(++++) TWENTIETH-CENTURY BYWAYS

Anderson: Orchestral Music, Volume 3—Harvard Sketches; Melody on Two Notes; Mother’s Whistler; The Penny Whistle Song; The Phantom Regiment; Plink, Plank, Plunk!; Promenade; Sandpaper Ballet; Saraband; Serenata; Old MacDonald Had a Farm; Seventy-Six Trombones; Sleigh Ride; Suite of Carols for Brass Choir; Wintergreen for President; The Typewriter; A Trumpeter’s Lullaby; The Syncopated Clock. BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Naxos. $8.99.

Kabalevsky: Piano Concerto No. 3, “Dedicated to Soviet Youth”; Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra on the theme of the song “School Years,” “Dedicated to Young Musicians of the Volga Region”; Poem of Struggle for Orchestra and Chorus; Rimsky-Korsakov: Piano Concerto in C sharp minor. Hsin-Ni Liu, piano; Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and Gnesin Academy Chorus conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. Naxos. $8.99.

      While much of 20^th-century classical music moved in very serious directions – Schoenberg’s 12-tone constructions, Webern’s minimalism, Stravinsky’s neoclassicism, Richard Strauss’ operatic opulence, and so much more – some parts of it were distinctly less intense. Leroy Anderson’s music is a prime example: classically trained and quite expert in construction of orchestral miniatures, Anderson managed to bridge the classical and pop-music worlds through the short, upbeat pieces he created for the Boston Pops and for numerous recordings. The third volume of Naxos’ survey of Anderson’s complete orchestral music contains some of his most popular works, and they are real gems: The Phantom Regiment, a spooky march; Plink, Plank, Plunk! – a wonderful exploration of pizzicato; Sleigh Ride, perhaps Anderson’s most popular piece, which so beautifully captures a Currier-and-Ives winter event; The Typewriter, which treats the old-fashioned manual machine (played very quickly by Alasdair Malloy) as a percussion instrument; and The Syncopated Clock, featuring some highly creative tick-tock wood blocks. Anderson was quite a stickler for detail: Sandpaper Ballet requires three different grades of the construction material for its percussive effects. He was also highly self-critical, with the result that a number of his works have never been recorded before, because he withdrew them. There are four of those here: Harvard Sketches, Melody on Two Notes, the very clever Mother’s Whistler (not to be confused with the painting “Whistler’s Mother,” of course), and the rousing Gershwin arrangement Wintergreen for President. Actually, Anderson was highly skilled at arranging the music of others: Seventy-Six Trombones, from Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, is quite a wonderful blend of Willson’s music with snippets of Sousa. And Old MacDonald Had a Farm is a simply hilarious sendup of the barnyard tune. The only ordinary-sounding piece here is Suite of Carols for Brass Choir, a pleasant enough seasonal medley, but not one with any unique Anderson touches. Leonard Slatkin leads the BBC Concert Orchestra with great verve and style, and the optimistic nature of the music on this CD is a welcome antidote to all the seriousness of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

      Dmitry Kabalevsky intended to produce far more serious works than Anderson did, but Kabalevsky’s have turned out to be taken less seriously than he wished, since he created them in the service of the now-dismantled Soviet Union. Their particular brand of revolutionary fervor, proletarian uplift and stylistic simplicity wears very poorly indeed, so the new Kabalevsky CD gets a (+++) rating despite the appropriately boisterous pianism of Hsin-Ni Liu and the idiomatic intensity of Dmitry Yablonsky and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra. The best Kabalevsky here is his Piano Concerto No. 3, written in a bright D major and totally lacking in subtlety – but conveying a certain forthright charm that makes it enjoyable to hear, at least occasionally. The rhapsody that Kabalevsky wrote on his own song School Years is less successful, although the interplay of piano and orchestra is well handled. As for Poem of Struggle, it is one of those Socialist Realist works that are an embarrassment nowadays: written in 1930, it features a chorus promoting the idea of a worldwide October Revolution, bringing the world – country by country – into the Soviet system. Interestingly, the most substantial music on this CD was written during Russia’s Czarist period: Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1883 Piano Concerto. Despite being obviously modeled on Liszt – specifically his Piano Concerto No. 2 – the work has a strong Russian flavor in its themes and some real originality in the handling of both piano and orchestra. It doesn’t quite fit with the other works here, because it stands above them. But the juxtaposition of 19^th-century seriousness with the Soviet-style 20^th-century version is quite interesting to hear.

(+++) MUSIC VIDEOS, CLASSICAL STYLE

Beethoven: String Quartets--No. 4, op. 18, no. 4; No. 7, op. 59, no. 1, “Rasumovsky”; No. 14, op. 131. Juilliard String Quartet. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.

Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4. Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.

Fazil Say: Alla Turca. A film by Gösta Courkamp. Arthaus Musik DVD. $24.99.

Jiří Kylián’s “Car Men.” A film by Boris Pavel Conen and Jiří Kylián. Arthaus DVD. $29.99.

      Although we live in a video-saturated age, it is not always easy to understand the rationalization for video releases of classical-music performances. Certainly there is a visual aspect to concert attendance that is missing when one listens to an audio recording; and certainly the release on video of works that have inherent visual elements, such as operas, makes eminent good sense. But when it comes to concerts of chamber or orchestral music, the rationale for video releases is by no means clear. An audience’s interaction with performers can affect the quality of a concert, but that applies only to people seeing it live. Spectators can enjoy watching the players, but they can choose whom to watch at which time, while a video forces viewers to see things from whatever point of view the director chooses from moment to moment. The sound quality of videos tends to be quite fine, but it is no better than the quality of an audio recording. So classical-music videos, such as the new ones of the Juilliard Quartet and the Boston Symphony under Leonard Bernstein, are at most niche products – even more so when the recordings were made before digital sound and audio existed.

      Thus, the wonderful 1975 Beethoven playing by the Juilliard Quartet (Robert Mann and Earl Carlyss, violins; Samuel Rhodes, viola; Joel Krosnick, cello) gains little from being displayed on video. What shows up clearly is this quartet’s ability to bring its characteristic warmth and excellence of ensemble to one early, one middle and one late Beethoven quartet; but this is no clearer on the video than it would be on an audio release. The performances themselves are quite impressive, perhaps a touch less intense than quartets tend to make them 30-plus years later, and the cooperation among the players is nothing short of exceptional – which was the norm for the Juilliard Quartet in the mid-1970s. Leonard Bernstein’s Brahms is an even earlier release, dating to 1972. This is a live recording made at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony and the venue where Bernstein began his career in 1940. There is more passion and warmth in these interpretations than precision and classical poise, with the result that the Second is somewhat more successful than the Fourth. Indeed, Bernstein’s way with Brahms never did please everyone, since he strove more for an emotional connection with the audience than for careful ensemble work and close attention to tempos and dynamics. Bernstein’s Brahms is outsize, as was the conductor’s personality, and in that respect is a welcome change from the more straitlaced readings heard more frequently today, even if Bernstein’s performances sometimes seem to be as much about him as they are about Brahms. Here the video does add something to the equation, showing Bernstein’s own passionate involvement in these musical moments. Still, neither the video nor the Bernstein approach will be universally welcome – although the inclusion of a short film called Bernstein at Tanglewood is a nice bonus.

      In fact, video makes much more sense for presenting films than for showing concerts – so a film focusing on a classical artist, such as Gösta Courkamp’s about pianist Fazil Say, works well in this medium. Say has a fanatical following in his native Turkey and among Turkish expatriates in other nations, and a growing reputation on the international concert circuit. His style is worth watching – he throws himself into the music, swaying not only from side to side but also from front to back and almost in circles, while staying seated on the piano bench. Say is also a crossover artist: the film not only shows him performing Bach and Beethoven, but also includes material from a concert with Turkish pop star Sertab Erener. And there are several of Say’s own compositions here, in whole or in part: Black Earth, Nazim, Paganini Variations, and the Silk Road concerto. An interview with Say is included as well. The eclectic nature of the film and bonus material limits the audience for this DVD: it is for existing fans of Say, or people who want to know what all the fuss is about this onetime child prodigy. The focus is much less on the music than on the man – perhaps a sensible approach for a biographical feature, although in this case Say is young enough (he was born in 1970) so that much of his biography, it seems reasonable to assume, is yet to be written.

      The film called Jiří Kylián’s “Car Men” is limited in another way: to those interested in a drastic reinterpretation, in dance form, of Bizet’s Carmen. Kylián uses four dancers and music arranged from Bizet by Hans Otten – who also composed new material – to create a story focusing on Carmen (Sabine Kupferberg), Don José (Karel Hruška), Escamillo (David Krügel) and Micaëla (Gioconda Barbuto). The whole thing takes place at a (real) coal mine in the Czech Republic, and ends with a race in cars made from abandoned scrap. To say that this is not Bizet’s Carmen is a tremendous understatement; but those who know and like Kylián’s work, or are interested in some of the extremes of modern dance, will find the 2006 film exhilarating. And the DVD contains two bonuses of earlier Kylián ballets. La Cathédrale engloutie, first performed in 1975, uses Debussy’s music for choreography intended to focus on humans’ internal conflicts caused by the impetus to break self-imposed laws. And Silent Cries, which dates to 1986 and also uses music by Debussy, also tries to get at human beings’ inner conflicts, this time with a solo performance by Kupferberg, who seems to be trapped behind dirty glass and is not always fully visible. Kylián certainly has a vision of his own, and this DVD certainly gives him multiple chances to express it; but it remains unlikely that Kylián’s starkness and unusual visual sense will, through video, reach much beyond a core group of admirers of his works or similar ones.

(++++) DOG TALES

Dogfessions. Compiled by Nikki Moustaki. HarperCollins. $19.99.

A Home for Dixie: The True Story of a Rescued Puppy. By Emma Jackson. Photographs by Bob Carey. HarperCollins. $16.99.

Angus and Sadie. By Cynthia Voigt. Illustrations by Tom Leigh. HarperTrophy. $5.99.

My Dog May Be a Genius. By Jack Prelutsky. Illustrations by James Stevenson. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $18.99.

      Here are some cases where the tale wags the dog – sorry about the bad pun, but it seems to go well with Dogfessions, Nikki Moustaki’s compilation of thoughts and comments from her Web site of the same name, where visitors can post anonymous “postcards” giving their thoughts (or their dogs’). The book’s subtitle is misleading: it says “Secret Confessions from Dogs,” but this book is just as much about secret confessions from dog owners…or, perhaps more accurately, dogs’ human companions. “I want her with me all the time” appears with a photo of the poster’s arm, tattooed with that sentiment and her dog’s face. Then there’s this: “My voice gets two octaves higher whenever I see this face,” with a picture of this person’s limpid-eyed dog looking right at the camera. Of course, there are plenty of postings “by” dogs as well: “I tried to eat a sheep at school today. I got in trouble. I’m only supposed to chase them, not eat them.” Or, with a photo of a dog apparently standing on back paws, with front paws draped over a counter or windowsill, tongue hanging out and what looks like a huge smile: “Eight hours waiting by the door is worth it because this is how happy I get when you come home.” Or, simply: “Maintain eye contact. She’ll never know what you’ve been up to.” Dog lovers will howl (sorry about that, again) as they recognize things here that they, or their own dogs, must be thinking in everyday real life.

      A Home for Dixie is a real-life story that is as heartwarming as any fictional dog tale. Written by 15-year-old Emma Jackson, it is simply about how she came to adopt an abandoned puppy – but with her fresh, forthright voice and the wonderful photos of her and her dog by Bob Carey, the book is not so much sentimental as it is life-affirming…and a celebration of the special bond that humans and dogs have forged with each other through thousands of years. The story is simple and quite common: a dog rescuer (Mary Cody, whose Aunt Mary’s Doghouse helps match dogs and people in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania), saves three sick puppies and nurses them back to health. Meanwhile, Emma is trying to persuade her parents to let her have a dog. They finally agree. Emma and her puppy meet at Aunt Mary’s, immediately fall for each other, and the rest of the story is about how they both adapt: “From now on, they would take care of each other.” The photos of Emma, Dixie and Mary keep the book grounded in reality, and the end-of-book discussion of Aunt Mary’s Doghouse and of all the animals in shelters that need homes should be a big help to families considering finding a canine companion of their own. Because it is intended for ages 4-8, A Home for Dixie does not discuss adoption costs, spaying or neutering, and other elements of pet ownership – but it can certainly open the door to a talk about the responsibilities as well as the joys of having a dog. And it is nice to know that a portion of the proceeds from the book’s sale will go to Aunt Mary’s Doghouse.

      Angus and Sadie is a very different sort of dog story – fictional, and featuring the title dog characters communicating in words with each other and with other animals, but nevertheless illuminating some important aspects of the canine personality and the human-dog relationship. Originally published in 2005 and now available in paperback, Angus and Sadie is the story of brother-and-sister farm dogs: Angus, larger and braver and cleverer, and Sadie, more timid and slower to learn how to help their human family. The dogs are more personalized than the humans with whom they live, who are simply called Mister and Missus. Angus and Sadie learn how to help around the farm, especially with herding the sheep – they are border collies. They deal with barn cats and wilder animals, such as a skunk with which Sadie has an unfortunate run-in. And they are shown to have very different personalities, with Angus’ obvious strength, obedience and eagerness to learn turning out to have some disadvantages when compared with Sadie’s different learning style and willingness to take chances in her own way. The tale ends up being about brothers and sisters in general, but told through the medium of a dog story – and at the same time, it nicely illuminates the qualities of an efficient working dog and the expectations that humans bring to this type of interspecies relationship.

      My Dog May Be a Genius is barely about dogs at all – the book’s title is the title of the first poem in this Jack Prelutsky collection, but the rest of the poetry takes on all sorts of other subjects. The dog poem is about a pup who knows many of the words that his boy speaks, such as “walk” and “food,” and now may, just may, be learning to spell them as well. Then there are poems about other real animals (“Two Penguins Once Collided”) and unreal ones (“The Zeenaleens”). There’s one about crossing a lion with a mouse, producing babies that “often roar, demanding cheese.” And one about shopping for a dinosaur – except it turns out that they are long gone, so how about a unicorn instead? Some of these poems go beyond Prelutsky’s usual silliness, such as “Sandwich Stan,” which includes (sandwiched within the rhymes) a list of some of the sandwiches that Stan makes: “badger belly boiled in bile,” “turtle tendon tuna tails,” “ants and cantaloupe with noodles,” and many more. James Stevenson’s delightful illustrations make this Prelutsky compendium especially enjoyable. For example, in the one for “The Blue-Bean-Bonking Bupple,” the expression on the face of the boy being bonked is just as much fun as the rhymes: “In a weird machine, unheard, unseen,/ lives the blue-bean-bonking Bupple,/ whose tentacles are long and lean,/ and sinuous and supple.” Stevenson also does a fine job illustrating poems whose shapes are part of the fun, such as “I’m Trapped in an Egg” with the words inside (of course) an egg, and “I Drank a Magic Potion” with its big-and-little theme. Not many dogs here, but plenty of fun.

(++++) POLITICAL CLASSINESS

The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn’t). By Alvin Stephen Felzenberg. Basic Books. $29.95.

Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter. By Rick Shenkman. Basic Books. $25.

Declare Yourself. Edited by America Ferrera. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $11.99.

      The handicapping of the presidential race every four years is paralleled by a surge in interest in the success of previous presidents – and which of their qualities the current aspirants should seek to emulate. This sort of “great-to-awful” ranking tends to be skewed by the social and political biases of the people making it and, often, by a lack of understanding of the times within which various presidents governed (not many people are thoroughly conversant with domestic economic issues in the days of, say, John Quincy Adams). Alvin Stephen Felzenberg, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington University, has come up with an unusually clear-minded and reasonably unbiased approach to the question of leadership quality – and some suggestions on what voters should look for among current candidates to try to determine who has the potential to excel as the nation’s chief executive. Felsenberg has analyzed past presidents (excluding William Henry Harrison and John Garfield, who were assassinated early in their terms, and George W. Bush, whose term is not yet over) in three areas of personality and three of policy – thus making it possible to decide that someone was a good man but an ineffective leader, or a less-than-sterling human being but an effective policymaker. Felzenberg looks at each president’s character, vision and competence, and then at each one’s economic policy, his effectiveness at preserving and extending liberty, and his handling of defense, national security and foreign policy. Taken together, these six areas pretty well encompass the job of the occupant of the Oval Office – and Felzenberg’s system produces some surprises. Only Abraham Lincoln gets the highest rating, a 5, in all six categories; George Washington gets two 4 ratings and four ratings of 5. These are not unexpected results; but then things get interesting, with Ronald Reagan tied for third-highest ranking with Roosevelt – that’s Teddy, not Franklin. Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant rank higher than many people will expect – and Felzenberg shows clearly why they should. At the bottom of the list is James Buchanan, who has been placed there by others as well; just above him, tied, are Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce; and just above them is a three-way tie that includes Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover and John Tyler. It is easy to quibble with Felzenberg’s (or anyone’s) rankings, but this author certainly draws valuable lessons from them for today’s voters – including “watch out for cynicism and complacency,” “stay away from whiners” and “keep away from know-it-alls.” There’s some really good advice in this book, in addition to really good analysis.

      But will voters pay any attention? Not according to investigative reporter Rick Shenkman, who asks Just How Stupid Are We? and answers, “Even dumber than you can imagine.” Much of Shenkman’s book rehashes oft-repeated statistics – for example, only one American out of every seven can find Iraq on a map – and the book’s bantering tone is overdone in a work attempting to draw attention to some very serious issues. So this book gets a (+++) rating – and is that high mostly because it does focus on major issues. Shenkman spreads the blame for voter stupidity around. TV, not surprisingly, is excoriated for giving incomplete and often inaccurate information, usually poorly, despite being the main news source for most Americans; and the educational establishment is blamed for the poor focus of students and the fact that – even though most Americans today have some college – they know less than most people did in 1940, when 60% did not get past eighth grade. Unfortunately, Shenkman’s jeremiad leads to nowhere very useful. He finds the Internet and blogosphere to be hopeful signs for transmission of accurate information – a questionable proposition – and essentially insists that “the People should be forced to face their own ignorance.” How? “If the pollsters paid by the media fail to probe the public’s ignorance, foundations should finance polls that do.” And then? Well, college students should be given weekly tests on current events, with graduation contingent on a passing grade; the fund setting up the program would be called “the Too Many Stupid Voters Act.” But not even poorly informed voters can believe that this proposal (under any name) will ever become law. Unfortunately, Shenkman’s book proves only, for the umpteenth time, that it is far easier to identify problems than to solve them.

      One partial answer to Shenkman’s concerns may be to bring in large numbers of new voters – ones who, ideally, will be more attuned to the problems of modern society and more willing to use their ballots to ameliorate them. That is the concept underlying Declare Yourself, in which stars and semi-stars of the entertainment world and Web explain why politics matters and why young people should register and vote. Shenkman actually points out that the United States now places “a high priority on entertainment,” notably celebrity-related entertainment, so perhaps this book is on to something. TV star America Ferrera (could her name be the reason she was chosen as editor?) talks about the need to “turn apathy into action” and then sets forth similar thoughts from such people as blogger Anastasia Goodstein, comedian Rachael Harris, CNN anchor Nicole Lapin, poet Naomi Shihab Nye, and actress and ex-model Gabrielle Union. There is nothing particularly original in any of the contributions, but the book deserves a (+++) rating just for making the attempt to connect with a new generation of potential voters through some people who may, just may, be able to get a civics message across.

(+++) WORLDS DISTURBED

Smiles to Go. By Jerry Spinelli. HarperCollins. $16.99.

The Crossroads. By Chris Grabenstein. Random House. $16.99.

      The proton dies. Then what? This is the unlikely premise of Jerry Spinelli’s latest book for ages 10 and up, Smiles to Go. Protons do not decay – but what if they did? The cosmic significance would be vast, but Spinelli is more interested in the impact of the event on the life of Will Tuppence. Will is a science geek and skateboarder, two interests that Spinelli manages to merge in his usual clever style of super-short chapters detailing Will’s worries that “matter is mortal. Everything is going to go. Disappear. Vanish. Rock. Water. The planets. The stars. Everything.” And of course, Will’s body will eventually go, too, and his life seems to be going now, since all his plans to become an astronomer, have a solid working life and eventually be a top senior chess player after retirement seem irrelevant in a universe in which protons die. Will’s 12-step plan for himself actually ends with “Heaven (angel) (forever),” but the proton news provokes such questions as, “Are angels made of protons? Is Heaven? If so, does this mean they won’t last forever?” And then there are the mundane realities of a ninth-grader, such as taking his friend Mi-Su Kelly to a movie (just the two of them, Will hopes), and figuring out how to tell BT that he is still Will’s best friend but that Mi-Su is a friend in a different kind of way, and so on. Among all his worries about his life, Will has time to fill in some of his family background, and to find out how much his current family means to him when a medical crisis hits his little sister, whom he has always (he thinks) hated. Smiles to Go has a few too many themes and tries to do too much with them, and Spinelli’s short-chapter format seems rather contrived here; but as usual, there are more high points than low in Spinelli’s latest look at the problems of preteen life.

      Chris Grabenstein’s The Crossroads is his first book for preteens (ages 9-12), but the problems in it are far from mundane. This is a story of ghosts and crazy old ladies and family ties that not only bind but also can strangle. At the center of everything is 11-year-old Zack Jennings, who has just moved from New York City to a better life in Connecticut, complete with a new stepmother, new dog and new neighbors. One part of the problem here is Zack’s dead mother – she is still haunting him. Another problem is the tree in the back yard of Zack’s new home – a malevolent spirit, linked to a past tragedy at the crossroads, lives in it. And the 50^th anniversary of that tragedy is coming up very, very soon. The Crossroads becomes the story of a supernatural mystery, into which it turns out someone was looking 25 years earlier. There are generational revenge elements here, and ghostly possession, and a suicide, and “long-buried secrets” that are revealed at last. The book devolves into a series of melodramatic disappearances and returns, with one key being a soul that lives again and again if it can “crawl inside a body that carries his royal blood.” This is creepy stuff, but it is piled on so thickly that even some preteen readers may find it over-the-top, as one part of the story seems to end, but then there’s another twist, and that is concluded, but another twist arrives, and so on and so forth. There are certainly clever things in Grabenstein’s book – including some people, or rather things, that you wouldn’t believe could be ghosts, but are. But even though parts of The Crossroads are done very well, the book as a whole is overdone.

(+++) SUMMER FLUFF

The Secrets of Peaches. By Jodi Lynn Anderson. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Off Campus: An Upper Class Novel. By Hobson Brown, Taylor Materne, and Caroline Says. HarperTeen. $8.99.

The Interns: Fashionistas. By Chloe Walsh. HarperTeen. $8.99.

The Interns: Truth or Fashion. By Chloe Walsh. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Frenemies. By Alexa Young. HarperTeen. $8.99.

      Summertime, and the readin’ is easy – and insubstantial. Teens looking for a throwaway book for the beach or the pool can pick up any of these, and it doesn’t much matter which. None pretends to be anything more than superficial; all have similar characters, defined by what they do and how they look rather than by any attempt to create personalities for them; and all offer plots that hit the expected points of the teen-beach-lit genre without trying to go beyond them. But they all fulfill the expectations that readers will bring to them – within their genre, they are done quite well.

      If you liked Peaches, you will probably enjoy Jodi Lynn Anderson’s sequel, The Secrets of Peaches. The same girls who suffered heartbreak while keeping their friendship strong in the earlier book now suffer heartbreak and keep their friendship strong in the new one. The plot revolves around the possibility that Murphy, Leeda and Birdie may have to leave the peach orchard where they spent a magical summer – the orchard that brought them together. There are family and boy and friendship issues throughout, and even though the friends are sundered at the end, there is an implication that there will be more of their tale to come – and indeed there will be, in the followup novel, Love and Peaches.

      The Upper Class novels, set in a privileged school filled with rich kids with secrets of various sorts, are essentially about culture clash – people showing up at Wellington who, for one reason or another, “don’t belong” there. In Off Campus, the third of these books, Nikki Olivetti finally feels comfortable enough to try to show someone new around – someone like transfer student Delia Breton, who comes from California with (of course) secrets. Nikki and Delia find themselves having a good time together on campus – but problems arise when they head out beyond Wellington. There are the expected boy issues and friendship issues, with the key being the eventual realization, “You feel low, you stand tall. You mess up, you move on.” And that sets the stage for Crash Test, the next novel in the series.

      Fashionistas is the first in The Interns series, in which four talented young women have the chance to make it big in the fashion world, where they all want to be, by succeeding in summer internships at Couture magazine. The characters of Callie, Nadine, Ava and Aynsley are all designed around different stereotypical personalities, guaranteeing that there will be clashes and uncertainty; and the question of who is behind a blog dispensing all-that fashion wisdom lends predictable spice to their tale. These girls aim high, they think: “If Sly could manage to toss back a bottle of Pinot, stumble to bed at two a.m., and still show up to work the next day pulling fashion miracles out of her ass, then Nadine was determined to do the same.” The girls, of course, learn about Life and Friendship, and the book sets the scene for its sequel, Truth or Fashion. In this one, Callie and Aynsley have found big success (not bad for interns!) – the former as a designer, no less – while Nadine and Ava hide secrets and worries. Throw in the continuing Fashionista blog, which here even talks back to (the ghosts of) Marilyn Monroe and Oscar Wilde, add the usual brand-label name dropping, and you have a continuing saga of shallowness that remains fun in its own way.

      Fashion also plays a big part in Frenemies, which is not, at least so far, part of a series. Avalon Greene is the fashionista par excellence at her Southern California middle school – yes, middle school – and has decided that she will host the social event of the season by giving a to-die-for party in honor of her BFF, Halley Brandon. Unfortunately, Halley has undergone a fashion conversion during art camp, becoming more funky than elegant, and that is so not going to happen in Avalon’s world. So the best friends become worst enemies, and get into disputes over who gets to keep which of their former friends-in-common, and how to share custody of the puppy they co-own, Pucci (that name is actually a nice touch). Then things get really nasty, since Avalon and Halley know each other’s deepest, darkest middle-school secrets. But after all the nastiness is aired and all the blog posts have evaporated into cyberspace, the girls realize that, after all, they really do need each other, and it’s better to go back to being friends. Awwwwwwww.

(++++) FORMS OF AUTHENTICITY

Varèse: Amériques (original version, 1921); Écuatorial (1932-4); Nocturnal (1961); Dance for Burgess (1949); Tuning Up (1947); Hyperprism (1922-3); Un grand Sommeil noir (1906); Density 21.5 (1936); Ionisation (1929-31). Elizabeth Watts, soprano; Maria Grochowska, flute; Thomas Bloch, ondes martenot; Men’s Voices of Camerata Silesia and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee. Naxos. $8.99.

Telemann: Concertos in G Major and A Major for Oboe d’amore; Bach: Concertos in A Major and D Major for Oboe d’amore. Thomas Stacy, oboe d’amore; Toronto Chamber Orchestra conducted by Kevin Mallon. Naxos. $8.99.

Hildegard von Bingen: Responsories and Antiphons from “Symphoniae armonie celestium revelationum.” Oxford Camerata conducted by Jeremy Summerly. Naxos. $8.99.

      It is not only the mists of time that make authentic performances difficult. Composers themselves have a hand in the situation through their propensity for modifying works for various purposes and sometimes rewriting them altogether. And when they leave works unfinished, or try to withdraw or destroy them after they have been performed, the authenticity issue gets even more complicated. Edgard Varèse was guilty (if that is the word) of all these confusions, with the result that his music, already so different sonically from what came before or after, can be notoriously difficult to perform “correctly.” Indeed, correctness is a slippery concept with Varèse, as is especially evident in the case of Amériques, whose original version (for a truly huge orchestra) has been performed in public only twice since the 1920s – with the new recording on Naxos being made after the second such performance, in 2005. Christopher Lyndon-Gee is an outstanding exponent of Varèse, able to communicate the composer’s distinctive and often odd visions by assuming the roles of a conductor, a pianist (in Tuning Up, which was supposed to be lighthearted but turned out to be a serious work containing fragments of other Varèse compositions), and a commentator (Lyndon-Gee’s booklet notes are an excellent mixture of erudition and explication). This Naxos CD, the second of the composer’s orchestral music under Lyndon-Gee’s direction, is first-class on all fronts, from the solo flute playing in Density 21.5 to the sole surviving early Varèse work (Un grand Sommeil noir) to the still-strange-sounding evocations of an earlier age in Écuatorial. Varèse was constantly straining for effects that only became fully possible after his death, in electronic music. Hearing his works played as well as they are here shows his pioneering spirit especially clearly – even though the authenticity question remains open, since several of these pieces were assembled or edited by Chou Wen-Chung, who was Varèse’s assistant for the last 17 years of the older composer’s life.

      The authenticity of the Telemann and Bach concertos for oboe d’amore, as played by Thomas Stacy, is of another order. This 18^th-century midrange woodwind (which later fell into disfavor until rediscovered by Richard Strauss, Debussy and others) needs to fit comfortably into an instrumental ensemble so its serene, mellow tone does not disappear – and its player does not feel the need to perform too loudly on an instrument that excels in softer, more tranquil passagework. Stacy, best known as an English horn player, handles the oboe d’amore with consummate skill as well; and Kevin Mallon, a specialist in 18^th-century music, conducts the Toronto Chamber Orchestra with verve and understanding, showcasing the solo instrument without pulling the orchestra too far into the background. However, neither the orchestra nor Stacy uses a period instrument. And in truth, the Telemann and Bach concertos on this CD are pleasant but not especially noteworthy works – more curiosities than great music. One of the Bach works is better known as a harpsichord concerto, and the other is assembled from parts of three separate pieces. Still, all the music is very well put together (no surprise there), and Stacy’s playing, which is beautiful even when the faster movements require considerable agility, makes a strong case for at least occasional hearings of works for this neglected woodwind.

      Move still further back in time, to the 12^th century, and the question of authentic performance becomes, essentially, unanswerable. Despite a variety of scholarly studies, we simply do not know with any certainty what performance practices prevailed in the era of Hildegard von Bingen, although it is quite clear from this abbess’s music that she had high expectations of anyone who would sing her songs to the Creator, the Blessed Virgin, the Martyrs and other seminal religious figures. Von Bingen’s Catholicism-saturated world – there was no other significant Western religion at the time – cannot be recaptured today. But, amazingly, it matters little when performances are as finely attuned as are those of the Oxford Camerata under Jeremy Summerly. Summerly paces these eight excerpts from the 77 songs of von Bingen’s Symphoniae armonie celestium revelationum (“Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly Revelations”) expertly, and the choral forces blend in beauty and passion. Von Bingen’s mysticism and her sometimes odd choices of religious figures to whom to address her songs are of little moment today. What does come through authentically in performances as well structured as these is that the music itself communicates strongly across nearly nine centuries. Its specifics may be dim in time, but its power and beauty remain authentically unalloyed.

(+++) SELF-PRODUCTIONS

Ravel: String Quartet in F; Thomas Adès: Arcadiana; Mozart: String Quartet in F Major, K. 590. Calder Quartet (Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violins; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; Eric Byers, cello). Calder Quartet CD. $20.

Matt McBane: In the Backyard; Magnet; No Response; Imagining Winter; Drivin’. Build (Matt McBane, violin; Andrea Lee, cello; Ben Campbell, bass; Mike Cassedy, piano/Rhodes; Adam Gold, drums). New Amsterdam. CD, $10; download, $5.

      One way for artists to show themselves to the world just as they want to be shown is to produce recordings of exactly the music they wish, programmed just as they want it to be. This can be highly effective – or perhaps a bit more revelatory of weaknesses than the artists thought it would be. In the case of the Calder Quartet’s new CD, it is both. The 71-minute recording approximates the sort of recital that this top-notch young group presents in concert. There is one major staple of the quartet repertoire, one less-known and more modern work by an important composer, and one contemporary piece that will be new to almost everyone hearing the CD. The Calder’s players are remarkably smooth in making transitions among these three works’ very different styles. They play almost always with excellent ensemble and near-intuitive collaboration. And they seem to have no difficulty with any of the composers’ technical demands. On balance, the Ravel Quartet is the most successful work here, with the players beautifully balancing its poise and its emotion, handling its rhythmic changes and sometimes-unusual bowing techniques with apparent ease. This is music that never quite settles – in part tranquil, in part almost frenzied, it jumps around emotionally and thematically (even though its first movement sets forth many of the themes of the whole piece). The Calder Quartet picks up beautifully on the work’s will-o’-the-wisp qualities.

      The players do a fine job with Thomas Adès’ Arcadiana, too, but there is far less to the music itself. This is a seven-movement work that seems to require a great deal of explanation – the odd-numbered movements “are all aquatic, and would be musically continuous if played consecutively,” for example, as the composer explains in the booklet notes. The middle (fourth) movement, which is the longest (although still under four minutes), is called “Et…” (with ellipsis) and refers to the saying on a tomb portrayed in a Poussin painting (actually, Nicolas Poussin used the phrase “Et in Arcadia ego” in two paintings, and the phrase’s meaning has an ambiguity of which Adès seems unaware). But the musical issue here is how well the piece works, whether or not one has the composer’s gloss on it; and the answer is that it is pleasant enough in its post-modern way, using the instruments cleverly and distinctively, but seems to say much less than Adès himself thinks it says. The Calder Quartet plays it very well indeed, but Arcadiana is not really much of a piece.

      Mozart’s 23^rd and final quartet, on the other hand, is one of the great chamber works – but here the performance is surprisingly flaccid. This quartet is nowhere near as languid as the Calder players make it, and there is even a touch of less-than-perfect ensemble work in the finale – a rarity for this group. It is almost as if the Calder Quartet gave the Mozart (which is superficially the easiest of these three works to play) too little thought before recording it; yet this piece requires a higher level of understanding than either of the others on the CD. The Calder Quartet is so good that it seems likely the players will grow into this music in time; but they do not quite have it yet. Incidentally, this CD’s packaging shows the power and peril of self-promotion: it features lovely original art by Dave Muller, but the design completely omits times – no lengths are given for the whole pieces or for their individual movements.

      The new Matt McBane release is of a very different type, although it too is intended to showcase someone – McBane himself – in the way he wants to be displayed. This is a very short CD – only 33 minutes – with five pieces that may best be described as easy-listening jazz fusion. The three shortest pieces have the least to say: In the Backyard is merely a floaty dreamscape that sounds like many others; Magnet features an interesting contrast between a specific rhythmic pattern and longer melodic lines, but it seems to go on and on and becomes gimmicky; and No Response is one of those pop tunes that seem to issue endlessly from middle-of-the-road radio. Imagining Winter is more interesting: its static chords at start and finish provide an effective chill, while its drum part suggests the advance of something dark. Also of interest is Drivin’, which at nearly 14 minutes is by far the longest work here. McBane says it resulted largely from his immersion in the music of minimalist composer Steve Reich, but Drivin’ is not an imitative work and uses minimalism quite differently from the way Reich does – primarily as a point of continuity among different kinds of music and a bridge from one type to the next. Drivin’ does go on a bit too long, but it offers many effective moments along the way, and the performance (of this and all the music) by McBane’s group, Build, is everything the composer could have wanted – which does not necessarily mean McBane’s music is destined to reach as large an audience as he would like.

(++++) DINOS AND HUGS

I’m Bad! By Kate & Jim McMullan. HarperCollins. $16.99.

T. Rex and the Mother’s Day Hug. By Lois R. Grambling. Illustrated by Jack E. Davis. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $16.99.

Daddy Hug. By Tim Warnes. Illustrated by Jane Chapman. HarperCollins. $16.99.

      There are lots of animals in these books doing lots of kid-centered things, starting with the fierce-looking T. Rex on the cover of I’m Bad! – from the same husband-and-wife team that previously produced I Stink! and I’m Dirty! Charming, no? In fact, what Kate and Jim McMullan offer here is charming in its own weird way, which is a way sure to appeal to lots of kids ages 4-8. The boastful T. Rex storms and stomps and crashes around, but every time he tries to catch something to eat, those other animals get away. Finally, hungry and upset, T. Rex throws a temper tantrum – which ends in a wonderful flip-up flap as his mother appears and drops a fresh-killed something-or-other on the ground so T. Rex can slurber, slobber and globber it up, afterwards concluding “I love my mom.” It’s all good clean bad dirty fun, missing only a scene in which little T. Rex hugs his mom in gratitude.

      For that hugging scene, turn to the much more domesticated, up-to-date and suburban T. Rex family in T. Rex and the Mother’s Day Hug. Lois R. Grambling and Jack E. Davis specialize in books in which the T. Rex family celebrates holidays – Halloween, Easter and now Mother’s Day. The problem for T. Rex is that he wants to do something for his mother, not just buy her something, but whatever he thinks of doing is, he realizes, a bad idea, because he has tried doing it before and things haven’t quite worked out as he wanted them to. As for Mama Rex, what she wants for Mother’s Day is simply a big hug; but that’s not good enough for little T. Rex, who finally thinks of something perfect to do – with the help of his friends, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus and Iguanodon. That “something perfect” turns out to involve Mama Rex’s car…and oh my, does it turn out to be a BIG surprise! “‘That’s…that’s my car?’ she asked. (Hoping it wasn’t!)” Oh, but it is – and the expression of her face is quite a sight. But before things can get too inflammatory, little T. Rex comes over and gives his mother a BIG hug, which is what she has been wanting all along, so everything ends happily, with Mama Rex being especially glad that “Mother’s Day came only once a year.”

      Daddy Hug continues the “hug” theme without the holiday trappings and without the dinosaurs, but there are plenty of other animals here in a gently appealing book by the husband-and-wife team of Tim Warnes and Jane Chapman. This book is for younger children, ages 3-5, and is nothing more than a series of brief descriptions of animal daddies – “Daddy spiky” for a porcupine, “Daddy jiggle” for a walrus, “Daddy creaky” for a huge tortoise, and so on. Chapman’s illustrations portray the animals realistically but show their interactions in human-friendly terms, as porcupines play with ostriches, snails climb happily on snakes, and so on. The activities of daddies and kids are delightful to watch – fathers will really enjoy reading this book with young children – and the expressions that Chapman gives to some of the daddies are wonderful (the bee and gorilla, for example). The book leads up to an eventual “Daddy hug” page showing most of the animals nuzzling and embracing – a fine invitation for human daddies to do the same thing with their kids.

(+++) BODIES AND SOULS

Airhead. By Meg Cabot. Point/Scholastic. $16.99.

All We Know of Heaven. By Jacquelyn Mitchard. HarperTeen. $16.99.

The Monk Upstairs. By Tim Farrington. HarperOne. $13.95.

      Here are three books that try, with varying degrees of success, to deal with big issues without tilting completely over into pure absurdity. Airhead gets the absurdity over with early and then handles the consequences: Emerson Watts goes to a major store opening to look after her little sister, Frida, and a bizarre and never-explained accident causes Em’s soul to migrate into the body of teen supermodel Nikki Howard, who is on site as part of the store-opening festivities. This setup makes no sense, and Meg Cabot – author of The Princess Diaries and other books that also make no sense but possess the same quality of transformation – is wise to get past it as quickly as possible. Then she can get to the heart of Airhead, which is: what does Em do now? How will she, in Nikki’s body, handle everything from her (Em’s) understandably distraught family to her (Nikki’s) roommate…err, loftmate? What about school? What about Christopher, on whom she (Em) had a crush even when she (Em) was her old tomboyish self? And who has been spying on her (Nikki’s) E-mails, and why? And how does Stark, the company in whose new store the bizarre brain switch occurred and the company that made the computer on whose her (Nikki’s) E-mails are being compromised, fit into all this? Cabot provides answers here and there, and some doses of amusement because of all the opportunities for mistaken identity (or rather correct but unbelievable identity); but she also holds plenty in reserve, and no wonder – more will surely be told in Being Nikki, the coming sequel to Airhead.

      All We Know of Heaven tries for more of a “true grit” approach to a heartwrenching story of mistaken identity. The book is based on an event that really happened, but it milks that event (or rather Jacquelyn Mitchard’s fictionalized version of it) for all it is worth and then some. The event is a car crash in which best friends Bridget and Maureen are involved one night, on an icy road. One girl dies and the other ends up in a coma, so severely injured that no one is sure which was which. Eventually, it is determined that Maureen died and Bridget lived – but then that turns out to be wrong, and Maureen is discovered to be the survivor. She emerges from her coma, but has brain damage as well as physical difficulties, and must contend with re-learning life and speech and human interaction…and with the jumble of emotions involving everyone in her small town, including Bridget’s mother and others who feel that the “wrong” girl lived. Slowly, slowly, Maury rebuilds herself, aided immeasurably by a boy named Danny Carmody, with whom she develops a love-or-not-love relationship that, like everything else in Maury’s life, is strongly intertwined with the accident and Bridget’s death. Mitchard loses no opportunity to tug on people’s emotional triggers, and as a result frequently goes too far into complete predictability: if something can be twisted, it is, and if something can be taken the wrong way, it will be. By the conclusion of the book, as the various young characters find ways to get on, tentatively, with becoming adults and living the best lives they can, some readers will surely have wept buckets, while others will likely be grateful that all Mitchard’s obvious emotional ploys have finally come to an end.

      Airhead and All We Know of Heaven are intended for teen readers, but The Monk Upstairs, although aimed at adults, does not have a very different emotional underpinning. This is a sequel to The Monk Downstairs (well, of course!), in which single mother Rebecca Martin found her life beginning to change when the new tenant in the apartment she was renting out proved to be a monk fleeing into the outside world after 20 years in a monastery. Love bloomed; and that leads, in The Monk Upstairs, to marriage – right at the start of the new novel. After that, love and marriage lead to complications, some of which involve interoffice (or intra-monastery) politics and others of which relate to Mike’s continued and sincere devotion to God and the strains that relationship puts on his marriage to Rebecca. Much of Tim Farrington’s writing style is clever, and it helps save the book from becoming as maudlin as it otherwise might be: “Father Thomas Dougherty turned out to be a burly man wearing floppy rubber boots, jeans, and a black T-shirt with ‘St. Luke’s: A Mission with a mission’ stretched across his barrel chest in an ill-advised red that made the words look like a wound.” But most of the characters are types rather than fully formed individuals, and while Rebecca is well fleshed out, Mike is less so. Farrington gives Mike a superficial rather than deeply thought-through relationship with God, making it surprising that Mike lasted as long as he did in the monastery. Still, Mike discovers (or rediscovers) an ability to bring comfort to people in emotional turmoil, and he and Rebecca do find a way to build their life together, so the overall tone of the book is uplifting. But it is profound neither in matters of faith nor in matters of marriage.

(+++) WHAT “FAMILY” MEANS

Madapple. By Christina Meldrum. Knopf. $16.99.

Love Me Tender. By Audrey Couloumbis. Random House. $16.99.

      An unusually well-written first novel whose complexities and peculiar structure will likely be off-putting to some of the teenagers at whom it is aimed – although they may well attract those teens’ parents – Christina Meldrum’s Madapple forces readers to confront questions about the meaning of family, the meaning of religion, and even (it is not too sweeping to say) the meaning of life. Told partly in the voice of Aslaug, heroine of the novel, and partly in the more mundane voices of other characters, the book is part murder mystery, part birth mystery, part courtroom drama, part exposition of the plant world, and part religious exploration. Meldrum’s background helps explain the odd mixture of elements: she received a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and political science, then went to Harvard Law School and became involved in international legal affairs before becoming a litigator. Still, her background could not have predicted how well she would weave together the threads of this decidedly unusual novel. Even the plot is difficult to describe. The book opens 20 years before the story’s main events, as a pregnant young Danish woman named Maren Hellig flees her family to live in the wilds of Maine. The thing is, Maren tells her older sister that, despite her pregnancy, she never had a lover – raising immediate and obvious issues of an Immaculate Conception, real or imagined, and Christ figures. But Meldrum does not take the book along an easy road. She has Maren raise her daughter, Aslaug, in isolation, teaching her ancient languages and explaining about the ins and outs of botany (the chapters’ titles are plant names). Then Maren suddenly dies; and Aslaug comes to live with her aunt, a preacher named Sara, and her cousins, facing predictable (and some unpredictable) difficulties of fitting in and familial ties. Then there is more death – and Aslaug is put on trial for murder, including an accusation of matricide. The story structure is intricate, and some readers will find its switching among time periods choppy; nor will the plant lore be universally appealing. The style can take some getting used to: “The preacher’s [eyes] are the yellow-green of wild leek – a color pearls would be if God were a child.” And Meldrum does construct a conclusion focusing directly on the book’s target age range, creating a sweetness-and-light ending that belies (and demeans) the seriousness of the discussions of major religious and philosophical questions throughout the rest of the book. Still, parents who like a challenging read, and advanced teenagers seeking something decidedly out of the ordinary, will find Madapple a sensitive puzzler of a tale and a book that is very difficult to put down.

      Love Me Tender also addresses the question of what makes a family, but Audrey Couloumbis’ quirkiness here is more conventional – and more humorous – than Meldrum’s deeper but dourer look at big questions. Couloumbis, whose Getting Near to Baby was a Newbury Honor book in 2000, writes breezily and with a sure hand, in a style that will appeal to the preteens at whom Love Me Tender is targeted. The book’s plot is of the almost-madcap type that conceals bigger issues. Thirteen-year-old Elvira lives in a family that bickers constantly; Elvira herself can’t stand her little sister, Kerrie, and often fights with her mother, Mel. Then Mel gets pregnant again – leading Elvira’s dad, a part-time Elvis impersonator, to storm off to Las Vegas and (Elvira fears) never come back. And then Mel gets a call telling her that her own mother, from whom she has long been estranged, is ill; and so the unlikely trio of Elvira, Mel and Kerrie finds itself on the road to Memphis, where Elvira will discover still more dysfunction – involving her grandmother and her Aunt Clare. Couloumbis manages to make the characters attractive if never really endearing, and she keeps the book tottering on the edge of both silliness and hyperemotionalism without having it fall into either. The balancing act is not completely successful – there are times when a reader may well think “enough already!” as yet another emotional upheaval occurs – but the underlying message about family love does come through the offbeat trappings of the story; and although it is not really a surprise when Elvira’s father does eventually rejoin the family, it is a welcome affirmation of the idea that love, even when it does not conquer all, makes up for quite a lot.

(+++) TWO-LANGUAGE TALES

Sweet Dreams/Dulces Sueños. By Pat Mora. Illustrated by Maribel Suárez. Rayo/HarperCollins. $12.99.

¿El Canguro Tiene Mamá? By Eric Carle. Traducción de Teresa Mlawer. Rayo/HarperCollins. $6.99.

Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope. By Jenna Bush. HarperTeen. $9.99.

La Historia de Ana: Un Camino Lleno de Esperanza. By Jenna Bush. Translated by Bertha Ruiz de la Concha. HarperTeen. $9.99.

      The United States is already a de facto bilingual English-Spanish country in certain places, such as South Florida, southern California and parts of Texas. Major cities, such as New York, contain important Spanish-speaking areas as well. Although the question of whether bilingualism should be universally accepted, affecting everything from schooling to street signage, is a legitimate one, there is no doubt that it helps native English speakers in many parts of the U.S. if they can speak at least a little Spanish – and books that can help native Spanish speakers learn English serve a real need. The My Family/Mi Familia series is intended to bridge the language gap easily and pleasantly, in both directions, by making simple stories for ages 3-6 available in both languages – an English sentence immediately followed by the same one in Spanish. Sweet Dreams/Dulces Sueños is the second of this planned four-book series, and it works just as well as the first book by the same author and illustrator, Let’s Eat! ¡A Comer! The new book is a going-to-bed story in which Grandma/Abuelita puts three children to bed by giving them kisses and telling them about all the animals going to sleep, such as “Shh, shh, the squirrels are sleeping – Shh, shh…las ardillas están durmiendo.” This is a simple and unchallenging tale, simply told, with pleasant illustrations that can help young children drift off to dreamland in either of two languages, or both.

      Some Spanish-speaking families, or English speakers preferring a simple Spanish-only book, will enjoy Teresa Mlawer’s translation of Eric Carle’s Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? Published in English in 2000, the book asks simple questions about animal babies and mothers, answering yes – or, in this version, ¡Sí! – to each inquiry about whether this animal or that has a mother. Carle’s always-attractive illustrations are reproduced intact, and the Spanish translation follows the original English closely, all the way to the answer to Carle’s final question about whether all the mothers love their children: Todas las mamas quieren a sus hijitos – a reassuring sentiment in any language.

      There is not much that is reassuring in Jenna Bush’s Ana’s Story, which is now available in paperback and has been issued in both an English edition and a Spanish one. Here the Spanish version is especially welcome, since this is a story from Latin America and may speak especially strongly to Spanish speakers. By now, the tale is well known: Ana is a 17-year-old single mother who is HIV-positive after inheriting the deadly virus from her mother, who died when Ana was very young. Ana’s determination to live with HIV rather than die from it, and to give her daughter a better life than she herself has had, is the sort of heart-tugging true story that easily crosses language (and class) barriers. It was of course the author’s celebrity that first brought her book wide attention, and many of the questions thrown at her during her publicity tours had nothing to do with Ana’s Story. Stripped of its celebrity connection, the book remains a harrowing piece of nonfiction that, unfortunately, adds very little to the debate about HIV, poverty, and the scarcity of health resources in the poorer countries of the world. The book is short, with 290 wide-margin pages, many of them half-blank or filled with well-shot but often irrelevant photos by Mia Baxter. Bush presents an affecting narrative: the bickering relatives, uncaring judicial system and strong determination of Ana as a single mother add up to a story of woe and power. Unfortunately, it is more than a twice-told tale. Entrenched ruling elites, official corruption, indifference to the plight of the poor, lack of interest in or understanding of serious diseases, and diversion of resources (including foreign aid) to line the pockets of thuggish leaders are facts of life and death in countries throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. The personal details of Ana’s life are well communicated, and the book’s simplistic style should help it reach out even to young readers, in both English and Spanish. But there is no tidy ending here, as Bush herself points out; and there are no suggestions that are likely to prevent other stories like Ana’s from being written again and again by other well-meaning celebrity and non-celebrity authors, year after year after year. Hope alone is not enough to relieve the systemic problems that create so many stories of so many people like Ana. Those problems are more than a pity – they are a disgrace.

(++++) VOICES OF OLD AND OF TODAY

Vivaldi: Orlando Furioso. Anne Desler, mezzo-soprano; Nicki Kennedy, soprano; Marina De Lisa, mezzo-soprano; Lucia Sciannimanico, mezzo-soprano; Luca Dordolo, tenor; Thierry Gregoire, countertenor; Martin Kronthaler, bass-baritone; Cora de Camera Italiano and Modo Antiquo conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli. CPO. $50.99 (3 CDs).

Ay!! Amor: Songs of Love and Songs of Women from the Greater Mediterranean Basin. Françoise Atlan, vocal; Kiya Tabassian, setar; Ziya Tabassian, tombak, def, dayereh and percussion; Saeed Kamjoo, kamâncheh vielle and souroud. ATMA Classique. $16.99.

      The human voice does not have the range and power of the organ, or the delicacy and precision of the flute, but it is nevertheless the voice that is the benchmark against which much music is judged. There is a level at which people whose vocal abilities are modest at best – that is, most of us – are enraptured by those whose abilities are far greater…and we appreciate them in a different way from the way we admire a superb violinist or excellent pianist. Vivaldi, whose operas are going through a welcome period of rediscovery, was particularly aware of the effectiveness of wonderful singing, and he strove – within the strictures of the formats of the works of his era – to provide as much of it as possible. Orlando Furioso, based on Ludovico Ariosto’s 16^th-century epic poem and completed in 1713, is an especially fine example of Vivaldi’s vocal writing – although it is but one of three operas that the composer wrote from the same source (the others are Orlando finto pazzo [1714] and Orlando [1727]). As in Vivaldi’s other operas, and in accordance with practices of the time, the events of the story of Orlando Furioso are told in recitative – principally a narration of many of the exploits of the hero, Orlando, and the tale of the sorceress, Alcina. But the vocal and emotional heart of the opera is in the arias in which the characters express their emotions – arias that (again in accordance with period practices) were often reused by Vivaldi in other operas where similar emotion needed to be expressed. It just so happens that the arias as used in Orlando Furioso fit the story so well that the opera stands above many others in effectiveness. The reason is Vivaldi’s emphasis on the two mismatched couples, whose love comes into conflict with their duty. One matchup is between the Christian Orlando (Anne Desler) and the pagan princess Angelica (Nicki Kennedy), who is eventually removed from the action (and from interference with Orlando’s duties to God and country) when she saves the wounded Saracen knight, Medoro (Luca Dordolo), falls in love, and elopes with him. The other couple in difficulty consists of the female Christian warrior, Bradamante (Lucia Sciannimanico), and the Saracen, Ruggiero (Thierry Gregoire). It is Ruggiero who is taken captive by Alcina (Marina De Lisa) and must be freed, after which he converts to Christianity and he and Bradamante are married. Federico Maria Sardelli leads a performance that contains everything expected of a revival of an 18^th-century opera today: fine playing, a thorough understanding of appropriate performance practices, well-chosen tempos, and plenty of ornamentation in the vocal lines. The performance rises even higher because the singers bring emotional coloration as well as stylistic correctness to their arias, with Desler and Kennedy especially effective and Gregoire in fine countertenor voice. As a celebration of the human voice in Western classical music, Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso is a major achievement. So is this performance of the opera.

      But although Italy is a Mediterranean nation and the vocal lines of Italian opera represent a pinnacle of a certain type, there are other, very distinct uses of the human voice in and around the Mediterranean, and some of those are explored at length in French-Moroccan singer Françoise Atlan’s CD featuring love songs, and other songs with a female focus, from a variety of cultures that are more or less in Italy’s geographic region – but are very far indeed from the sensibilities of Italian opera. These are mostly songs from the Persian, Iberian, French and Judeo-Spanish trouvère tradition, which dates to the 12^th century and continued until early in the 14^th. This is the world of, most famously, Chrétien de Troyes, but many other poet-composers contributed songs and melodies as well; and although the tradition itself died out long ago, Atlan and the ensemble Constantinople have revived it partly through their performances and partly through composition of new songs for this CD. There is, to Western ears, a decidedly exotic cast to everything here, even though much of the music is European in origin. A main reason is the use of such instruments as the setar and kamâncheh (a bowed string instrument that could never be mistaken for a violin). The mixed use of percussion is attractive here, and some of the songs flow with emotion, but the CD has something of a flavor of exoticism for its own sake; it gets a (+++) rating. Still, as an exploration of high skill in the use of the human voice for purposes very different from those of traditional Western singing, including opera, Ay!! Amor is a fascinating demonstration of just how many ways the vocal instrument within a skilled human being can be used.

(+++) OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Rued Langgaard: Symphony No. 1 in B minor. Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. Dacapo. $16.99 (SACD).

Haydn: Cello Concerto in C; Tchaikovsky: Pezzo capriccioso; Vaja Azarashvili: Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra; Ginastera: Glosses of Themes of Pau Casals for String Orchestra and String Quintet; Chick Corea: “La Fiesta.” Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Giorgi Kharadze, cellos; Kremerata Baltica. Profil. $16.99.

20^th Century Guitar—Ulrich Wedlich: Sonata for Guitar; Leo Brouwer: Concerto Elegiaco for Guitar and Orchestra; Carlo Domeniconi: Koyunbaba for Guitar. Friedemann Wuttke, guitar; New Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Igor Zhukov. Profil. $16.99.

      Here are quite a few excellent performances of works that even sophisticated listeners may never seek out, simply because they are unfamiliar with the composers. Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was a major figure in Danish composing in the early to middle 20^th century. Although he wrote a number of experimental works, he was a very conservative voice through much of his career. His frequent adherence to Romantic tonality and the orchestral approaches of Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner kept him out of step with the times for much of his life; but his works are well-wrought and often quite unusual – the shortest of his 16 numbered symphonies, No. 11, lasts only six minutes. The longest of those numbered symphonies is his first, which runs a full hour and was completed when the composer was just 17. Subtitled “Klippepastoraler” (“Mountain Pastorals”), it feels in part like an extended tone poem (think of Richard Strauss’ slightly later “Alpine Symphony”) and in part like a series of five interconnected tone poems. Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR give it a strong and forthright performance that cannot conceal the fact that it is somewhat overinflated and overlong. The first and longest movement, subtitled “Surf and Glimpses of Sun,” would stand well on its own as a Lisztian portrait in music, but the symphony as a whole is really quite a lot to absorb, and with all its Sturm und Drang (more Sturm than Drang, actually), it is an impressive but not particularly involving work.

      To get listeners involved in a CD entitled Cello Fiesta! by the orchestra-in-residence of the Kronberg Academy and two young cellists from the academy’s Masters course, there are a couple of well-known pieces – which balance some less-known ones. Haydn’s familiar Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s short and pleasant Pezzo capriccioso both get bright and upbeat readings before this CD moves on to its primary purpose of showcasing 20^th-century cello works. These include Georgian composer Vaja Azarashvili’s one-movement Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra; Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s Glosses of Themes of Pau Casals, written in 1976 in memory of the great cellist (and Ginastera’s good friend) Pablo Casals, and filled with striking contrasts and very unusual sonorities; and an arrangement for two cellos, strings and percussion of La Fiesta by jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea. There is no question that Marie-Elisabeth Hecker (winner of the 2005 International Rostropovich Cello Competition and soloist in the Haydn) and Giorgi Kharadze (the first student offered a Kronberg Academy scholarship, the soloist in the Tchaikovsky and Azarashvili, and cellist in the quintet for the Ginastera) are significant up-and-coming cello talents from whom we are likely to hear a great deal more over the years. Everything here is played very well, if not always very idiomatically: Hecker’s technique is a bit Romantic for the Haydn, and Kharadze has some rough spots as well as considerable eloquence.

      The CD called 20^th Century Guitar does not make any attempt to lure in casual listeners with works that they may already know. All three pieces here are likely to be unfamiliar to most listeners, although their techniques and sounds are not especially out of the ordinary for works of their time. Ulrich Wedlich and Carlo Domeniconi offer pieces that partake both of classical music and of other forms. Wedlich’s sonata is one of those pieces that hover and meditate rather than moving toward any definite destination. Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba, named for a sainted hermit who lived in the south of Turkey, also sounds evanescent and intermittently magical. In contrast, Leo Brouwer’s Concerto Elegiaco, the only work here that uses an orchestra, offers strong and often fascinating sonic and rhythmic contrasts, with guitarist Friedemann Wuttke weaving in and out of a full string section and a large battery of percussion that includes kettle drums, tom tom, marimba and glockenspiel. Wuttke plays all these pieces with knowing style and an imaginative approach, but that does not necessarily mean that these works will be attractive additions to the collections of listeners who are not already enamored of classical guitar music.

(++++) FABLES OLD AND FABLES NEW

The Rabbit and the Turtle: Aesop’s Fables Retold and Illustrated by Eric Carle. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $16.99.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. By Eugene W. Field. Illustrated by Giselle Potter. Schwartz & Wade. $16.99.

Don’t Bump the Glump! and Other Fantasies. By Shel Silverstein. HarperCollins. $17.

Ella Sets Sail. By Carmela and Steven D’Amico. Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $16.99.

      The oldest of fables have life in them yet, and there are plenty of newer ones with manifest charms of their own, as this group of recent releases shows. The Rabbit and the Turtle is a new edition of Eric Carle tales that date back as far as 1976. The 11 stories here are much older, long-familiar ones: the little mouse that saves a powerful lion captured by thieving wolves, leading to the moral, “Friends come in all shapes and sizes”; the mice that decide to bell the cat but cannot figure out who will do so, with the moral, “An idea is not always enough”; and the famous title story, usually called “The Tortoise and the Hare,” with its moral, “Slow and steady wins the race.” Carle’s painted-tissue-paper collages fit the stories wonderfully well and provide both an updating and a high level of amusement. The turtle, for instance, wears a top hat; the rescued lion sports elegant business clothes, while the helpful mouse wears farmer-like overalls; in the story of the grasshopper and the ants, the frivolous grasshopper who fiddled while the ants saved is literally shown with a violin, with the ants in a house decorating a Christmas tree; and so on. Carle’s new approach to these old, old stories keeps them fresh – and a lot of fun.

      Wynken, Blynken, and Nod isn’t quite as old as Aesop’s tales –Eugene W. Field wrote the poem in 1889 – and it is not a story with a moral. But it remains a wonderful bedtime tale, and Giselle Potter’s anthropomorphic moon and almost-identical-triplet title characters keep the work thoroughly charming. A highlight is the two-page illustration of fish, among which appear the words, “The little stars were the herring fish/That lived in that beautiful sea.” This is intended as a tale about Holland – Field originally called it “Dutch Lullaby” – and Potter’s pictures of flowers and of the wooden shoe a-sail in the night sky maintain its legacy. Potter’s moon specifically resembles the one created by early filmmaker Georges Méliès for his famous 1902 silent film, A Trip to the Moon – which Potter cites as one of her inspirations. Families will find that her illustrations inspire young children to sweet and gentle dreams.

      Shel Silverstein’s pictures in Don’t Bump the Glump! are more of the wake-up type. This was Silverstein’s first poetry collection, initially published in 1964, and it wears very well indeed – and looks great in its handsome, full-color new edition. Here you will meet the Quick-Disguising Ginnit, which looks exactly like a man’s hat except for its tiny head and legs; the Zrbangdraldnk, which Silverstein will write about as soon as he figures out how to pronounce it; and the Terrible Feezus: “There is a terrible twenty-foot Feezus./ Shhh…I don’t think he sees us.” Also here are “the Pointy-Peaked Pavarius,/ A creature most gregarious,” and the “Skaverbacked Gritchen/ Who lives in my kitchen.” Silverstein’s drawings are as clever as his rhymes, and even if some of the animals devour readers (or threaten to), kids will love meeting the likes of the Slithergadee, the Skinny Zippity and the Gumplegutch.

      For a much gentler time with a much sweeter animal, kids can turn to Carmela and Steven D’Amico’s latest story of Ella the Elegant Elephant, Ella Sets Sail. This is a fantasy-adventure occasioned by Ella’s temporary loss of her lucky red hat after she lends it to a friend and a gust of wind carries it away. Ella ends up in a boat, trying to fish her hat out of the water; then using the hat as a sail when the wind picks up; then finding herself carried – without her hat – to an island she has never visited before. Poor Ella, suffering through so much bad luck despite her lucky hat – but of course she does get it back, and everything works out just fine. By the end of the book, Ella has realized how lucky she really is – a most pleasant finish to the latest D’Amico fantasy, drawn in a style reminiscent of the Babar books and those of H.A. Rey.