the same opus number) for the even-more-unusual mixture of piano, flute, oboe, horn, viola, cello and double bass. This sort of cross-pollination among composers was by no means rare in Hummel’s and Schubert’s time, but the intricacies and interstices of the relationships are now largely unknown. Indeed, the excellence of much of Hummel’s music remains underappreciated: he lacks the perfect poise of Mozart, with whom he studied, and the intense drive of Beethoven, with whom he had both a friendship and a rivalry; thus, as a kind of transitional figure in music, he is seen as neither here nor there stylistically and receives less attention and fewer performances than the quality of his work justifies. Thankfully, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet (named for Hummel’s middle name) fully appreciates Hummel’s style and the value of his music, and its performance of the quintet version of Op. 74 is exemplary. As often in Hummel, the Op. 74 quintet is front-weighted: it is an extended work, with 15 of its 38 minutes in the first movement. The performers do an excellent job of giving that large first movement weight without heaviness, and they show a fine understanding of just how much of a transitional composer Hummel was: the quintet’s second movement is marked Menuetto o scherzo, as if Hummel is determined to keep one foot in the era of Haydn and Mozart and the other in the time of Beethoven and beyond. The third of Hummel’s four movements is a theme and variations – just as the fourth of Schubert’s five contains his variations on Die Forelle – and is well and convincingly constructed, while the well-paced finale brings Hummel’s quintet to a thoroughly suitable close. Performing on a fortepiano roughly of Hummel’s time (a Pleyel from 1842) and on instruments of historic provenance with gut strings, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet gives about as authentic a reading of Hummel’s D minor quintet as possible – and the sound of the fortepiano mixes so well with that of the double bass that the instrumentation clearly reflects Hummel’s expertise in chamber music. This quintet is paired with the Op. 87 quintet, which has unusual elements of its own. Originally written around 1802, it was apparently revised in the year it was published, 1822 – there must have been a revision, because pianos in 1802 did not have sufficient range to play Hummel’s Op. 87. Furthermore, although the quintet was published as being in E-flat, it is actually in the much more difficult E-flat minor, a key that has six flats. Here too the first movement is the longest (10 minutes out of the quintet’s 23); but here the overall mood never becomes serious – the third movement, Largo, is only two minutes long and essentially serves as an introduction to the effectively dramatic Allegro agitato conclusion. These are not new performances but re-releases: Op. 74 was recorded in 2009, Op. 87 in 2006. The disc is very much worth having for anyone interested in authentic-sounding, beautifully played chamber music that is somewhat off the beaten track. The CD does have a slapdash quality about it, though: Riko Fukuda’s name is spelled four different ways, correctly at one point but also “Fuduka,” “Fukudo” and “Fufuka.” That may not trouble her but should certainly embarrass Brilliant Classics.

     Musical inspirations flow from many sources, not just from other composers or from one’s own earlier works. Among the major inspirations for Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) were mountains: probably his best-known piece is “Mysterious Mountain,” his Symphony No. 2. His mountain-inspired piano music is much less familiar, which makes an MSR Classics CD featuring pianist Haskell Small all the more worthwhile. The pieces heard here span more than four decades of Hovhaness’ career – although they are not arranged chronologically – and are mostly drawn from his reactions to mountainous terrain. The disc opens with the three-movement Blue Job Mountain Sonata (1979), whose brooding first movement establishes the overall mood, which the short finale uplifts only modestly. Next is Prospect Hill Sonata (1980), also in three movements, which is lighter in sound and has a generally pleasant, pastoral feeling throughout – its bright finale is especially engaging. The four-movement Mt. Katahdin Sonata (1987) follows – it is a largely serious, even somber work, although the very short third-movement Jhala of Larch Trees lightens matters a bit (Hovhaness also uses the titular evocation of a Hindustani musical form in one movement of Blue Job Mountain Sonata). The three sonatas are followed by works in other forms. Pastoral No. 1 (1952) is quite dark, even gloomy, for a work bearing this title. Hymn for Mt. Chocorua (1982) is hymnlike in its use of chordal structure although not in any particularly spiritual way. The lightest work on the CD is also the earliest: 12 Armenian Folk Songs (1943). Hovhaness, who was born in Armenia, here offers very short pieces (11 of the 12 last a minute or less) that sound lightly and with delicacy on the piano and proceed with pleasant, mostly regular rhythms. The CD concludes with Farewell to the Mountains (1946), a pleasantly bouncy encore with some jazz inflections and attractive rhythmic variation. Small, better known as a composer than a pianist, made these recordings in 2013 and 2014, and they sound quite good, played with attentiveness and without overstated feeling. Indeed, the works’ comparatively reserved nature is what makes this a (+++) disc: Small does what he can to put the music across effectively, but whatever Hovhaness’ lofty inspirations for most of these pieces may have been, the works themselves are on the earthbound side.

(++++) A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

Tig and Lily 1: Tiger Trouble. By Dan Thompson. RH Graphic. $10.99.

     What makes you you? Not a bad philosophical question, that – but not one commonly posed to early readers. Until now, that is. Dan Thompson’s first Tig and Lily graphic novel – the start of a planned series – is all about what makes you you, or more specifically, what makes a tiger a tiger.

     This is not a scientific argument, although science does get into it at one point. This is a who-do-you-think-you-are dose of amusement and confusion, with Lily the tiger being confronted at the zoo one day by Tig the house cat, who is 100% totally absolutely sure that he is a tiger. And since Lily is not much like Tig – Lily is much larger, colored differently, cannot purr, is unable to hold her tail aloft, and so forth – that must mean Lily is not a tiger, for all her protestations to the contrary (and all her memories of growing up with a tiger mommy and tiger daddy).

     The absurdity of the premise will be a lot of fun for young graphic-novel readers to explore, although there really is a serious underlying question about what makes you you. What Thompson does here is let Tig determine what behaviors prove tiger-ness (purring, tail mechanics, etc.) and then inform Lily that she does not measure up to tigerdom by Tig’s definition. Of course she doesn’t – Tig is not a tiger, as any child reading the book will immediately know. But is there a way to prove that Tig is a house cat rather than a tiger? That is a good question, and one that remains unanswered even by the end of the book.

     Tiger Trouble is also, unsurprisingly for a series starter, the story of the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Having managed to confuse Lily thoroughly, Tig wanders off to explore his new home at the zoo – and then Lily discovers the little bit of science in the book, in the form of a sign explaining just what tigers are. Naturally, the sign describes Lily perfectly and Tig not at all. So that settles everything – or, well, no. It could settle things if there were no budding friendship between the book’s two title characters. But there is. And so, when Tig encounters two other tigers at the zoo – it turns out that Lily is not the only one there – and those other tigers tell Tig that he is not a tiger, Tig is sad to the point of being heartbroken (Thompson shows him from the back, sitting in a gloomy pose, with a sort of broken-heart emoji over his head). Tig’s sadness inspires Lily’s friendship and protective instincts, so Lily confronts the other two tigers and uses Tig’s definitions of tiger things to convince them that they must not be tigers – and should apologize to Tig, who is one.

     The whole setup is deliciously absurd and ridiculous, and certainly works as the start of a series in which two unlikely friends are sure to have all sorts of mild but enjoyable adventures together – no matter who assumes which identity under what circumstances. Tig and Lily certainly make an odd couple, but that sort of mismatched friendship is at the heart of many books for young readers, including graphic novels. Thompson has no real interest in resolving the question of what makes a tiger a tiger, but simply posing the question and letting Tig and Lily wrestle with the answer – or avoid it as much as possible – makes a neat foundation for a pleasantly silly, simply but nicely drawn, amusingly plotted tale of tiger territory and terminology.

(++++) MIXING REAL WITH SURREAL

Wondrous Animals: Color a Kingdom of Creatures. By Kerby Rosanes. Plume. $16.

     The hyper-detailed drawings of Kerby Rosanes look wonderful in black-and-white, which makes his many coloring books for adults worth paging through again and again, even for readers who do not have coloristic tendencies. For those who do want to unleash their inner artist, of course, the books provide innumerable opportunities to do just that, with the extreme detail of the art offering more-than-ample chances to make Rosanes’ creations look realistic, or hyper-realistic, or deliberately unrealistic.

     The original art spans multiple categories itself, which can be a bit unsettling, as it is in the latest Rosanes collection, Wondrous Animals. What Rosanes has done here is offer selections from six earlier books: Animorphia, Imagimorphia, Mythomorphia, Geomorphia, Worlds within Worlds, and Fragile World. As the first four titles make clear, “morphing” – the change-through-blending of one thing to another – is a significant part of some of this art, as when the bars of a bird cage bend like living foliage and become the tails of birds that are gratefully flying free and away from cage life. But what makes Wondrous Animals unusual is that in addition to surreal scenes like that one, the book is sprinkled with entirely realistic and beautifully rendered portrayals of actual animals, such as a mother and baby koala on one page, and a two-page spread of axolotls (which only seem to be creatures of fantasy) elsewhere.

     Facing pages taken from different books, and thus from different worlds, can be particularly surprising, even jarring: the koalas are on a right-hand page, for example, while the left-hand one shows what could be a phoenix arising into new life; elsewhere, a right-hand page shows beautifully rendered bats in flight, while the left-hand one shows a stag staring straight out of the book, its magnificent antlers encompassing and morphing into the two halves of a miniature village, complete with windmill and church and a bridge allowing the unseen inhabitants to cross from one side to the other.

     The result of juxtapositions like these is that Rosanes not only blurs the line between reality and surreality but also makes it seem as if his impossible creations could exist in the same world as his portrayals of real creatures. In scenes created with Rosanes’ offbeat sense of humor, that feeling is especially strong: one left-hand page very accurately shows tiny, huge-eyed frogs amid foliage, while the right-hand one features two beautifully rendered chameleons – one of which has its tail curled around a tiny treasure chest, and both of which share their arboreal space with mysterious and mischievous-looking little semi-animate critters that could be sprites or woodland spirits or something else worth looking in the eye if one happens to encounter them (as one chameleon is looking right at one of the whatever-they-are things).

     Seeing the sheer variety of these who-knows-what critters is one thing that makes paging through Wondrous Worlds so enjoyable, whether or not one chooses to color the little beings. Rosanes does not hesitate to include a three-eyed bipedal alien, a boom box with arms and big eyes, a sort-of ghost with a parasol, an alligator-ish being wearing a crown, and an eight-legged-four-horned something-or-other with an old-fashioned rabbit-eared TV set as adjuncts to a two-page spread of facing swans whose heads and necks are as real-looking as their environment is peculiar. On the other hand, a different two-page spread is an underwater display featuring three manatees as well as fish, sea turtles, jellyfish and other swimming creatures – all shown with exquisite detail and entirely realistically.

     Wondrous Worlds, plural, is, as the title indicates, taken from various places that Rosanes has created. In this combination, those multiple worlds create a single one that is all the stranger for the way it mixes the real and fully identifiable with the cannot-possibly-exist with the that-almost-looks-as-if-it-could-be-real. The multiple worlds from which these pages come have here morphed into a single, highly multifaceted and variegated world – one that readers can accentuate even further by creating their own color palettes to differentiate the multiple types of creatures portrayed, or to show, through coloration, ways in which perhaps the real and surreal are not actually far apart at all.

(+++) STRINGS OLD AND NEW

William Whyte: Fantasias; Pavans a 6, Nos. 1 and 2; Thomas Tomkins: Galliard a 6, No. 92. Abendmusik (Judson Griffin and Malgorzata Ziemnicka, violins; Lawrence Lipnik and Rosamund Morley, tenor viols; Sarah Cunningham, Patricia Ann Neely and Carlene Stober, bass viols). MSR Classics. $14.95.

Bryce Dessner: Quintet for High Strings; Leonard Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata—arranged by Ben Verdery for string quartet and guitar; Ben Verdery: About to Fall; A Giant Beside You; Javier Farias: Andean Suite. Ben Verdery, classical and electric guitar; Ulysses Quartet (Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violins; Colin Brookes, viola; Grace Ho, cello). ReEntrant. $16.99.

     So much has changed in chamber music for strings since the era of William Whyte (1571-1634): specifics of instruments, type of strings, form of bows, tuning, style of playing, the very meaning of ensemble, and much more. But at its core, the expressiveness of a small string ensemble has not changed, even if what is expressed and how that expressiveness is communicated to listeners are different after 400-plus years. Not much is known about the life and career of Whyte (also sometimes spelled White), but to the extent that his music is occasionally (if rarely) heard, he is usually represented by one or more of three Fantasias a 5 and seven Fantasias a 6 – and those five-part and six-part pieces are among the works heard on an MSR Classics release featuring the chamber group Abendmusik. Also here are two Fantasias a 2, a Fantasia a 3, and two pieces called Pavan a 6; and for purposes of complementarity, the CD also includes a 90-second work by Whyte’s contemporary, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656). The massed sound of Whyte’s works is different from what listeners not already familiar with pieces from this time period will expect: in most cases, all the parts are essentially equal, and there is an underlying seriousness to the pieces that may make audiences think of church music (although in fact these are secular works). Tomkins’ Galliard a 6 is a brighter piece and faster-paced than Whyte’s works. But that does not mean that Whyte’s pieces are all alike in sound. Here and there, Whyte brings a single instrument to the fore while the others become complementary – anticipating the not-yet-developed form of the concerto grosso, with its solo instrument and ripieno passing material back and forth. Fantasias a 6, Nos. 2 and 3, for example, have some of these forward-looking features. The darkly serious Fantasia a 2, No. 2 makes an interesting contrast to the works for a larger grouping, and the comparatively extended Fantasia a 6, No. 6 – which, at five minutes, is the longest work on the disc – provides opportunities for especially intricate interweaving of the instruments. This is a short CD, just 46 minutes in all, but it serves as an interesting immersion in a world of string playing and string sound that is quite different from those with which most listeners are likely to be familiar.

     Those interested can fast-forward to another comparatively short CD (55 minutes) for a strong contrast between string use in Tudor times and in contemporary music. The focus of this ReEntrant disc is guitarist Ben Verdery, who was intimately involved in all the musical creations except for one piece. Verdery wrote two of the works on the disc himself, arranged the one by Leonard Bernstein, and is the person for whom Bryce Dessner (born 1976) wrote his piece, Quintet for High Strings, in 2018. Dessner’s quintet is an extended (18-minute) work that uses a guitar – which is, after all, a string instrument – that has been restrung with special strings that lead to sounds an octave or even two octaves above where they would normally appear. It is not a particularly engaging work – once the ear adjusts to the experimental nature of the re-stringing, the musical material is not especially attractive. The piece’s three movements are played attacca, and there are some differences among them, but their sound is not overly attractive, despite the skill with which Verdery and the Ulysses Quartet present everything. More interesting, if perhaps rather wrongheaded, is Verdery’s arrangement of Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata, the composer-conductor’s first published piece (1942). In it, Bernstein showed a considerable amount of sensitivity to the sound and sensibilities of the clarinet and the ways in which it can interact with the piano. The clarinet part does not translate directly to the guitar, although it can work on some other instruments (there is an intriguing cello arrangement, for example). Verdery (born 1955) comes up with clever ways to overcome the difficulties of this adaptation, but the sound is never quite satisfactory, and the first movement certainly does not come across as Grazioso here. The Bernstein work is followed on the disc by two written by Verdery himself. About to Fall (2022) uses an electric guitar and a volume pedal, starting with a series of swells and progressing into a very slow section that seems to be striving toward an unnamed and unreached climax. A Giant Beside You (2021-2022) also features electric guitar, and here the sound is that of electroacoustic music, with a good deal of bounce and use of a number of pop-music techniques. It is more fun than About to Fall and makes a better overall impression, but at almost seven minutes, it continues long after it has made its points. The final work on the disc is the three-movement Andean Suite (2017) by Javier Farias (born 1973). This is the most variegated and rhythmically intriguing piece on the CD. Each movement seeks to capture the spirit and sound of ceremonies and music of the Andean region. The first, Yawar Fiesta, represents a bloody fight between animals staged annually in Peru. The second, Huayno, is slow and sad, filled with a kind of tearful lyricism reflected in all the instruments and showcasing the guitar’s emotive capabilities. The third, Diablada, is an interpretation of a Bolivian dance with strong rhythms and a driving pace. The use of strings on this CD is about as far from that of William Whyte as one would expect from the long-separated musical eras – but it is fascinating to hear in how many ways, despite their obvious differences, the works on these two discs use small-ensemble string music to reach out colorfully and often effectively to a suitably receptive audience.