(+++) MAHLER AND TCHAIKOVSKY, THEN AND NOW

Mahler: Symphony No. 2. Stefania Woytowicz, soprano; Anny Delorie, contralto; Kölner Rundfunkchor and Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester conducted by William Steinberg. ICA Classics. $16.99.

Mahler: Symphony No. 9. WDR Sinfonierchester Köln conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Profil. $16.99.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1; Stravinsky: The Firebird—Suite (1945 version). BBC Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov. ICA Classics. $16.99.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4; Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture. Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

     Depending on which classic recording you compare with which modern one, you may come to the conclusion that not much has changed interpretatively – or that a great deal has. The Mahler “Resurrection” symphony conducted by William Steinberg in 1965 – at a time when Mahler was scarcely the ever-present force on concert programs that he later became – is a kind of antithesis to the then-prevailing approach to this vast work. Already by 1965, the emotional emphasis of Bruno Walter – to the occasional detriment of Mahler’s careful structure and rhythmic vitality – was something of a norm, and had been taken much further by Leonard Bernstein, whose performances were instant classics and remain brilliant…even if they are often not very close to what Mahler intended. Steinberg (1899-1978), in contrast, offers a rather cool “Resurrection.” This is beautifully played music, carefully sculpted by a masterful hand, with wonderful attention to orchestral detail, including tempos and rhythms. But it is a performance that never soars. The first movement, for example, is musically rich but never heroic in any sort of grand style. The third, based on Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is more plodding than flowing. The female soloists are quite fine – Stefania Woytowicz is even better than Anny Delorie – but there is little strong characterization from them, and not much more from the chorus (and no texts are provided – a glaring omission in the packaging). What should be a magical moment – the first choral intonation of “Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n” – is pedestrian, and the finale as a whole scarcely seems transcendent. There is nothing clearly wrong with the performance, and it certainly shows Steinberg’s skill with big, difficult music that he was not especially noted for conducting. But it also shows why the Walter/Bernstein approach, although in many ways less accurate than Steinberg’s in presenting Mahler as Mahler intended, caught fire with audiences and helped make the composer the part of the standard repertoire that he is today.

     One of today’s top conductors – although, like Steinberg, not necessarily a top Mahler conductor – is Jukka-Pekka Saraste, whose new version of Mahler’s Ninth is played by the same orchestra that Steinberg conducted (WDR Sinfonierchester Köln is its current name). Interestingly, the performance is almost identical in length to Steinberg’s of No. 2, Saraste’s No. 9 being only 11 seconds longer. And there are other parallels, too, surely unintended. The orchestra plays very well indeed for Saraste, who is now its principal conductor – although he did not yet hold that position when this recording was made, in 2009. But the interpretation is somewhat lacking in emotional depth. The first movement is the best of the four, flowing smoothly, naturally and with a feeling of considerable depth. But the middle movements are prosaic, with the Rondo-Burleske especially disappointing – there is nothing demonic about it, and precious little than even seems intense. As a result, the contrast between its conclusion and the start of the finale is muted. And that last movement, which sums up the symphony so elegantly and emotively – even if it does not, despite what some have argued, sum up everything Mahler ever wrote – is simply bland for most of its length. A listener seeks in vain for any strong emotional underpinning in a performance that is more pretty than heartfelt. It is only at the very, very end of the movement, when Saraste lets the orchestra subside further and further into quietude and ultimately silence, that there is a sense of just how deep this music is – or can be – from start to finish. As with Steinberg’s Mahler Second, there is nothing obviously “wrong” with Saraste’s Mahler Ninth. But it is not a gripping performance, and not one that seems fully in sync with the depth of the composer’s feelings.

     Like Mahler, Tchaikovsky wore his feelings very much on his sleeve – and there are conductors strongly identified with each composer. Unfortunately, Evgeny Svetlanov’s reading of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 does not at all show why this conductor was held in such high esteem in this music. Svetlanov (1928-2002) gave this performance on April 19, 2002, a mere two weeks before he died. He was frail at the end of his life, and his podium gestures had become difficult to follow, but he was so familiar with this music that a listener has the right to hope for something special. Alas, it is not, was not, to be. This is perhaps the draggiest “Winter Dreams” symphony ever recorded – so slow, almost throughout, that its beauties seem to emerge reluctantly, as if frozen in molasses. The first movement, “Dreams of a Winter Journey,” pokes along as if pushing constantly through snowdrifts, and the second, “Land of Desolation, Land of Mists,” is an even greater disappointment. Yes, it is marked Adagio cantabile, but this adagio is closer to a largo, and if there is any singing here, it is that of a dirge. The BBC Symphony’s instrumental playing is fine, but this movement is virtually static and one thing that Tchaikovsky should never be: boring. The third movement is slow as well, although thankfully not to an unbearable extent, and thankfully the trio – some of the loveliest music in the symphony – is nicely played. The finale’s introduction drags itself along, but there is finally (finally!) some perkiness and bravado in the movement’s main section. Rather too much, in fact, since it is only marked Allegro moderato. Still, the finale does stride along very well most of the way, until Svetlanov insists on such a headlong rush in the coda that nearly all the composer’s expressiveness disappears. Svetlanov was a much better conductor than this – it is a shame to have this Tchaikovsky as part of his legacy. Thank goodness it is coupled with a Stravinsky Firebird Suite recorded in 1996, which shows the conductor in much, much better form. Stravinsky was another composer with whose works Svetlanov was especially identified, and this recording supports the admiration felt for Svetlanov’s handling of this music. Tempos are well chosen, all the coloristic effects of the music are brought forth effectively (the Philharmonia Orchestra’s brass acquitting itself particularly well), the rhythms are crisp, and the balletic flow of what is, after all, a ballet, is maintained throughout. This is early Stravinsky, written very much in Russian Romantic mode, and the performance is pretty much everything that the Tchaikovsky performance is not: well paced, well thought out, evocative of the spirit behind the music, and fully worthy of the applause heard at the end.

     Like Svetlanov, Mikhail Pletnev has a strong reputation in the music of Tchaikovsky – but unlike Svetlanov’s disappointing First, Pletnev’s (++++) recording of the Fourth clearly shows how well-deserved that reputation is. From the opening proclamation of the “fate” motif on burnished brass, through a first movement handled with tone-poem flair so its length does not seem ungainly and its episodic nature makes perfect sense, Pletnev shows his clear understanding of and empathy for Tchaikovsky’s music. A second movement that nicely balances the first, rocking gently and not wallowing in the emotionalism of the lengthy opening, is followed by a quicksilver pizzicato Scherzo that flits and dances here and there and enfolds a rollicking trio in which the woodwind playing is outstanding. Then the finale bursts like thunder on the scene, with Pletnev’s pacing and the excellent playing of the Russian National Orchestra combining to produce a thrilling and highly dramatic conclusion. The first recording by this orchestra was an outstanding Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony conducted by Pletnev – and on the basis of that recording and this one, it would be wonderful to have a full set of these symphonies from these collaborators, especially so in sound as clear and warm as PentaTone delivers on this SACD. Additional recordings of Tchaikovsky tone poems would be welcome, too, if the Romeo and Juliet that fills out this disc is any indicator. From its gloom-laden opening, to its speedy and intense musical confrontation of Montagues and Capulets, through the gorgeous viola playing introducing the famous “love theme,” throughout the ensuing development and on to the final tragic ending, this is a lovingly crafted and insightful performance by musicians who seem to feel the music as well as understand it. When it comes to Tchaikovsky’s music, Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra are clearly the equals of any classic partnership.

(+++) MANY MANNERS OF MODERNISM

Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2; Webern: Six Bagatelles; Berg: Lyric Suite, for String Quartet. Quatuor Diotima (Yun-Peng Zhao and Naaman Sluchin, violins; Franck Chevalier, viola; Pierre Morlet, cello); Sandrine Piau, soprano; Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto. Naïve. $16.99.

George Antheil: Sonatas for Violin and Piano; Sonata for Violin Solo. Mark Fewer, violin; John Novacek, piano. Azica. $16.99.

Rodolfo Halffter: Chamber Music, Volume 1. Soloists of the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid (Cinta Varea, flute; Francisco José Segovia, piano; Víctor Arriola, violin; Vicente Fernández, oboe; María Elena Barrientos, piano). Naxos. $8.99.

Gavin Bryars: Piano Concerto (The Solway Canal); After Handel’s Vesper; Ramble on Cortona. Ralph van Raat, piano; Cappella Amsterdam and Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic conducted by Otto Tausk. Naxos. $8.99.

Gavin Bryars: Sub Rosa; Philip Glass: Façades. Sentieri Salvaggi conducted by Carlo Boccadoro. Cantaloupe Music. $9.99.

Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen: Uniko. Kronos Quartet (David Harrington and John Sherba, violins; Hank Dutt, viola; Jeffrey Zeigler, cello); Kimmo Pohjonen, accordion and voice; Samuli Kosminen, string & accordion samples, programming. Ondine. $16.99.

For Your Safety. Zach Miskin, cello, featuring the Books, Bryce Dessner & Padma Newsome, Todd Reynolds, Phil Kline. Naïve. $16.99.

     It may be difficult to pin down a precise definition of what “modern classical music” is, but it is certainly possible to get an idea of the breadth of the new concepts and forms that began to emerge in the early 20^th century – and continue to be changed and refined today – by listening to a wide selection of pieces by different composers from different countries and different times. The German tradition, which Arnold Schoenberg believed he was carrying on and expanding by creating music based on the 12-tone row, is well represented in finely played performances of three semi-well-known works by Schoenberg himself and by Webern and Berg. The 1907-08 String Quartet No. 2 by Schoenberg shows him moving decidedly into new territory despite the fact that the quartet has a noticeable key (F-sharp minor). The third and fourth movements of the work include a soprano, who sings the words of poems by Stefan George. And the fourth movement has no key signature – it is the composer’s first foray into atonality. Webern’s Six Bagatelles were written only a few years later (1913) but already represent a significant step beyond Schoenberg’s early compositional forays. The new Naïve recording also includes a seventh, unpublished bagatelle – which, like the Schoenberg quartet, uses a voice. Later still is Berg’s Lyric Suite (1925-26), which quotes from the Lyric Symphony by Alexander Zemlinsky – and which, as performed here, includes “De Profundis Clamavi” by Baudelaire as part of the final movement. Thus, this CD presents what may be considered “mainstream” modern German compositions – all works that, in the versions heard on this disc, pull the voice into forms that were strictly instrumental in earlier times.

     George Antheil (1900-1959) had German roots – his birth name was Georg Carl Johann Antheil – but is always identified as an American composer; in fact, his musical experimentation tended to appall European listeners. He wrote two violin sonatas in 1923, a third (not heard on the new Azica CD) a year later, and a fourth in 1948. The first two date from a time when Antheil was experimenting with technology-based music, but they are relatively straightforward in form and approach, if not in tonality (and No. 2 contains only a single short movement). No. 4 supposedly harks back to Baroque models – it contains a passacaglia and a toccata – but its sound is very distinctly modern, although more in Prokofiev/Shostakovich mode than in that of a self-conscious “bad boy of music.” An interesting addition to this CD is the first-ever recording of the unfinished Sonata for Violin Solo, which contains one complete movement and two minutes of a second – and shows Antheil reaching even beyond the expressiveness and techniques he requires of the violin when it is paired with piano.

     Among the moderns in Spain and Mexico was Rodolfo Halffter – full name Rodolfo Halffter Escriche (1900-1987) – whose birth in the same year as Antheil did not mean his music went in a remotely similar direction. Nor did the fact that Halffter, like Antheil, had German roots: Halffter’s father was German. Halffter moved to Mexico after the Spanish Civil War and lived there from then on despite occasional trips back to Spain. His music – although it certainly uses many 20^th-century techniques – is filled with Romantic-era gestures and Latin (both Spanish and Mexican) rhythms and tunes, and is more polytonal than atonal. Naxos’ first CD of Halffter’s chamber music includes all three piano sonatas (1947, 1951, 1967), which offer an attractive mixture of playfulness along with more serious moments. There are also three other works on the CD, which appealingly pair the piano with flute or violin: Pastorale (1940), …Huésped de las nieblas… (Rimas sin palarbras) (1981), and Égloga (1982).

     One example of modernism in England – a certain form of modernism, anyway – is the music of Gavin Bryars (born 1943), who is also a bass player. Bryars has produced works in various styles, ranging from jazz and minimalism to improvisation and neoclassicism. The three pieces on a new Naxos CD all look backward to varying degrees. The Piano Concerto, a Dutch public-broadcasting commission, is impressionistic and broad, effective in orchestration and nicely played by Ralph van Raat, to whom it is dedicated. It does not come across as especially original music, but it is well written and worth at least an occasional hearing. Ramble on Cortona, also dedicated to van Raat, looks back much further in time, all the way to the 13^th century, and is an intriguing mixture of older musical approaches with a rather non-pianistic use of the piano’s resonance as an important element (somewhat along the lines of certain pieces by John Cage, with whom Bryars studied for a time). After Handel’s Vesper, as the title indicates, is Handelian (more or less) and, interestingly, was written for harpsichord, on which it would have been fascinating to hear (modern compositions for that instrument not being particularly common). In the piano version, it is an effectively structured and well-developed work that partakes of the spirit of Handel’s time without being slavishly bound to it.

     Bryars is also featured – along with Philip Glass (born 1937) – on a very short (17-minute) CD that points the way toward one of the most common approaches now being taken by modern “classical” composers. This involves combining elements of what is traditionally considered classical music with ones from a variety of other fields, creating works that sometimes sound classical (usually in a vague sense), sometimes resemble pop music (but not precisely), and at other times flirt with jazz, rock, New Age and various other aural forms. The Bryars and Glass works on this CD are re-releases of parts of a 1999 disc called Musica Coelestis, and the pieces give the ensemble called Sentieri Selvaggi plenty of chances to display virtuosity and make some interesting sounds. The instruments heard here are recorder, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, violin, viola, cello and bass, but the combinations of these fairly traditional classical instruments are often handled nontraditionally. And the version of Façades (1981) heard here is the alternative one – not for two saxophones but for flute and clarinet (plus strings).

     The CD called Uniko takes the merger of multiple musical forms even further. Kimmo Pohjonen (born 1964) is a Finnish accordionist who writes music designed as part of a larger experience – hence the involvement of Samuli Kosminen in sampling and programming. Pohjonen combines the accordion – which he uses in decidedly nontraditional ways in terms of its sound and musical scope – with special effects, including a light show, to produce a kind of multimedia experience. Obviously, only some of this can be effectively communicated on a CD, and the 52 minutes of Uniko seem to go on much longer, despite a wide variety of interesting sonic techniques and combinations in the work’s seven movements. Pohjonen is front and center almost throughout – this is not music for those interested in any sort of traditional string-quartet sound – and the whole project is very much an acquired taste. Those who think the accordion deserves a larger role in a greater variety of music will get the most from the CD, while those who find the instrument’s sound rather grating after a while will not enjoy the disc: there is ultimately no disguising of the accordion’s unique capabilities, and no attempt to disguise them – only to expand them in ways that some ears will find intriguing and others will consider unpleasant.

     What Pohjonen is doing for the accordion is analogous to what Zach Miskin is doing for the cello. Some might say “to” the cello. Miskin’s new CD is essentially alt-rock music, in which Miskin and Paul de Jong both play cellos, with Nick Zammuto providing vocals and playing acoustic guitar, and Gene Back performing on electric guitar and violin. There are 11 tracks, vaguely air-travel related (or airline-crash related), with titles such as “But I Grabbed a Branch,” “Crosscheck,” “Idiots” and “I Fell off a Cliff.” Arranging collaborations with members of the National, the Books and the Clogs is a reasonably impressive accomplishment for Miskin, but the music is fairly pedestrian within its field – which is really pretty far from anything that would traditionally be called “classical.” Artist/composers such as Pohjonen and Miskin provide links between the classical-music world and various other types of music, but whether they will attract listeners beyond those already familiar with their work and interested in their style is something between an open question and a moot point.

(++++) BOUNTIFUL BIOGRAPHIES

Before There Was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George. By Lesa Cline-Ransome. Illustrated by James R. Ransome. Schwartz & Wade. $17.99.

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart. By Candace Fleming. Schwartz & Wade. $18.99.

An Improvised Life: A Memoir. By Alan Arkin. Da Capo. $17.

     Life stories, well presented, can be every bit as enthralling – for readers of all ages – as action and adventure novels. And that applies whether the stories’ subjects are well known or not. Joseph Boulogne is a minor figure in 18^th-century music, but his story is definitely worthy of being told, and has additional resonance because of his provenance: he was the son of a white plantation owner and a female slave. Before There Was Mozart is not the best of titles for this book for ages 5-9 – it is true that Joseph Boulogne was born earlier than Mozart, but the connection between the two, who never met, is a tenuous one. But aside from that, the book is almost everything that a biography for young readers could hope to be. Lesa Cline-Ransome tells of Joseph’s birth, his early musical education, his special status on his father’s sugar plantation (as the owner’s child, “he did not have to labor in the fields”), and the eventual relocation of Joseph and his parents back to his father’s country, France, from Joseph’s birthplace in the West Indies. Then the story takes a series of fascinating turns, as Joseph’s father tries to bring his son into Parisian society: “Guillaume-Pierre hoped that his noble heritage would make others overlook his son’s skin color.” But if the skin was not overlooked, neither did it prevent Joseph from becoming an increasing musical success, to such an extent that he became the leader of a 40-man orchestra even though all the other players were white. Eventually – and this is the book’s climax – he meets and performs for the king and queen of France: the ill-fated Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. As is appropriate in a book for this age group, the work ends at this point, although an author’s note after the narrative gives a few more details about Joseph’s later life, including his narrow escape from the guillotine. Oddly, Cline-Ransome does not mention the nickname that would have justified the book’s title: Joseph was known as the “black Mozart.” And the historical accuracy of some of the book is low: Joseph’s birth date is given as 1739 (it was actually 1745), and his father’s decision to flee the West Indies after being falsely accused of murder – a decision he made to prevent Joseph and his mother from being sold – is omitted. Still, there is enough fascinating material here to make the book a wonderful read for its intended age group. And the illustrations by Cline-Ransome’s husband, James R. Ransome, are very well done and complement the text nicely.

     Amelia Lost, intended for readers ages 8-12, is about a figure as well-known as Joseph Boulogne is little-known. Amelia Earhart’s disappearance during her attempt to circumnavigate the world at the equator – the longest way around – is the stuff of legend and continued fascination, with evidence still turning up supposedly showing where she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, crashed…and still being disproved. Candace Fleming’s book operates on two tracks, with alternating chapters about the search for Amelia’s missing plane and the story of her girlhood, womanhood and life as a pilot. Amply illustrated with photos that even adults may not have seen – such as one of Amelia in nurse’s-aide uniform, from the days in World War I when she worked at a Toronto hospital – the book is more than just a narrative. It includes some comments by Amelia herself, from advice to would-be fliers (“precision flying is like tightrope walking – it only looks easy”) to her final letter (“women must try to do things as men have tried”). There are passages on the history of flight and on Amelia’s deliberate cultivation of herself as a celebrity (“this was essential, since flying was very expensive”). And there is much in the latter half of the book about George Putnam, Amelia’s husband, whom she married reluctantly (she insisted they agree to separate after a year “if we find no happiness together”) but who became a crucial stabilizing force in her career – and ended up penniless after her disappearance, because of the cost of Amelia’s final flight and the search for her. Although he was falsely accused of profiting from Amelia’s celebrity, George said words about money that were reflective of Amelia’s thoughts about flying: “I have no regrets. If we had to do it again, I’d spend everything I had again.” Insightful, very well told, and excitingly presented, Amelia Lost provides today’s young readers with a fascinating look at a time, not so long ago, when flying was glamorous and the world’s most famous female pilot was among the greatest celebrities in the United States.

     Entertainers and sports figures are more likely to be celebrities today, and for many people, their life stories are endlessly fascinating. Alan Arkin is a more thoughtful actor than most, and a more experienced one, with some 80 films and a number of stage works to his credit. His autobiographical memoir, An Improvised Life, is written for adults – specifically, for fans interested in all the ins and outs of his thinking – and gets a (+++) rating. It will be highly interesting to people who hang on words like these: “For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle, confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn’t achieve the ‘zone,’ if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.” Or these: “Over and over again, throughout the years, I’ve seen examples within my craft and, for that matter, in all of life that showed me the necessity of looking through the new eyes of a beginner. The more craft I developed, the more that need grew. In my film work I reached a point where, on occasion, just before beginning a scene, I would force myself to think about other things.” There is nothing wrong with any of this, but nothing especially informative, either. There are some elements of the book with real potential, such as Arkin’s discussion of attending a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony while wearing dark glasses, “as if I were blind.” His reasons for doing this are personal, but the notion of hearing music without visual interference is intriguing, and he approaches a revelation of sorts as he realizes that, after a while, “the only purpose or meaning in the hall was Beethoven’s.” But when he comes to the conclusion that “we had become the music,” this is no conclusion at all – just a cliché. It is ultimately no deeper than a comment such as, “I love working with people with whom I’ve had some previous experience.” Arkin is a good actor, and his fans will surely enjoy learning more about his thoughts, ideas and at least some of his experiences with directors (such as Jean Renoir and Norman Jewison) and other performers. The book is a non-starter, though, for non-fans and for people who are more interested in what actors do on stage or screen than in what they think about before, after or during their performances.

(+++) A TOUCH OF FRIGHT

Bones: Terrifying Tales to Haunt Your Dreams. Edited by Lois Metzger. Scholastic. $4.99.

The Vampire’s Promise. By Caroline B. Cooney. Point/Scholastic. $9.99.

     What tingles the spines of readers changes as they do. Quick, simple stories for preteens are not enough for teenagers, whose scares tend to be more fleshed-out. But Bones is fine as a quick and easy read for those looking for mild scariness that, the subtitle notwithstanding, is unlikely to haunt anyone’s dreams. This collection of seven stories includes works by Todd Strasser, David Levithan, Elizabeth C. Bunce, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Richard Peck, R.L. Stine and Margaret Mahy. Mahy’s, which gives the book its title, is the most affecting, about a “dancing midnight skeleton” that belongs to a girl who was terribly unhappy in life and is able to sing and dance only after death – and who is freed for the next stage of existence, whatever it may be, by the young narrator. Stine’s “The Three-Eyed Man” has the best and most amusing twist among these stories, although readers familiar with this author’s penchant for narrative quirks will not be entirely surprised by it. The other stories are primarily about odd things that happen without rhyme or reason: a cell phone with a mind of its own in Strasser’s “YNK (You Never Know),” old bones that somehow communicate in Levithan’s “The Skeleton Keeper,” a hanged thief in search of a missing body part in Bunce’s “In for a Penny,” an enlarging wish that goes awry in Hoffman’s “Growth Spurt,” and a Valentine from beyond the grave in Peck’s “Eyes on Imogene.” None of these tales is especially atmospheric, but each of them offers some mild chills that will satisfy young readers looking for some not-too-threatening sort-of-horror stories.

     The canvas is wider, and designed for older, teenage readers in Caroline B. Cooney’s The Vampire’s Promise, a single-volume collection of Deadly Offer (1991), Evil Returns (1992) and Fatal Bargain (1993). The book has a familiar and rather silly underlying premise: powerful, evil vampire gets involved in the lives of high-school students and grants them things that they want (for instance, to be popular) by insidiously worming himself into their lives, leaving them with such mock-profound questions as, “Does it count if he makes it happen?” That question is raised – to herself – by 10^th-grader Althea in Deadly Offer. She is the one who wants to be popular at school, and if that means using a vampire to remake the social pecking order, then so be it. The catch, as Althea soon learns, is that accepting favors from a vampire means returning the favor – and it is impossible to say no. “Althea’s life sparkled and glittered like a tiara at a royal dance,” but of course the evil underpinnings mean the sparkle is of rhinestones, not diamonds. Althea fights back successfully, but the vampire’s house is there even after she moves away, and in Evil Returns it has been bought by the family of a girl named Devnee, whose wish – as shallow as Althea’s for popularity – is to be beautiful: “If you possessed Beauty, the rest came of its own accord. Beautiful girls stayed gracefully in one place, while along came Fame, and Riches, and Friends.” Those girls also have shadows – but Devnee has some trouble with hers, which keeps detaching because it can only stay with a human, and her vampire-inspired beauty makes her into something else. Devnee also keeps making wishes, which the vampire is only too pleased to grant: for intelligence, and then for a different mother (hers is so, well, ordinary). And what is the point of Devnee’s later remorse? “She had meant it; she had made the wish; the wish had been strong. ‘I learned a lesson,’ said Devnee desperately. ‘Human beings always do,’ agreed the vampire. ‘Just a little late, that’s all.’” But Devnee too triumphs, returning her undeserved “gifts,” and setting the stage for Fatal Bargain, which involves a whole group of teens and somewhat resembles the “B” movies in which young people do dumb things and get picked off, one by one, by some supernatural entity or other. Here, the vampire describes himself as “a connoisseur of screams,” so one of the teens promises to give him “nothing…but silence, you dirtbag,” and another says not to call him names because “it’ll make him angry.” The vampire gets to explain that he never kills anyone – just drains their personalities – and then delivers the line that is, more or less, the motto of all three of these collected books: “‘Never wish for anything,’ he whispered. ‘You just might get it!’” That is a pretty dour outlook, to be sure – and it comes only from a vampire, since it turns out that there is not just one. But teens triumph here, too, and no one familiar with tales like this (whether written or filmed) will be surprised that they use fire to do it. Nor will anyone be shocked when Cooney leaves the ending just ambiguous enough to remind readers that maybe, just maybe, there are still vampires out there. Nothing in The Vampire’s Promise is the slightest bit believable or more than a little bit frightening, but for 16-year-olds (the book’s age targeting seems pretty precise), there are a few chills, a reassurance of eventual triumph, and very little to disturb anyone’s sleep – or partying.

(+++) SECRETS (SOME REVEALED)

Secret Society. By Tom Dolby. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $8.99.

Secret Society 2: The Trust. By Tom Dolby. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $16.99.

Vesper. By Jeff Sampson. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $16.99.

The Secret Zoo: Secrets and Shadows. By Bryan Chick. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $16.99.

     Many novels for teens play into the notion of a grand, glorious, faintly diabolical world out there, where riches and power are just waiting for the initiates – who must be willing to undergo frightening trials in order to become the super-successes that they (and by extension their readers) deserve to be. This is the underlying premise of Tom Dolby’s Secret Society books, which focus on students at the exclusive (of course) Chadwick School. The first book in the series, originally published in 2009 and now available in paperback, is about the initiation of Phoebe, Nick and Lauren into a mysterious age-old Society that demands their undying loyalty (and insists they all bear ankh-shaped tattoos on the nape of their necks, which would seem to undermine the “secret” notion). Indeed, “undying” loyalty may be only part of what the society insists upon, for in this book a body with that distinctive tattoo turns up in New York City’s Central Park – and the recent initiates need to figure out what is going on and whether they may be the next targets. Meanwhile, they can revel in the way everything they want has been coming to them since they joined – although there is a touch of uncertainty about the proceedings in the person of Patch, an aspiring filmmaker and fellow student, who has not been invited into the “in” group but is determined to document its activities. Uh-oh. Dolby labors mightily, and sometimes unintentionally amusingly, to try to make the book as “with it” as possible, as when he has a magazine write of Chadwick’s students that they are “a raucous crowd of vodka-swilling models, i-bankers, and underage scenesters.” The author also tries to pull mystery in at every opportunity – it is only near the end of the book that he introduces the “power of fourteen,” for example (some photos of the Society show 14 members, some 15). There turns out, unsurprisingly, to be a strong familial component to the Society, and a father-son confrontation, and a bonding-by-death component – well, none of this book is really surprising, but many teens will enjoy being taken along for the ride.

     And if they really enjoy it, they can continue riding with the second book in the series, The Trust, in which the four friends of the first book are trying to find a way out of the clutches of the Society – which has little trouble figuring out methods of keeping them in line. Personal relationships take a more central role in this book: Nick and Phoebe’s romantic one and Nick and Patch’s longtime friendship. The dialogue, a distinct weak point in the first book, is no better here: “I believe things happen for a reason. That certain things are, I don’t know, not necessarily predetermined, but if they’re meant to be, they’re meant to be.” There is a jewelry heist here, and a death that results in the distribution of trust funds to – among others – Patch. And of course the book’s title has a double meaning, referring not only to financial matters but also to the friends’ now-ever-present worry about whom they can trust, if anyone. Patch, a key in the first book, is one here, too, as it is revealed that he “was born in the caul, which, not to mince words, is the amniotic sac. It is very rare, unlike anyone else in our family. Traditionally, it has marked a child for greatness.” And it turns out, unsurprisingly, that even when the friends believe they have eventually escaped the Society’s clutches, they really haven’t. Another novel is sure to follow.

     A mysterious murder figures in Vesper, too. Here the entrapment, if that is what it is, is supernatural rather than merely mystical and wealth-based. The book’s protagonist, Emily Webb, thinks she may have been taken over by the spirit of a murdered classmate who was also named Emily. The reason: normally a shy, withdrawn geek, Emily is now doing very un-Emily-like things at night, sneaking out to midnight parties and discovering that her body and mind are both stronger and more fearless than they have ever been. But maybe these things are not un-other-Emily-like, since they started happening the same night the other Emily was found dead. This whole setup is an even thinner premise than usual for a supernatural-possession novel, but Jeff Sampson insists readers take it completely seriously, and he follows it through doggedly. The chapter titles here are clever and are part of the narrative flow: “Em Cee and Em Dub,” “The Emily and Megan Milkshake Spectacular,” “Communist Herrings, Huh?” And there are several “internal documents” from the mysterious “Vesper Company” (hence the book’s title) that reveal much of what is really going on. “Nighttime Emily’s antics were often way out of line,” regular daytime Emily confesses, “but whatever worry I had about that change was also tempered by a giant dose of excitement – of enjoyment at my new confidence, my new ability to kick butt and take names.” Ah, but there is indeed something supernatural taking place, and perhaps daytime Emily would be better off if she were merely being possessed by the other Emily – but she has little choice in the matter. Then it turns out that Emily likes what is happening to her – has happened to her – and the stage is neatly set for the inevitable sequel to this novel.

     There will be sequels to Secret and Shadows, too – the book is a sequel already, being the second in a series called The Secret Zoo, which was the title of the first novel – but because this is a book for preteens (the target age range is 9-12), it is more lighthearted than teen-oriented novels, and its followups will likely be as well. Bryan Chick’s four protagonists are Noah and his sister, Megan, and their best friends, Richie and Ella. All live in Clarksville City, where the zoo contains animals that, as the four friends discover, behave in some rather odd ways. Then Megan disappears, and when the other three go in search of her, they end up inside the zoo – which, they find out, is a magical place in which animals and humans live in harmony, help each other, and communicate clearly. All this occurs in the first book, in which the four also meet the mysterious Mr. Darby and learn about the Secret Society. But not that Secret Society – not at all the sort written about for teen readers. This one is a well-meaning group of humans and animals, working together to protect threatened species. It is all very upstanding and unexceptionable. There are evildoers about, though, and Secrets and Shadows has much to do with them. Here the four young people join the Secret Society and become Crossers, able to move between the two worlds of the real zoo and the Secret Zoo. They are then enlisted in the battle against the Shadowist, an evil character who preys on humans and animals alike, is determined to conquer the Secret Zoo, and is backed by nothing less than an army of sasquatches. “I know it’s complicated and strange,” Mr. Darby tells the four protagonists at one point, but “soon it will make more sense.” Well, it never does – not really – but the story is a pleasant adventure nevertheless, with some mild thrills and some human-animal bonding that nicely supports the underlying protective message. And there are scenes in school that neatly complement the ones involving Secret Zoo matters, such as one in which Noah confronts the school’s worst bully, Wide Walt, and bests him – because “he’s no bigger than a sasquatch.” Chick clearly had fun putting this series together, and some of that is communicated through the pages, where even the scenes of danger are often leavened with a touch of humor and the certainty – appropriate for books for this age group – that everything will turn out just fine. But not in this book, which ends in a setup for the next. The Secret Zoo series will certainly continue.

(+++) THE AMERICAN STYLE

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; Dana Suesse: Concerto in Three Rhythms; Jazz Nocturne; James Price Johnson: Yamekraw, a Negro Rhapsody; Harry Reser: Suite for Banjo and Orchestra. Gary Hammond, piano; Tatiana Roitman Mann, piano; Peter Mintun, piano; Michael Gurt, piano; Don Vappie, banjo; Créole Serenaders; Hot Springs Music Festival Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Rosenberg. Naxos. $8.99.

Roberto Sierra: Piano Trios Nos. 1-3; Fanfarria, aria y movimento perpetuo. Trío Arbós (Miguel Borrego, violin; José Miguel Gómez, cello; Juan Carlos Garvayo, piano). Naxos. $8.99.

Gabriela Lena Frank: Hilos (Threads); Danza de los Saqsampillos; Adagio para Amantaní; Quijotadas. ALIAS Chamber Ensemble; Gabriela Lena Frank, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

Jennifer Higdon: On a Wire; Michael Gandolfi: Q.E.D.—Engaging Richard Feynman. “eighth blackbird” sextet; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus conducted by Robert Spano. ASO Media. $18.99.

     It is unfashionable nowadays to imply that the music of a particular country has specific characteristics – it smacks of typecasting and thus of bias. No such political correctness affected composers of the past, though – Arnold Schoenberg, for example, developed 12-tone music in part to guarantee what he saw as the pre-eminence of German music into the future. And fashionable or not, there are certain musical elements that seem to characterize works from particular countries more often than not, both in their older music and their newer. In the case of music by American composers, there is frequently some surface glitz, an attractive veneer characterized by skillful orchestration or instrumental disposition, a certain amount of superficiality, and (often but certainly not always) a desire to please potential audiences with accessibility and interesting gestures. Certainly many of these characteristics appear in the works on a new Naxos CD entitled “Jazz Nocturne: American Concertos of the Jazz Age.” The only household-name composer here is, of course, George Gershwin, whose Rhapsody in Blue has been heard innumerable times. But this CD offers something not experienced before: the work in its full original 1924 version for jazz band, in which form it was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé (now remembered mostly for his Grand Canyon Suite). This first complete and unabridged recording from the manuscript proves a salutary experience: Grofé keeps the music bright and free-flowing, and the familiar melodies sound, well, jazzier here than as usually heard when played by a full symphony orchestra. And the Gershwin is accompanied on the disc by some genuinely interesting and entirely neglected works of the same period. Dana Suesse (1909-1987) was actually called the “Girl Gershwin” by no less than The New Yorker, and proves to have a fine sense of style and rhythm in her 1932 Concerto in Three Rhythms – whose three movements are a fox trot, blues and rag and whose orchestration, interestingly, was also done by Grofé. Suesse’s Jazz Nocturne, which gives this CD its title, is a short work from 1931 that contains a theme that became the song “My Silent Love,” a hit for famed crooner Bing Crosby. James Price Johnson (1894-1955) was an African-American composer whose 1927 Yamekraw (the title comes from an African-American area outside Savannah, Georgia) is steeped in the sensibility of the blues – and featured none other than Fats Waller as pianist at its first performance. And Harry Reser (1896-1965), a master banjo player, not surprisingly requires masterful solo work in his Suite for Banjo and Orchestra (1922-30), whose three short movements leave an overall impression of bright, forthright enjoyment, if little subtlety or significant musical substance.

     There is something more substantive – and still heavily jazz-influenced – in the piano trios of Puerto Rico native Roberto Sierra (born 1953). Puerto Rico both is and is not “America,” depending on whom you speak to and under what circumstances the conversation takes place. Certainly there is a strong Spanish influence in all these works, whose Latin and jazz elements are intermingled with Romantic-era gestures as well as considerable modernism (Sierra studied with György Ligeti). All the trios have movements whose tempos or moods are given in Spanish – a clear indicator of the composer’s predilections. The first, “Trio Tropical,” dates to 1991 and is the most “ethnic” in sound. The second (2002) and third (“Romántico,” 2008) provide a greater blend of influences. And the short Fanfarria provides an interesting comparison with the third and final movement of the first trio: both open with slow, expressive sections and then switch to what the composer calls a movimiento perpetuo, but the handling of the material is quite different – and not solely because Fanfarria is only for violin and piano rather than piano trio.

     There are significant multicultural elements as well in the music of Gabriela Lena Frank (born 1972). Her mother had Peruvian/Chinese ancestry; her father was descended from Lithuanian Jews. This certainly gives Frank very considerable musical influences on which to draw – but the works on the new Naxos CD of her music, all of which receive their first recordings here, all have a focus on South America. Like Sierra’s, they feature movement titles in Spanish and many inflections reminiscent of Latin music, although interpreted by Frank very differently from the way Sierra handles them. Hilos (Threads), written in 2010 for the ensemble that performs it here, is for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and includes eight short movements (the last being the most extended) that seek to interpret Peruvian textiles and everyday life in the country. Danza de los Saqsampillos (2000/2006), for two marimbas, is bright and lively, while Adagio para Amantaní (2007), for cello and piano, is mysterious and emotional – intended to refer to the beautiful but barren island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. And the mood is multifaceted in Quijotadas (2007), a work for string quartet that, as its name implies, was inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quijote – and that nicely captures some of the many moods of the novel, including a central movement that portrays the title character’s madness through a well-constructed Moto Perpetuo.

     Modern American composers draw their influences from just about everywhere. Michael Gandolfi (born 1956) gets many of his from science. His 2010 work for chorus and orchestra, Q.E.D.: Engaging Richard Feynman, an Atlanta Symphony commission just issued on the orchestra’s own label, was inspired by the work and memoirs of the physicist (1918-1988). Gandolfi created a libretto from lines by various poets that a Feynman colleague had gathered and reassembled for a YouTube video relating to Feynman’s work on quantum electrodynamics (hence “Q.E.D.,” which also refers to the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, “which was to be demonstrated,” indicating that a proof is complete). The various inspirations would be irrelevant if the work did not have value on its own, but it does: Feynman was good at explaining abstruse concepts in an accessible way, and Gandolfi manages here to make satisfying music by using a variety of compositional techniques that do not get in the way of his communication with the audience. It would be stretching things to call the work profound, but it is interesting, and in some ways a good deal more enjoyable than anything with a basis in theoretical physics has a right to be. It is coupled with a highly unusual concerto by Jennifer Higdon (born 1962) called On a Wire – also from 2010 and, in this case, an Atlanta Symphony co-commission with several other organizations. Higdon wrote it for an ensemble that calls itself “eighth blackbird” (small letters, without quotation marks) and intended the title to reflect a sort of high-wire act by the six-member solo group. More modernistic than Gandolfi’s piece and more self-consciously clever, On a Wire is designed to let the soloists engage in behavior that they favor, such as using instruments in ways that were not intended by the instruments’ creators (a bowed piano, for example). The instruments involved are flute/piccolo/alto flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin/viola, cello, marimba and piano. There are many interesting passages in this extended single-movement work, but the cleverness wears thin after a while – the piece may have been more enjoyable to see than it is to hear on CD, since the soloists not only change instruments but also move around from one place to another during the work. The performance itself seems quite fine – it is probably safe to call it definitive – and there is something very American in the notion of a piece created for what appears to be almost no significant purpose but display and ebullience.

(+++) VISUALIZING

A Different Way: Tango with Rodolfo Mederos—A Film by Gabriel Szollosy. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.

Steve Reich: Phase to Face—A Film by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Christian Thielemann. Unitel Classica. $39.99 (3 DVDs).

Debussy: La Mer; Ibéria; Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye—Suite. Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. ICA Classics DVD. $24.99.

     The interface of music with visuals is a complex one: the combination appeals in different ways to different people – or does not appeal at all. Certainly there are visual elements to concerts that make the live experience of music different from that of hearing the same works at home or in other venues, such as while driving; but a recording of a concert never duplicates the concertgoing experience itself, since it interposes a director – who literally “calls the shots” from the available cameras – between viewer/listener and performers. On the other hand, artfully directed films about music, which can be constructed as directors wish them to be, are more in the nature of personality focuses than musical profiles, and are therefore of limited interest, appealing only to people with a particular fascination regarding the profiled individual. Thus, A Different Way is a well-made film focusing on the tango experiments of Rodolfo Mederos (born 1940), who has tried to move the dance form beyond the approach of fellow bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla. The bandoneon itself is not to all tastes, and Mederos’ concerns about interpretation of the tango – which led him in 1976 to put together a cult group called Generación Cero, which tried to mix jazz and rock with the music of Buenos Aires – are of limited interest, no matter how much passion they may generate among those with a deep concern about Argentine music. Gabriel Szollosy’s film is well constructed but is strictly for Mederos devotees. The DVD actually contains two tango-related Szollosy films: in addition to A Different Way (2008), it offers Domingueando (2002), a docudrama in which a young European dancer learns of the real world of the tango when he visits a tango club for the elderly in Uruguay. This too is a well-made film of distinctly limited, or targeted, appeal.

     Steve Reich: Phase to Face is for an equally narrow audience. It is intended for fans of the New York City composer (born 1936) and his technique of “phasing” (creating short, repeated patterns that move into and out of phase with each other, often through the use of tape loops). Reich himself has numerous musical influences, from jazz and classical Western music to Balinese gamelan, and has in his turn influenced numerous other composers. But his music is scarcely of universal appeal, and even audiences interested in his works – a number of which are excerpted on this DVD – will not necessarily want to follow Reich’s travels from Normandy to Rome for the world première of a piece called 2 X 5, written in 2008 and first heard a year later. The work is typical of Reich in many ways, being scored for five musicians and prerecorded tape – or two identical quintets on rock instruments. Reich calls it a “rock and roll piece,” and it is played using two drum sets, two pianos, four electric guitars and two bass guitars. Fans of the composer and his very personal approach to music will enjoy not only the documentary on this DVD but also the two bonuses, one an interview with Reich (taped in Tokyo) and another in which the composer provides his view of the history of music. Clearly not intended for a mass audience, the DVD is a specialty item for those with a strong interest in Reich, his music and his thoughts.

     In contrast to the other DVDs mentioned here, the three-DVD set of Beethoven’s first three symphonies, with Christian Thielemann conducting the superb Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, offers music that reaches out to everyone. And it includes not only the symphonies but also three documentaries discussing and analyzing them – which collectively run longer than the symphonies themselves. In those, Thielemann discusses Beethoven with well-known German music critic Joachim Kaiser – and the documentaries include fascinating snippets of performances by famed Beethoven conductors from Leonard Bernstein to Karl Böhm to Herbert von Karajan. These in turn make for highly interesting comparisons with Thielemann’s readings, which are well paced, extremely well played (the Vienna Philharmonic is second to none for orchestral quality), and imbued with understanding of Beethoven’s style and his place in musical history. There is no question that the performances are very fine and the discussions of considerable interest. But the basic disconnect between music and visuals remains. Viewer/listeners will here see the performances from the viewpoints chosen by a director, not those they might pick themselves if they attended the performances live; and while the documentaries certainly contain material of some interest, they are also filled with rather pedantic elements that are as likely to get in the way of visceral enjoyment of the music as they are to enhance it. Furthermore, even people who thoroughly enjoy the documentary segments will need to decide whether they are likely to want to view them more than once. If not, it may be hard to justify buying these performances in this format. Beethoven’s music has universal appeal, but it is hard to argue that his works – or any others – communicate more effectively with people at home when presented as videos than when offered simply as audio recordings.

     There is, however, sometimes a historical component to a DVD release that might, just might, make it of special interest – albeit only to a selected group of music lovers. The new Charles Munch DVD of works by Debussy and Ravel is an example. Munch (1891-1968) was famous for his handling of the French repertoire, and the three works on this DVD were all composed during his lifetime. They are all pieces with which he was closely identified. The recordings are far from modern: La Mer dates to October 1958, Ibéria to October 1961, and Ma Mère l’Oye to February 1958. And the visual style is primitive by modern directorial standards. Furthermore, the entire DVD lasts only 68 minutes and contains no bonus material, making it pricey. But fans of Munch, and listeners who may not know his work but may have heard of his particular excellence in this repertoire, may be tempted to buy this release. It does give a good, if limited, portrait of Munch’s style as a conductor, and even though the sound is not on par with that of newer recordings, the DVD shows the sweep, beauty and sure handling of texture that made Munch such a noteworthy exponent of these works. The DVD is decidedly a specialty item, but for those with an interest in this particular conductor, it may be a worthwhile purchase even though it does not scintillate either visually or sonically.

(++++) HISTORIES OF TODAY AND YESTERDAY

Oil Spill Disaster. By Mona Chiang, Cody Crane, Karina Hamalainen and Lynda Jones. Scholastic. $5.99.

Profiles: One Event, Six People—The Civil War. By Aaron Rosenberg. Scholastic. $14.99.

A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Journeys Across America. By Laura Ingalls Wilder. Collins. $7.99.

     It is by no means easy to communicate the scope of major events of the recent or more-distant past to young readers, but cleverly designed books with a strong pictorial and graphic focus can do a fine job of bringing history to vivid life in our visually oriented age. Oil Spill Disaster is a quick-turnaround photographic book about the Deepwater Horizon explosion of April 20, 2010, and the response to it. Refreshingly balanced at a time of tremendous political polarization, it opens by explaining the environmental and ecological importance of the Gulf of Mexico – and continues, in the very next paragraph, by explaining how important offshore oil drilling is to the economy of the five states that border the Gulf. The book puts the Deepwater Horizon disaster in perspective by discussing four earlier U.S. spills and providing a table of the world’s five worst ones; and it explains, clearly and simply, just what oil is, where it comes from and why the world needs it. After providing useful and well-illustrated background, it discusses what happened in April 2010, including a discussion of “three places where things went wrong” and a drawing showing “the actual size of the drill pipe” – a fascinating and very appropriate visual aid. The balance of the book – which is only 32 pages long, but is packed to the margins with information – is devoted to showing the damage the spill did and what was done to contain and then stop it. The disaster is given human scale through biographical sketches of some of those involved in mitigating it, such as animal-rescue expert Tom MacKenzie of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and oil-spill expert Roger Anderson of Columbia University. The result of reading Oil Spill Disaster is that young people will have a better-balanced, more-complete understanding of what happened to the Deepwater Horizon, and why, and what the event’s repercussions were, than is possessed by many adults who have used the disaster primarily to score social and political points.

     Such points are still being scored in regard to the Civil War – or War Between the States, the preferred Southern term. As in its book on the Deepwater Horizon, Scholastic manages to find a highly creative way to get at the arguments and counter-arguments about the war in a well-written, simplified but not simplistic discussion of the confrontation that comprises mini-biographies of six important figures of the time: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, George McClellan, Frederick Douglass, Clara Barton and Mathew Brady. Nowhere is there a claim that these are the six most important people involved in the war – it would be quite easy to argue, for example, that Ulysses S. Grant, not McClellan, should have been profiled – but Aaron Rosenberg’s text and the numerous photos and illustrations do an excellent job of showing the ways in which the lives of these six intersected amid the carnage and multiple disasters that are the foundation of all wars, perhaps especially one in which, in some cases, brothers literally fought brothers. Rosenberg deliberately asks intriguing questions as the book opens: “Why is George McClellan important if he was actually dismissed from his military position? Who was Mathew Brady and why did Lincoln sometimes say he owed his entire presidency to him?” There is plenty of familiar history here, but also plenty that will not be well known, even to adults: the fact that there were four major candidates for president in the election that Lincoln won in 1860; the way Frederick Douglass chose his last name – because of a poem by Sir Walter Scott; and the comments of Robert E. Lee on slavery after the war’s end: “‘So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South.’” These and many other telling moments make the people portrayed in this book come alive as real human beings, not as textbook historical figures or icons with little of the real world about them. And the Civil War itself becomes, not the simplistic battle for or against slavery that many textbooks and many modern politicians strive to make it, but a highly complex event in which people of high honor and good will fought and died on both sides.

     By the time Laura Ingalls Wilder made her three trips across the United States, that war was only a memory, although still a vivid one for some people – especially when she first traveled, in 1894, by covered wagon, from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, with her husband, Almanzo, and daughter, Rose. Wilder recounted that journey in On the Way Home – Mansfield was to be her home for the rest of her life. And she wrote subsequently, in West from Home, about traveling by train to California to visit Rose; and, in The Road Back, about her 1931 car trip back to DeSmet, the town where she grew up and fell in love with Almanzo. All three of these volumes, which consist of journal entries and letters, are collected in A Little House Traveler, a book of distinctly limited appeal (which results in a +++ rating) but considerable fascination for readers with a strong interest in the author of Little House on the Prairie and other books about living in the American West in pioneer days and thereafter. Scattered photos and mundane lists (such as one showing expenses for gas, dinner and other items on June 6 and 25, 1931, among other dates) are the stuff of everyday life, of little inherent interest but certainly effective at humanizing an author who, for some readers, seems larger than life. The bonus material at the back of the book humanizes Wilder still further, through a family tree and reproductions of several actual letters – including her final one to Rose, written three days before her death, which begins, “When you read this I will be gone and you will have inherited all I have.” Simple, plainspoken, homespun attention to details, combined with everyday wisdom and the ability to handle the inevitable setbacks of ordinary life with stoicism and good will – these are the qualities that Laura Ingalls Wilder shows in her books and also, in a different way, in this collection of her travel notes. Young readers seeking a fuller portrait of the author, or simply wanting to read a few more of her words, will find A Little House Traveler enchanting, although in a way quite different from that of Wilder’s other works.

(++++) AH, THE INFAMY

Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women. By Elizabeth Kerri Mahon. Perigee. $15.

The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes. Edited by Michael Sims. Penguin. $16.

The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes. Edited by Michael Sims. Penguin. $15.

     There is a certain exuberant titillation in perusing the peccadilloes of the past. It pervades Elizabeth Kerri Mahon’s once-over-lightly view of the careers and bedchamber antics of 36 Scandalous Women, from the obvious (Cleopatra, Lady Hamilton, Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, Zelda Fitzgerald) to ones whose names are something less than household words (Émilie du Châtelet, mistress of Voltaire and a substantial scientific thinker; Rose O’Neal Greenhow, spy for the Confederacy; Mary Ellen Pleasant, a 19^th-century African-American capitalist; Margaret Tobin Brown, Titanic survivor and inspiration for The Unsinkable Molly Brown). Mahon, an actress and blogger, clearly relishes telling these women’s stories in breezy, forthright prose: “They lived in hotels for the most part, since Zelda [Fitzgerald] was crap at housekeeping.” “Then thirty-five, [Henry VIII] could have been the centerfold in ‘Hot Renaissance Princes.’” “When the king caught them [Barbara Palmer and John Churchill] in flagrante delicto, he said to Churchill, ‘I forgive you, for you do it for your bread.’” “In the three years since her arrival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Anne [Hutchinson] had managed to piss off a lot of powerful people, specifically the clergy.” The story of Hutchinson (1591-1643) is a highlight of the book. Claiming divine revelation at a time and in a place where women could assert no such thing, she took on the Puritans with fiery biblical rhetoric when put on trial for her beliefs – regarding which, writes Mahon, “Yeah, nothing like telling the people who hold the power of life and death over you that they are going to be cursed for punishing you.” But Hutchinson is scarcely the only strong-willed woman in this enthralling book. Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor, whose story is well known in Colorado but not in many other places, was at the center of a notorious 19^th-century love affair that was intimately bound up with that state’s silver boom and bust – and even became the subject of an opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe (which, however, Mahon does not mention). Also here are pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, Middle East chronicler Gertrude Bell (who, with T.E. Lawrence, aided the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I), Jane Digby (mistress of King Ludwig of Bavaria and later, happily but scandalously, wife of the Bedouin nobleman Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab), and many others. But not so many as to prevent Mahon from writing a followup book, or several, since there are so many more women whose stories, uplifting or scandalous (or both), Mahon would surely be able to tell in the same pleasantly rollicking style. For now, it is wonderful just to revel in profiles that are filled with fascinating historical information – for example, about Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s refusal to move from a ladies’ train car, in a case that long predated that of Rosa Parks and led to Wells-Barnett’s being considered, for a time, the Joan of Arc of her people. There are sexual shenanigans here, to be sure, but also plenty of wonderful portraits of women responsible for major events in history – whether directly or through the men who, thinking themselves the controllers, were in fact the ones being controlled.

     The women in The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime are fictional and no less fascinating than their real-life counterparts – although, in truth, no more so, either. A companion book of sorts to Michael Sims’ wonderful The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime (2009), the new volume returns to the Victorian era to unearth some very modern (for their day) women who refuse to be bound by the straitjackets of propriety and spend their time chatting at tea parties. No, these redoubtable sleuths do not shrink from shadowing suspects and fingerprinting corpses as they go about applying the most advanced crime-fighting techniques of the 19^th century to cases from the intricately puzzling to the tragic. Largely forgotten today, the female detectives both moved beyond Victorian norms and, in an odd way, supported them. Simply because they were female, these heroines could fade easily into the background in many settings in ways that men could not – becoming virtually unnoticeable and therefore able to ferret out information that people thought they were keeping confidential. This was less a matter of donning disguises in the Sherlock Holmes mode and more a circumstance of pretending to be the prim, quiet women that they were expected to be. Loveday Brooke, created by C.L. (Catherine Louisa) Pirkis and represented here by “Drawn Daggers” (1893), is especially good at this form of disguise: she becomes a governess or housemaid and appears to others to be as insensible as a piece of furniture. But it is not only in their outward acceptance of women’s roles in Victorian society that such women as Dora Myrl and Amelia Butterworth manage to break the rules while appearing to support them. These women also have good reasons for doing the work they do – explanations, “back stories,” justifying for Victorian readers their flouting of convention (one has a husband who has gone blind and can no longer support her; another needs funds to take care of a sister; and so on). The authors – most but not all of them women – thus place their female detectives clearly within Victorian norms while simultaneously moving them outside the usual purview of females of the time. Sims’ appealingly written introduction firmly anchors these tales and their protagonists within a time of great change – including, as Sims interestingly points out, change in modes of transportation, many of which are reflected in the tales. As for the stories themselves, they are of all types: first-person and third-person narration, pure mystery and fiendish plot, highly descriptive and dialogue-packed, genuinely difficult to figure out and rather on the obvious side. Written as entertainment, they remain highly enjoyable today, even if their style can sometimes tend to the wordy, as in other Victorian literature. Edwardian literature, too: the latest of these stories dates to 1915.

     Sims’ editorial skills are just as clear in his earlier Victorian-and-Edwardian crime anthology. The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime features a dozen stories by such notables as O. Henry (creator of con man Jeff Peters) and E.W. Hornung (brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and creator of “gentleman thief” A.J. Raffles). In this volume, Sims intriguingly includes some stories by authors not usually associated with the crime genre: Sinclair Lewis and Arnold Bennett. But he omits some whose work would seem to have fit the theme perfectly: Maurice Leblanc (creator of Arsène Lupin) and R. Austin Freeman (known for art forger Danby Croker). Perhaps Sims will get to them in a second “Gaslight” volume – or perhaps he simply decided, after this one, to move on to the more-serious adventures of women detectives after producing a book in which the crimes, which are typically ones of property rather than violence, often come across as planned and executed with considerable good humor. In any case, the dozen stories in The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime and 11 in The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime add up, in total, to 23 highly entertaining and in large measure unexplored forays into a genre that has become decidedly more action-oriented, sexually explicit and brutal in recent decades – but that, in its earlier years, was filled with at least as much wit and inventiveness as the field of crime fiction possesses today.

(++++) KLUTZ YOURSELF IN CHARGE

Rule the World: 119 Shortcuts to Total World Domination. By the Editors of Klutz. Klutz. $16.99.

Me vs. You: Head-to-Head Brain Races. By Michael Sherman. Klutz. $10.99.

     Apparently Klutz is not satisfied to dominate the “books-plus” field of crafts projects, in which all needed materials are packaged along with instructions. Now it is creating a new area of domination – the “dominating others” field – and is determined to dominate it as well, thus achieving a sort of meta-domination. The question is whether you would want to live in a world dominated by Klutzniks; the answer may be that you already do. The solution (assuming this is a problem) may be that if you can’t beat them (or it), join them (or it.) And that is the invitation kindly extended by the Klutz galactic empire in Rule the World. This is not a traditional crafts book by any means, although it certainly contains a few crafts projects: the Oath of Righteousness to be signed, a series of Flash IDs to be created (“Drive Anything License,” “Ultra Gold-Plated Platinum-Embossed Double Diamond Club Member,” and so on), facial hair to be cut out and applied appropriately, cut-out eyeglasses to make you look intelligent, even a random-facial-expression generator that helps you figure out how to look not only on a given day but also within specific time periods of that day. But the core of this book is the 119 recommendations that, if put properly into effect, will surely lead to world domination – except perhaps over others who also buy the book and implement its ideas. Let’s not go there, though, at least yet; instead, let’s go to recommendation number 103: “You are a great and terrible ruler, so your pets must be extreme” – photo suggestions include a platypus and a shark with blood dripping from its jaws. Or number 75: “Be blasé. …To get the look, let your eyes glaze over, let your jaw hang open and yawn. Then yawn again…and again.” Number 36, “Tell a near-death survival story,” comes with six helpful openings to match with six possible continuations and six more continuations and six more continuations and, finally, six possible things you could say you learned from the whole experience. One example among 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 possibilities: “I was returning from the future when the deadly four-beaked squid that lurks [beneath] both land and sea started to bury me alive. I dematerialized in the nick of time. From this I learned [that] you shouldn’t disclose your vacation plans to anyone.” And do not forget number 106, “Sound smart,” which explains how to use “caliginous” when you mean “foggy,” “bruxism” instead of “grinding your teeth,” and “commorancy” instead of “house.” There is so much plainspoken Klutzified advice here that Rule the World really leaves only one question unanswered: once you are totally in charge of, like, everything, what are you going to do next?

     One answer may be that you will fight off the other world dominators (okay, now let’s go there). You can do that with another Klutz offering, Me vs. You. This is a deceptively simple paired set of wire-bound booklets, one on red cardboard backing and one on blue, that are packaged together but break apart along a perforated line when opened. Each booklet comes with a color-coded pencil, and each is filed with a series of challenges. You and your nefarious opponent, who wishes to assume world domination when of course you are the one determined to do so, agree on a challenge (which should be easy, since both of you will believe you are superior and sure to win at anything), then count down together and start at the same time. Whoever finishes first wins that particular event. Among the brain games: make words from letter piles by connecting letters that share a side in the diagram; count the bees swarming around a honey-eating bear; fill in boxes on a grid to reveal a picture; list 12 words starting with the letter M; unscramble the names of six musical instruments, then unscramble letters from those words into a bonus word; find four differences between two nearly identical pictures; draw a line between the setup of a joke and its punch line; and so on. The one thing the Klutzniks appear not to have considered is that these books contain 42 puzzles in all – an even number – so it is possible that you and your evil, depraved, unworthy opponent will go through all of them and end up in a tie. Then you will simply have to settle your world-domination differences (or whatever other differences you may have) by attempting to blow each other up. You know, just as adults do.

(+++) FROM EASY TO LESS-EASY READING

Nosh, Schlep, Schluff: BabYiddish. By Laurel Snyder. Illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke. Random House. $5.99.

Biscuit and the Lost Teddy Bear. By Alyssa Satin Capucilli. Pictures by Pat Schories. Harper. $16.99.

Spider-Man: Spider-Man and the Movie Mystery. By Heather Alexander. Illustrated by Sanford Greene. HarperFestival. $3.99.

This Is the Game. By Diane Z. Shore & Jessica Alexander. Illustrated by Owen Smith. Harper. $16.99.

Just a Little Luck. By Mercer Mayer. HarperFestival. $3.99.

Sid the Science Kid: Earth Day Fun. By Jennifer Frantz. Harper. $3.99.

Rio: Learning to Fly; Blu and Friends. Adapted by Catherine Hapka from a screenplay by Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones. Harper. $3.99 each.

Rio: Birds of a Feather. Adapted by Susan Korman from a screenplay by Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones. HarperFestival. $3.99.

Rio: Greetings from Rio! Adapted by Benjamin Harper from a screenplay by Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones. HarperFestival. $3.99.

Rio: The Movie Storybook. Adapted by Jodi Huelin from a screenplay by Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones. HarperFestival. $8.99.

Rio: The Junior Novel. Adapted by Lexa Hillyer from a screenplay by Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones. HarperFestival. $5.99.

Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile. By Gloria Houston. Illustrated by Susan Condie Lamb. Harper. $16.99.

     Do not envy those at publishing houses who must decide on the appropriate age range for a huge variety of books. Children learn to read at so many different ages, and become facile with words at such different times and in such different ways, that the task of deciding on the “right” age range for a particular book can never be more than educated guesswork. Here, starting with the youngest ages and moving up the chronological ladder, are some recent guesses.

     Ages 0-4: Board books are the norm for this age group, sometimes as distillations of longer works for older kids and sometimes as creations specifically for the very youngest children. Nosh, Schlep, Schluff falls into the latter category and – despite the idea that it is for everyone, not just Jewish families, because some Yiddish has made its way into everyday English – the reality is that Jewish parents and children are most likely to enjoy it. There is no “translation” between Yiddish and English – the careful writing of Laurel Snyder and amusing illustrations by Tiphanie Beeke are supposed to be enough to make the words’ meaning clear. They do this well enough, although not perfectly, since some Yiddish words really have penetrated English (klutz, nosh), while others remain more ethnic (bissel, schluff). The book is undeniably cute and undeniably offbeat, as board books go. It may not appeal to all families, but will be lots of fun for those who do take an interest in the subject.

     Ages 3-5. The “I Can Read!” series begins with books labeled “My First,” such as Biscuit and the Lost Teddy Bear. Biscuit, the dog hero of 14 previous books, here finds a lost teddy bear, and he and “his” little girl search for the toy’s home, eventually returning the teddy to a little boy who is crying in his stroller because of his loss. Very simple language, large type and repeated words (including many instances of “woof”) make the book charming, direct and easy to follow.

     Ages 3-7. Superheroes can be useful for getting kids involved in reading: if they already enjoy the characters’ adventures, they are likely to want more of them. Spider-Man and the Movie Mystery is a super-simple story of a special-effects designer who becomes a villain because his work is not appreciated. He kidnaps M.J., the girlfriend of Peter Parker (Spider-Man), so Spidey and the bad guy have to fight it out until Spidey can rescue her. Simply told, the story is puzzlingly illustrated: the characters do not look at all like the ones in Spider-Man comics or films, a fact that may disappoint young children hoping to duplicate their existing experiences with the characters. Parents should thumb through the book with Spidey fans before buying it.

     Ages 3-8. A book of poetry for kids fascinated by the lure and lore of baseball, This Is the Game provides verbal snapshots of the early days of the sport, when it was called “rounders,” then “town ball,” and eventually “base ball” (two words). Various scenes from both amateur and professional play are accompanied by straightforward rhymes: “These are the All-Stars, the best of the best –/ the players are lined up and put to the test,/ as legends are made in the afternoon sun/ with the Hall of Fame saving a place for each one.” The pictures here are a big attraction, portraying players and fans alike in close-ups that emphasize facial features and the expressions of those who work at or simply enjoy the game.

     Ages 4-7. Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter stories are a perennial favorite for this narrow age group. In Just a Little Luck, Little Critter finds a penny, which his friends say may be good or bad luck – and after first seeming good, his luck soon turns bad, so he throws the penny away. But he has bad luck anyway, for several days, until he goes to the State Fair with Grandpa and has a wonderful time – realizing that his luck is good after all. A thin story filled with typical scenes that this age group will recognize (dropping an ice-cream cone, getting sick on the day of a special class party) is complemented by Mayer’s immediately recognizable drawing style, to which fans of Little Critter will gravitate immediately.

     Ages 4-8. Another book in the “I Can Read!” series, Earth Day Fun features Sid the Science Kid, whose TV show is popular with this age group. This is a Level 1 book, identified as having “simple sentences for eager new readers.” The story involves Sid’s plan to plant a tree with his father for Earth Day – which gets Sid curious about just what dirt is. He asks his classmates, who talk about worms and rocks and “stuff…that is good for plants and trees.” The book includes simple suggestions for being environmentally responsible, such as recycling plastic and walking more places instead of using a car. The lesson, not the story, is the main point here, but kids who know the TV show will already be aware of that, and should enjoy teaching things to themselves.

     Ages 3-7 and 4-8: Still other “I Can Read!” books are designated Level 2 (“high-interest stories for developing readers”) but are still officially intended for ages 4-8. The reason is the great divergence of reading ability among kids in this age range. The books in this series may use familiar characters from TV or films, or introduce children to ones from new movies, as is the case with two based on the soon-to-be-released film Rio, which is about a rare macaw that cannot fly – and needs to learn how in order to escape from dastardly smugglers and find where he really belongs (which turns out to be in Rio de Janeiro). Amply illustrated with scenes from the film, both books draw on the movie’s basic story line, although in different ways: Learning to Fly clearly introduces the characters but does not come to a buttoned-up conclusion, while Blu and Friends starts right in with the story and moves along to the film’s expected happy ending. There are also books based on this movie for ages 3-7, and they are of two different types. The two HarperFestival volumes – Rio: Birds of a Feather and Rio: Greetings from Rio! – are packed with stills from the film and include just enough text to knit the pictures together. Their orientation is even more strongly visual than is that of the “I Can Read!” books. But Rio: The Movie Storybook is something different: a hardcover souvenir-style book that, although amply illustrated with movie scenes, is also filled with enough text to tell the entire story of the film. The words here are not significantly more difficult than those in the four softcover volumes, so the overall age range seems appropriate for all five of these movie tie-ins. In fact, although these are strictly books for kids who find they like the movie and want to re-live its story at home, the books can be a useful aid in reading improvement for children who find the film endlessly fascinating. There is also a full-fledged, 136-page Junior Novel presentation of the film available, with eight color pages of movie stills in the middle – the whole thing supposedly intended for ages 8-12. That is a stretch: the film is unlikely to be highly appealing to most preteens. And the Movie Storybook does a better job than the Junior Novel of telling what happens in the film in a way calculated to appeal to the movie’s most likely audience. The Junior Novel, in fact, represents a step backwards from publishers’ usual approach to books whose target age range reaches to first grade and beyond.

     Ages 6-9. The general assumption of publishers is that by age six – usually the age at which kids are in first grade – children are ready for more-complex stories. Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile is light-years beyond the other books here in topic, approach, story depth and illustration quality. This (++++) book is based on the true story of Dorothy Thomas, who operated a green van that brought books to rural residents during Gloria Houston’s childhood – Houston herself being one of those who benefited. The book is Houston’s tribute to the woman she calls Miss Dorothy, whose burial place is unknown, so there is “no stone with her name on it… Her memorial is the love of books she engendered in the lives of her patrons, young and old.” Houston’s book shows how Miss Dorothy did that: despite her dreams of becoming a librarian in a fine brick building in her Massachusetts hometown, Miss Dorothy ended up in North Carolina after marrying a man who wanted to move to a farm there. Unable to become a “real” librarian, she travels around in a green bookmobile lending books donated by townspeople – never attaining her original goal, but becoming a beloved figure in rural North Carolina, and strongly influencing the lives of many of the people there. A small story about an ordinary life that proved extraordinarily important to the lives of others, the book is lovingly illustrated by Susan Condie Lamb, whose pictures artfully show both the beauty and the remoteness of the areas Miss Dorothy served with her books. It is a fitting memorial to Dorothy Thomas, a celebration of the joys of reading, and a wonderful transitional work for kids ready to move beyond simple fare into books with considerably greater depth.