(+++) REVISITS

Odessa Again. By Dana Reinhardt. Illustrated by Susan Reagan. Wendy Lamb Books. $15.99.

Twerp. By Mark Goldblatt. Random House. $16.99.

Kevin Spencer 3: Crush. By Gary Paulsen. Yearling. $6.99.

Kevin Spencer 4: Vote. By Gary Paulsen. Wendy Lamb Books. $12.99.

     The saying is that you can’t go home again, but preteens and young teens can and do return to the past in a variety of different ways – taking readers with them – in these novels. Odessa Green-Light – yes, that is her name – really does return to the past in young-adult author Dana Reinhardt’s first book for ages 8-12. The basic plot here is identical to the basic plots of many other books for girls in this age group: Mom and Dad have split up, Odessa is unhappy about it, and she needs to adjust to her new life and cope with her annoying younger brother; but what she really wants to do is get her parents back together again. The basic story framework is so familiar that young readers might think they have read the book before, under some other title – except for the gimmick. That gimmick is time travel, of a specific and humorous sort. Odessa, brother Oliver and their mom have moved into a new house, and when Odessa gets angry and stomps on the attic floor, she falls through and lands in the same place – a day earlier. So now she has the chance to change and correct all sorts of things, big and little, hopefully culminating in the correction of the biggest thing of all: her parents’ divorce and her father’s upcoming remarriage. However, it turns out that there are restrictions on the time travel: Odessa initially goes back 24 hours, but when she reverses time again, it is for 23 hours, then 22, and so on, so she realizes she has only a limited number of chances to get done what she really wants to accomplish. Working toward that goal, she develops a GMOP (Grand Master Oliver Plan) that later changes to a GMOOP (Grand Master Oliver/Odessa Plan), eventually using her last jump back in time – a one-hour trip – to maneuver her mother into driving her and Oliver to her father’s marriage to his new girlfriend. By that time, Odessa knows just how to disrupt the ceremony and get her parents back together again; except that there is just enough reality in this frothy and unreal story so that her plans do not go as she wants them to, and everything is for the best because her magically boosted ideas go awry. Odessa Again is often silly and sometimes amusing, with all the characters exceedingly pleasant to each other (including the divorced parents), so it is more an exercise in escapism than anything else.

     Twerp is a much more serious book that involves a different sort of escape, or attempted escape, and a different sort of revisiting of the past. This is a novel about bullying – an increasingly common topic for preteen and young teenage readers – and is unusual for being told from the viewpoint of the bully, not the victim. Mark Goldblatt, like Reinhardt, here offers his first book for readers in this age group; and also like Reinhardt, Goldblatt creates a novel with a familiar story arc and one specific gimmick (hers is magic; his is the bully’s point of view). Twerp is told in the first person by Julian Twerski, who has just returned to school after a week-long suspension and walks right into an English assignment of doing a report on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. But his teacher, Mr. Selkirk, offers him an alternative: write about the occurrence that got him and some of his friends suspended and he can skip the Shakespeare essay. Julian promptly agrees, and starts writing about everything but the suspension-causing incident. Goldblatt’s idea here is to flesh Julian out as a character and provide insight into his personality and his motivation for doing what he did, whatever that turns out to be; but what Goldblatt actually produces is the story of a pretty ordinary sixth-grader who has done some mildly interesting things and some moderately silly ones, but who has nothing in his background or activities that would point toward the event that got him suspended – except maybe for his closeness with a specific group of friends, one of whom is more of a troublemaker than Julian himself is. So Julian writes about the love-letter incident in which he sent something on behalf of his best friend, and the whole thing backfired; and about why he and his friends call a lot where they hung out Ponzini; and about what the word “twerp,” which Julian uses to refer to himself, means. And it is only at the end of the book, finally, that Julian drags the story of the incident that led to his suspension out of himself – and a harrowing one it turns out to be, to such an extent that it is out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the book. The feel-good aftermath of the incident – or feel-reasonably-good, anyway – ends the book on a positive note, but some readers will likely consider themselves whipsawed by the very different focuses of Twerp between its opening and its conclusion.

     No such issues will affect readers of Gary Paulsen’s short books about Kevin Spencer: they are always light and amusing, and come and go so quickly that it is good to have a pair of them around rather than just one. So it is fortunate that a couple of them are available right now for anyone who wants to revisit the series, or visit it for the first time: the third, Crush, originally published last year, is now available in paperback, and there is a new, fourth book as well, called Vote. The first two books – Liar, Liar and Flat Broke – are moderately enjoyable as a double dose as well. They introduce Kevin, an eighth-grader whose talent for lying lands him in hot water as his lies continue to mount. In the first book, he tries to overcome his propensity for mistruths; in the second, needing money, he again finds himself in the midst of a series of misunderstandings. Crush brings romance into Kevin’s life, in the person of Tina Zabinski, whom Kevin plans to get as his girlfriend through science – since he knows that love is based on chemistry (well, some kind of chemistry). Paulsen’s subtitle for Crush pretty well sums it up: “The Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Love.” And the individual chapter titles move the story along just as quickly as the narrative does: “The Scientific Mind Embraces Experimental Difficulties,” “The Scientific Mind Studies Truth vs. Theories,” “The Scientific Mind Is Sometimes Clueless,” and so on. By the end of the book, Kevin is poised to have some enjoyable time with Tina despite all his earlier missteps and despite the lurking presence of a new kid, Cash Devine, whom Kevin sees as an inevitable rival. And then comes Vote, in which smooth-talking Cash is running for class president – abetted by his female opposite number and Kevin’s sort-of-friend, Katie Knowles – and Kevin, who at the start of this book has officially become Tina’s boyfriend, decides that the only way to keep his love life intact is to run for class president himself, and defeat Cash. This isn’t terribly logical, but logic is not a strong point of the Kevin Spencer books and is not intended to be a driving force. The whole point of Paulsen’s series is to have fun with a pleasant central character who has big ideas and big thoughts and who keeps messing things up but somehow always comes out all right in the end – not an original plot design for books for this age range, but a reliable one. The books’ subtitles and chapter titles all follow the same pattern, so it is only to be expected that Vote is subtitled “The Theory, Practice, and Destructive Properties of Politics,” and contains such chapters as “The True Politician Relishes the Opportunity to Switch Things Up” and “The True Politician Studies, Evaluates and Benefits from What Others Would Consider a Setback.” By the end of Vote, Kevin realizes that he didn’t have to do all the things he thought he had to do in order to keep Tina as his girlfriend, and he is all set for his next lighthearted adventure. Or two.

(++++) ALL THAT GLITTERS

Wagner: Das Rheingold. Tomasz Konieczny, Antonio Yang, Kor-Jan Dusseljee, Christian Elsner, Iris Vermillion, Ricarda Merbeth, Maria Radner, Günther Groissböck, Timo Riihonen, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Andreas Conrad, Julia Borchert, Katharina Kammerloher, Kismara Pessatti; Rundfunk-Sinfinieorchester Berlin conducted by Marek Janowski. PentaTone. $18.99 (2 SACDs).

     In his operetta Der Graf von Luxemburg, Franz Lehár beautifully sets, to a broad and erotically charged waltz tune, the words, schöne, goldene Traum – “beautiful, golden dream.” This is diametrically opposed to what Richard Wagner did previously, with equal beauty, far more drama and a very dark undercurrent, in Das Rheingold. The first opera of the Ring cycle and the one with the most brilliantly written libretto (which Wagner created after he had already finished the libretti for the other three operas), Das Rheingold is about all that is wrong with gold, all that it poisons and destroys, all the evil that the love and lust for it create – to the eventual destruction of even the gods themselves. Das Rheingold is, on the surface, about the renunciation of love to allow the forging of a ring of power – which, yes, became the inspiration for Tolkien’s “one ring to rule them all” and for innumerable lesser fantasies. But the lovelessness pervading this opera has infected the characters even before they get into overt disputes about the ring: when we first encounter Wotan, the primary protagonist of the opera, his wife, Fricka, calls him liebelosester (“loveless”) and liebeloser (“unloving”), although at this point it is Alberich, not Wotan, who has officially and dramatically renounced love in order to gain power. The subtleties of this libretto, from its use of alliteration to its pervasive irony, are well-nigh uncountable, and are coupled with a score so finely wrought that it really is necessary to sit through the whole two-and-a-half-hour opera from start to finish, without intermission, in order to absorb and marvel at its cumulative power.

     Marek Janowski is a superb Wagner conductor, and this start of his new Ring cycle – which will be releases 7-10 in PentaTone’s 10-Wagner-opera series marking the bicentennial of the composer’s birth – is simply splendid. Janowski makes some bold casting decisions that turn out brilliantly. Tomasz Konieczny has sung Alberich, Amfortas and the Dutchman – here he is cast as Wotan. Antonio Yang has performed as Alberich and Klingsor – here he is Donner. Kor-Jan Dusseljee has not sung with the Rundfunk-Sinfinieorchester Berlin before – now he is cast as Froh. Christian Elsner has sung Siegmund and, in an earlier PentaTone Wagner release, Parsifal – here he is Loge. Günther Groissböck is well-known as the Landgrave in Tannhäuser, has sung Fafner and Hunding, and was King Heinrich in the PentaTone Lohengrin – but is cast here as Fasolt. There are other unexpected casting decisions, too, and every one of them works out well, as if the singers’ sometimes-unfamiliar roles have led to a fresh consideration of Das Rheingold and the part that each character plays in it. Like all the releases in this PentaTone series, this one is from a live concert performance, and there is a dynamism and propulsiveness to the production that sweeps the home listener along as the audience at the Berlin Philharmonic must have been swept along in November 2012. Janowksi’s pacing seems perfect throughout, and so do the singers’ characterizations: the Rhinemaidens, for example (Julia Borchert, Katharina Kammerloher and Kismara Pessatt) have genuinely different personalities here as they tease and torment Alberich, instead of simply being distinguished by their vocal ranges. The personality clash between Groissböck’s Fasolt and Timo Riihonen’s Fafner is also made clear from the start, with the relative tenderness of Fasolt and the gruffness and barely suppressed rage of Fafner anticipating the brothers’ fatal fight over the ring. The underlying anger that turns Alberich from a creature of near-comic fun to a brutal bully is very well communicated by Jochen Schmeckenbecher. And the dire warnings of Erda (Maria Radner) are here delivered with a sense of caring and concern, not merely as portentous pronouncements from a being even older than the gods.

     The orchestra is as much a character in Das Rheingold and the rest of the Ring cycle as is any individual, and the Rundfunk-Sinfinieorchester Berlin is absolutely first-rate: nuanced, delicate, overwhelming, gentle, warm and biting by turns, with some elements that are startlingly effective – the racket of the anvils as Wotan and Loge enter Nibelheim is one sit-up-and-take-notice moment among many, with the excellent SACD sound a major plus. In fact, everything that Janowski and his forces do here is so good that the success brings extra attention to what is not done. The weaknesses here are all ones of omission: it would have been more effective to include a chorus to deliver the shrieks of fear of the victimized Nibelungs; the gods’ cruel end-of-opera laughter at the cries of the Rhinemaidens is not included, even though the recording does make the nixies’ beseeching and warning sound as if it comes from deep below the bridge to Valhalla; there is no sound of the giants hammering stakes into the ground to take the measure of the gold they will receive in lieu of Freia; and there are several places where Wagner calls for a character to laugh or make a sound of some sort that are ignored. The omissions are understandable in the context of a concert performance, but they are nevertheless unfortunate, because Das Rheingold is so carefully put together in terms of text, music and staging specifics that even an unstaged performance should try to pay some attention to Wagner’s very clear intentions and instructions.

     If there are some things that this Das Rheingold does not have, though, there are so many that it does have that it can fairly be labeled a rousing success and, indeed, a rousing performance. It was many years after the Ring that Lehár wrote of the beauty of a golden dream – but to Wagner, the Ring is the tale of a schrecklich, goldene Traum, a gold-pervaded dream that is frightening, not beautiful, and indeed less Traum than Schreckgespenst, nightmare. Janowksi’s remarkably perceptive performance of Das Rheingold manages to convey the manifest and manifold beauties of the music while making it clear, from the very start of this tetralogy of greed and doom, that even the most powerful forces and characters will become victims of their own deep-seated misunderstandings and failings.

(++++) SYMPHONIC SUBTLETIES

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad.” Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Naxos. $9.99.

Bruckner: Symphony No. 2. Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Marek Janowski. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

Mahler: Symphony No. 1, with “Blumine” movement. London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. LPO. $16.99.

     A conductor who can make Shostakovich’s vast, vulgar Seventh Symphony as moving and impressive as Vasily Petrenko makes it has an understanding of this music at the absolutely highest level. Petrenko, whose ongoing Shostakovich cycle for Naxos has been consistently excellent, here surpasses even his own high standards by making this stepchild of Shostakovich’s maturity rise above the very specific occasion for which it was written – an occasion, the siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), that catapulted the work into international wartime prominence despite its manifest musical shortcomings. What a performance this is! The deliberately trivial first-movement theme representing the Nazi invasion, repeated and repeated for a full 11 straight minutes in the midst of a movement that lasts nearly half an hour, here makes absolutely perfect sense: Petrenko starts the theme so softly and distantly that it scarcely seems to be there at all, growing its power very gradually as it moves among sections of the orchestra, increasing its grotesquerie with such subtlety and care that it is impossible to say just when the silly little theme becomes genuinely threatening, even overpowering – although that is certainly what happens. Petrenko manages to make the whole symphony cohesive, which is a near impossibility. The second movement, an intermezzo rather than the usual Shostakovich scherzo, here offers respite but never full relaxation after the depredations of the first, while the third has warmth and emotional depth far beyond what it usually achieves in performance. The fact that the first three movements all end softly makes perfect sense here, as if everything fades out, no matter what has come before and no matter what listeners have experienced. This beautifully sets the stage for the triumphalism of the finale – and although Petrenko cannot make this movement stronger than it is (it is the weakest and most surface-level of the four), he attacks it with vigor and contrasts its insistent positivism with the more-nuanced and darker elements of the first three movements. This is a very expansive reading of the symphony – it barely fits on a single CD – and is about as elegantly paced and structured a performance as this work is likely to receive. And Petrenko here has the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra sounding, if not opulently rich like a great Russian orchestra, so full and warm that it reflects all the grandeur of Shostakovich’s vision while downplaying the symphony’s ragged and overdone elements.

     Marek Janowski has a similarly subtle approach to Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2, heard here in the new and very fine William Carragan edition of the 1877 version. Janowski plays the symphony somewhat against its type: in its first (1871-72) version, it was nicknamed “symphony of pauses” because of the many places where Bruckner stopped the music to provide a contrast of silence with his otherwise forceful instrumentation; and while many of the pauses disappeared in this later version, enough remained so that the work can sometimes sound halting. Not so under Janowski, who keeps it moving so strongly that when he does choose to emphasize a pause, the result is all the more striking. Also very effective, and quite surprising, is Janowski’s approach to the work’s third and fourth movements. The third is very slow, scarcely deserving of its designation as a scherzo and, indeed, sounding more akin to a Shostakovich intermezzo like that of the “Leningrad” Symphony than like a typical dancelike or lumbering ländler-influenced piece by Bruckner. What Janowski does here takes some getting used to – and turns out to make perfect sense by the time the movement’s Trio appears, marked Gleiches Tempo (“same tempo”). Now Janowski’s pacing works wonderfully, reflecting the same thoughtfulness and elegance of balance that he and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande bring to the symphony’s first two movements. But what becomes a real surprise is what happens at the conclusion of the scherzo: the finale is not just Mehr schnell, as marked, but very fast, so speedy that this very Schubertian symphony sounds as if it is about to go off-track, with neither lyricism nor expansiveness. But Janowski knows exactly what he is doing here as elsewhere, using the intensity of the finale’s opening to establish very pointed contrasts within the movement and to help build the finale, and the symphony as a whole, to a particularly big and strong conclusion that knits the whole work together considerably more tightly than is usual in this symphony. Janowski’s Bruckner cycle for PentaTone is almost complete – only the Fourth remains to be released – and has turned out to be a very thoughtful sequence, in which the conductor takes some unusual approaches that turn out very well indeed.

     Vladimir Jurowski’s Mahler First, a live LPO recording from December 2010, is unusual as well, since it includes the short “Blumine” movement that Mahler originally placed second in this symphony but soon dropped to create the four-movement work that is now so well-known. The occasional recordings containing “Blumine” help show why Mahler excised the movement: it is of considerably lighter weight than the other four and not especially symphonic in character. But a sensitively inclusive reading like Jurowski’s also shows why “Blumine” does belong in the symphony, and why the five-movement structure can be as valid as the four-movement one: “Blumine” provides respite after the broad and intense first movement (as similar movements do in the Second and Third Symphonies), and the inclusion of “Blumine” makes the sprawling finale more cohesive, because that movement contains “Blumine” echoes that Mahler did not remove when he took out the movement itself. Listeners will have differing opinions on whether the symphony “works” better with or without “Blumine,” but even those who prefer the four-movement version will find Jurowski’s treatment with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to be powerful, involving, well-paced and highly attentive to detail. Jurowski emphasizes the singing qualities that permeate the symphony, a number of whose themes come from Mahler’s earlier song cycles, and he balances the beauties of the work very well against its grotesque and intense elements. The approach works especially well in the episodic finale, which moves wavelike through an ebb and flow that eventually produce a highly forceful and thoroughly satisfying conclusion. Like the previous LPO release of Mahler with Jurowski and the London Philharmonic – that was Symphony No. 2, the “Resurrection” – this recording of the First has considerable drama and a fine sense of the music’s scope, coupled with first-rate orchestral playing. It is worth having not only because it contains “Blumine” but also because it is simply, by any standard, a very fine performance of the symphony.

(++++) OPERATIC ODDITIES

Offenbach au Menu. Le Quatuor Gastronomique (Sylvie Bertho, soprano; Marie-Thérèse Keller, mezzo-soprano; Pierre Catala, tenor; Jean-Marc Salzmann, baritone); Mary Dibbern, piano. Maguelone. $16.99.

Rimsky-Korsakov: Kashchey the Immortal. Alexander Arkhipov, Irina Zhurina, Nina Terentieva, Vladislav Verestnikov, Vladimir Matorin; Yurlov Academic Choir and Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by Andrey Chistiakov. Brilliant Classics. $7.99.

Franz Ignaz Danzi: Der Berggeist. Colin Balzer, Daniel Ochoa, Sophie Harmsen, Sarah Wegener, Christian Immler, Tilman Lichdi, Patrick Pobeschin, Robert Buckland, Philip Niederberger, Vincent Frisch, Bernd Schmitt; Kammerchor Stuttgart and Hofkapelle Stuttgart conducted by Frieder Bernius. Carus. $18.99.

     It is not difficult to move off the beaten path in the world of opera, since there are so many non-canonic works just waiting to be explored. But there are many ways to look into the less-known repertoire. A particularly clever one is in evidence on a Maguelone CD called Offenbach au Menu, which collects more than two dozen food-related ditties from Offenbach’s less-known works and presents them in the context of an imagined multi-course (and very French) supper, complete with clinking glasses, brief verbal byplay between musical courses, and a meal divided among Les Pátés, La Soupe, Les Plats, Les Desserts and Les Fruits, plus an interval here and there. The whole presentation is extremely clever, right down to the way the texts are presented: they are in a PDF file that can be opened on computer and read while the CD’s musical portion is being played elsewhere. It is a fair bet that very few listeners will be familiar with Wittington et son chat, Croquefer, Le Chanson de Fortunio, M. et Mme. Denis, Pomme d’Api or most of the other works from which these musical trifles are taken, although here and there a piece comes from a somewhat better-known operetta such as Geneviève de Brabant or La Fille du Tambour-Major. The sources do not much matter, though. What is important – to the extent that anything is important in this light and frothy production – is discovering that Offenbach really did write about food and drink of all sorts, and almost always in a forthrightly amusing way, unfettered by his famous swipes at bureaucracy and pretension. In fact, only one piece here, “L’échaudé Favart” from Madame Favart, contains a touch of Offenbachian ego-deflation, mentioning the very light, hollow cake of the title and commenting that many people in France are just like it: swollen with air and full of self-importance. The rest of the songs are filled only with typical Offenbach musical touches, such as nonsense syllables, repeated words and repeated parts of words (first “jambon,” ham, and then repeated “jam-jam-jam” and “bon-bon-bon,” for example). The gustatory topics range from cabbage soup to crèpes and include, of course, wine – and also water and milk. The singers and pianist all seem to be enjoying themselves thoroughly from start to finish, whether performing straightforwardly or slurring their words after a bit too much imbibing (in a drinking song from Le Château à Toto). Offenbach wrote about 100 stage works of all types and sizes, of which very, very few are well-known nowadays. Having the chance to encounter excerpts from a heaping helping of them in Offenbach au Menu is an experience that deserves to be called delicious.

     At the opposite extreme from the light and airy Offenbach concoction is the dour one-act Rimsky-Korsakov opera, Kashchey the Immortal. The composer called this 1902 work in three tableaux an “autumnal parable” and based its libretto, which he wrote himself, on the same legend that Stravinsky would use for The Firebird a few years later. The harmonies and searching chromaticism of this opera are typical of late Rimsky-Korsakov, and there are distinct Wagnerian elements in it as well: Kashchey is sung by a tenor in a deliberately shrill, unpleasant voice like that of Wagner’s Mime, and the sword-sharpening scene of Kashchey’s daughter, Kashcheyevna, owes something to Siegfried’s sword-forging. But the straightforward fairy-tale plot of Kashchey the Immortal is clearly reflective of the old stories and legends to which Rimsky-Korsakov was always attracted: Kashchey can die only if his hard-hearted daughter sheds a tear that contains the sinister sorcerer’s death, and Kashcheyevna has never cried. But she falls in love with a knight who has come to rescue a princess held captive by Kashchey, and the princess takes pity on Kashcheyevna, who is so moved by the gesture that she cries and is turned into a weeping willow – and Kashchey dies. There is a fifth character here in addition to princess and knight, sorcerer and daughter: the Storm Knight, a sort of force of nature held captive by Kashchey and forced to do his bidding as a messenger, but at the end welcoming the sun back to Kashchey’s dark domain. Choral parts are minimal – the chorus produces a snowstorm at the end of the first tableau that is nothing like the lighthearted one in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and sings of life and love at the end of the opera, but remains offstage throughout. The orchestration is lush and effective; a number of the melodies, such as the duets of princess and knight and knight and Kashcheyevna, are as lovely as any vocal music Rimsky-Korsakov wrote; and there are a few exceptional touches, including Kashcheyevna’s sword-sharpening song and the princess’ berceuse: forced to sing a lullaby for Kashchey, she produces one that includes wishes for his death and eternal pain. The Brilliant Classics CD of the opera – a 1991 recording – is a very high-quality one and an exceptional bargain as well. The singing is quite fine, the pacing feels just right for the story, and the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra under Andrey Chistiakov plays admirably from start to finish. The CD’s booklet includes not only a plot summary but also an interesting discussion of public response to the opera in late Czarist times, when there was considerable ferment and violence in Russia. Listeners who want the libretto will find the words – albeit in English only – at the Brilliant Classics Web site (they are not as easy to locate as they could be, but they are there). Kashchey the Immortal is an impressive rediscovery that works equally well as fairy tale or as allegory, and contains a considerable amount of very moving music.

     Der Berggeist is a rediscovery not only of a forgotten opera but also of a largely forgotten composer, Franz Ignaz Danzi (1763-1826). Danzi was a fine cellist and conductor, knew and admired Mozart, and was instrumental in promoting the music of Carl Maria von Weber. But his woodwind quintets constitute almost the only music by him that is still occasionally performed; the world première recording of Der Berggeist shows Danzi in a light not hitherto known. This CD from Carus is from a live April 2012 performance, with a few cuts apparently made so the opera would fit on a single disc (an unfortunate decision, along with Carus’ choice to provide a libretto only in German). The opera’s title refers to a well-known mountain spirit called Rubezähl, about whom both Danzi and Weber created stage works: Weber in 1805 (although his work was never performed and only three numbers from it survive) and Danzi with Der Berggeist in 1813. Danzi’s opera, determinedly Classical in musical approach, contains many elements that modern listeners will recognize as Romantic – he actually called it a Romantische Oper, by no means a common designation in 1813. The parallels and conflicts between the human and supernatural world are the core of the work, in which Rubezähl can only awaken his consort Erli from a century of magical sleep through the intercession of a pure human virgin – Anne, whose role in the Rubezähl situation understandably conflicts with her relationship with her betrothed, Heinrich. Some family conflicts on the human side contribute to the drama. The opera combines effective elements, such as the strength of the minor-key start of the opening scene, with less-successful ones, such as the rapid switch of that scene to a straightforward narration by Rubezähl; the effect, here and elsewhere, is of a work that starts and stops intermittently rather than one that progresses throughout. Nevertheless, the contrasts between the music for the humans and the gnomes over whom Rubezähl rules is frequently very well done, with the woodwind use for the human choruses brightening their passages considerably. Danzi proves adept in all the operatic forms of his time: the first act, for instance, contains a septet and a particularly impressive accompanied recitative for Anne, followed by an aria; while the second act includes two terzetts. The Stuttgart performers – soloists, chorus and orchestra – are all very fine, especially Colin Balzer as Rubezähl and Sarah Wegener as Anne.  The musical is a throwback to Mozart, and clearly intentionally so, which makes it very pleasant to hear but not very distinguished, certainly in light of listeners’ retrospective knowledge of the musical developments of the early 19^th century. Danzi was too conservative in Der Berggeist for the work to be more than a curiosity. But it is a very well-constructed curiosity; and it contains a few hints, although only a few, of the flowering of German Romanticism that would soon be ushered in by Weber and, after him, developed by Marschner, in a line that would lead directly to Wagner.

(++++) CLEVER SOLUTIONS

Giant Dance Party. By Betsy Bird. Illustrated by Brandon Dorman. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $17.99.

Tyler Makes Spaghetti. By Tyler Florence. Illustrated by Craig Frazier. Harper. $17.99.

Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach. Created by James Dean. Harper. $16.99.

How Will I Get to School This Year? By Jerry Pallotta. Illustrations by David Biedrzycki. Scholastic. $6.99.

     How do you use five huge, fluffy, blue giants to solve a stage-fright problem? That is the rather outré question posed, although not in exactly those words, by Betsy Bird in Giant Dance Party, a book that combines outright silliness with a perfectly reasonable way to handle a common childhood fear (and an adult one, too, for that matter). The book’s protagonist, charmingly big-eyed Lexy (drawn delightfully by Brandon Dorman), quits ballet even though she lives to dance – because no matter how good her dancing is at home and with her family, she freezes during recitals and cannot dance a single step. She doesn’t really want to stop dancing, though, so she comes up with the idea of becoming a dance teacher, which will let her show students all the right moves and then have them put on the recital. Enthusiastic Lexy puts up posters all around the neighborhood, offering free dance lessons, but absolutely nobody shows up – until, just when she has given up altogether, five gigantic fluffy blue horned and pig-nosed monsters come to Lexy’s house and insist on being taught to dance. Lexy tries to shoo them away, but they refuse to budge, so she finally agrees to teach them – giving each of the five (Gully, Neesha, MacDuff, Molina and Polly) a different dance to learn. It turns out that everything goes beautifully, so well that Lexy gets the giants ready for their very own recital, and of course everybody in town shows up for it – who wouldn’t want to see giants dance? But it turns out that, well, giants get stage fright, too. And now what? The answer, of course, is that Lexy has to overcome her own fears and get up there on stage, encouraging her friends the giants to perform by doing her own dancing – which leads to a thoroughly amusing performance by everyone, complete with the audience throwing bouquets of flowers. Lexy’s “fears were long gone” by the end of the recital, Bird writes, or at least these fears – she does have some others. But Dorman’s end-of-book illustration hints slyly that there just may be other magical solutions in store for Lexy – with the book itself being pretty darned magical on its own.

     The real-life problem in Tyler Makes Spaghetti is an altogether milder one – how do you make spaghetti and meatballs? But Tyler Florence takes a whole book to present the recipe – because it is not just the recipe. What is clever here is the way Florence, a chef who appears on the Food Network, shows the stages of spaghetti-and-meatball preparation and then traces the ingredients back to their origin, so young readers learn not only how to make something that tastes good but also where the food comes from. Craig Frazier’s cartoon-like illustrations help propel the story along, especially when showing Tofu, the dog belonging to the book’s protagonist (who is named, yes, Tyler), getting a bit too involved in the whole process. There is information here that even some adults may not know – for instance, that the full name of Parmesan cheese is actually Parmigiano-Reggiano, and that some towns that press olives to extract olive oil still use old-fashioned giant stone wheels to do the job. The chef in the book, who is simply called Chef, takes young Tyler through each recipe ingredient, which means Chef holds his nose when handling raw onions and garlic: “What’s so stinky here?” Tyler wants to know. Chef, of course, quickly points out that “chopped up and cooked in olive oil, they taste sweet and delicious.” Eventually Tyler (the character) learns enough so that Tyler (the author) has him make dinner for his (the character’s) family, and Chef himself shows up and pronounces the food “magnifico.” Families that want to try out the recipe on their own get it in full in the back of the book, along with a few facts that didn’t quite fit into the narrative – for instance, that tomatoes are fruits rather than vegetables and that onions and garlic are from the lilac family of plants. Tyler Makes Spaghetti is, well, tasty, a piquant mixture of amusing and informative ingredients.

     Heat is necessary for making spaghetti and meatballs, but there comes a time when there is somewhat too much of it – for instance, when Pete the Cat goes to the beach. Pete at the Beach is in the earliest segment of the “I Can Read!” series, which is called “My First” and is designed for emergent readers. So the story is very simple and presented in large type, with only a few words per page. That works out just fine for this tale of a pleasant beach day for Pete, his mom and his brother, Bob, with Pete being afraid of the water while Bob revels in it and goes surfing. The issue here is getting Pete into the water despite his fear, and the clever answer involves doing things gradually: Pete gets his feet wet, and that feels good, but the rest of him is still hot, so he goes in deeper, and deeper still; and by the end of the book, he and Bob are both having an equal amount of fun on their surfboards. A pleasant summertime treat that families may want to take along to the beach just in case a younger child really does turn out to be afraid of the water, Pete at the Beach uses James Dean’s popular character well, even though the story and interior art were created by unnamed adapters rather than by Dean himself.

     The animal approach – or rather animals approach – is more grandiose in How Will I Get to School This Year? Even kids who do not want to think too much about school during the summer will enjoy Jerry Pallotta’s story, originally published in 2011 and now available in paperback. The girl narrator remembers how much she disliked the “smelly school bus” last year and starts thinking about alternative forms of transportation – some of which turn out to be a giant mosquito, a bald eagle, “a zillion butterflies” or a pair of grizzly bears. The girl’s expressions change from creature to creature, and so do those of her schoolmates, who are sometimes intrigued, sometimes horrified and sometimes out-and-out scared (well, that mosquito, for one, does look scary, as drawn by David Biedrzycki). Eventually, the girl realizes that even though it would be a lot of fun to travel to school with the help of creatures large or small, “it’s more fun when I go with my friends,” so she might as well take the school bus after all. The book’s concluding lines – “I love school. I can’t wait to go back.” – may not appeal to all young readers in the early days of summer, but the gentle absurdity of the story and illustrations will become more attractive as the resumption of school gets closer and as parents look for clever ways to redirect children’s attention to the events of the fall.

(++++) DOING WHAT YOU LOVE

 

Eruption! Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives. By Elizabeth Rusch. Photographs by Tom Uhlman. Houghton Mifflin. $18.99.

Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life. By Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica. Viking. $27.95.

     One of the most fascinating and dramatic entries in the excellent “Scientists in the Field” series, Eruption! is the story of the world’s only international volcano crisis team, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). Founded the year after the disastrous 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia killed more than 23,000 people, VDAP – a group of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey – has studied volcanoes, refining measurement and predictive techniques and responding to calls for help from anywhere in the world. Elizabeth Rusch’s story of these volcanologists is filled with all the drama of a novel: “‘LET’S GO!’ Rick hollered from upstairs. Geez, Andy thought. What’s up with him? Rick raced down the stairs, taking two at a time, just as Andy opened the front door. A huge black ash column pumped out of the volcano, filling the sky. ‘OH MY GOD!’ Andy shouted. The column rose up higher and higher. Rick and Andy jumped into their truck and raced off.” Not everything is this dramatic, but much of this book is. The scientists clearly revel in what they are doing – and, of necessity, take it extremely seriously even when they make lighthearted remarks, since volcanic eruptions can be devastating and remain only imperfectly predictable. That fact makes the successes of VDAP all the more notable – for example, the evacuation of Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in June 1991, just days before Mount Pinatubo exploded in the second-largest eruption of the 20^th century. However brilliant, involved and committed these scientists are, they are well aware that they could face death anytime: “This time the scientists knew they had no time to evacuate. They raced for the back of the building, the farthest they could get from the erupting monster. They waited, panting, sweating. Andy could stand it no longer. He went back to the front door. All he saw was black – complete black – from the rain, the dark clouds, the ash fall. The sound was terrifying – like a wall of rock a mile high racing down at breakneck speeds. I could die, Andy thought. All my friends could die.”

     Balancing these scenes of high drama with informational segments is not easy, but Rusch does so very effectively, for example explaining the “Ring of Fire” around the Pacific Plate by comparing Earth’s structure to peanut M&M candies: “The crust, like the crunchy candy coating of the M&M, is a shell of solid rock. The mantle is like the soft chocolate, with rock so hot that it melts into thick paste. The core is like the peanut, solid metal in the center of the earth. …[But] the crust is not all in one piece. It’s broken up into huge slabs, called plates, that cover the planet like a jigsaw puzzle.” And while Rusch is explaining, narrating and portraying, readers will be captured and captivated by Tom Uhlman’s spectacular photos, which not only show the scientists at work and the volcanoes looming picturesquely or menacingly above nearby settlements but also focus on the people who live in volcanoes’ shadows – and the astonishing sights during actual eruptions. Photos of barely visible, motorcycle-riding residents during an ash storm, and of a lone vehicle fleeing on a dirt road as gigantic pyroclastic flows close in on it, are unforgettable. So are pictures of the devastation left behind after eruptions, with a photo of two children holding hands at the graves of volcano victims being the most affecting of all. Eruption! is an amazing book on many levels, not the least of which is the realization that the scientists traveling the world from danger to danger, taking samples, doing laboratory work and reading instruments, give every impression of being exactly where they want to be, doing exactly what they want to do – being perfectly in their element.

     Not many people in everyday 21^st-century life feel their lives are so in tune with what matters most deeply to them, and that is the situation addressed by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica in The Element and its just-released successor, Finding Your Element. There is not really anything very new in what Robinson and Aronica say – it is a longstanding cliché that the best work you can have is a job where you are paid for doing what you would gladly do for free, and the whole capital-E “Element” notion simply expands on that. What the authors do is dress it up in research, analysis and self-help terminology. Their “Element” structure is basically a version of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, which they mention in Finding Your Element as a foundation: “Whatever your circumstances may be, in many ways finding your Element is, above anything else, about finding meaning and purpose in your life.” But of course that single observation is not enough to make a whole book (or two books), so what Robinson and Aronica do is flesh it out with ideas, questions, and anecdotes about people who discovered their Element either by searching actively for it or by stumbling upon it and realizing that it was what they were “meant to do.” The questions in Finding Your Element are the main thing Robinson and Aronica have to offer. “Is there something you do that consistently elevates your spirits? When do you experience stretches of real joy?” “How much do you want to be in your Element? How hard are you willing to work to get there?” “What are the biggest hurdles? What would it take to get over them?” “What sorts of people do you associate with your Element? Do they interest and attract you or not? Do you know why?” And so on and so forth. Coupling these questions with comments such as, “You may not know what all your aptitudes are because you may never have called on some of them,” Robinson and Aronica urge readers to think through – and feel through – their interests, abilities, experiences, knowledge and passions to come up with whatever is most meaningful to them, then take steps to synchronize their lives and Elements. They provide a series of exercises that range from the wholly mundane (develop an action plan) to the somewhat intriguing (write a letter to an imaginary supporter of your future plans, describing your interests and personal qualities and trying “to see yourself fresh as someone else might”). The eventual objective of finding your Element is neatly summed up in the title of the book’s final chapter, “Living a Life of Passion and Purpose.”

     Finding Your Element is a (+++) book that will appeal to the many people who consider themselves unfulfilled, out of sync with what they really want in life – people who have likely bought similar books before this one and will likely buy others afterwards. The ultimate problem with the book is not its comparatively uninventive premise but its unwillingness to tackle elements of the real world, even when it acknowledges them. For example, Robinson and Aronica cite a Gallup survey of people in more than 150 countries that breaks down well-being into five broad categories: career, social, financial, physical and community. They mention Gallup’s conclusion that 66% of people surveyed were doing well in at least one area, but only 7% were doing well in all of them (a finding that should not have been a big surprise to anyone). But although Robinson and Aronica pay lip service to “balance and fulfillment across each of these areas,” Finding Your Element does not take the social/familial ones into account except in the sense that some people may believe their Element is, say, being a parent. There is an underlying selfishness to the whole Element concept that is belied by the authors’ mentions of Gandhi and others whose Element involved reaching out and helping others. Self-fulfillment need not come at others’ expense, and Robinson and Aronica do not say that it should; but most people do indeed live within the five Gallup categories (or within Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which the authors never mention). There is nothing here to connect one’s Element with the circumstances of one’s everyday life as they involve relationships with other people – except coincidentally, as in the case of the VDAP volcanologists, so clearly in their Element with their fellow highly committed scientists.

(+++) CHARACTER CONTINUATIONS

Alice-Miranda 3: Alice-Miranda Takes the Stage. By Jacqueline Harvey. Delacorte Press. $14.99.

Magical Mix-Ups #3: Grasshopper Magic. By Lynne Jonell. Illustrated by Brandon Dorman. Random House. $12.99.

Ballpark Mysteries 7: The San Francisco Splash. By David A. Kelly. Illustrated by Mark Meyers. Random House. $4.99.

     Once authors of books for ages 6-10 hit their stride with characters and, presumably, readers, it becomes relatively simple to produce new, assembly-line stories with similar plots and similar character focus. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, because readers in this age group genuinely enjoy revisiting familiar territory and interacting again and again with characters whom they have come to know and like. In fact, the phenomenon is scarcely confined to this age range – think about the absolutely astonishing success of the Harry Potter books or the popularity of the many lengthy fantasy, romance, adventure and mystery series designed for adults. And when the characters themselves are whimsical and charming – as in the case of Jacqueline Harvey’s Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones, for instance – who can blame young readers for wanting more of them? The first Alice-Miranda book featured her introduction to Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies and established Harvey’s fondness for long and very upper-crust names. The second was a vacation book showing Alice-Miranda in a different environment, where she was as perky and persistently upbeat as ever. The third, Alice-Miranda Takes the Stage, has her back at school and juggling a host of issues with her now-expected perpetual good humor and positive attitude. One thing going on here is the arrival of an unpleasant new girl named Sloan Sykes, whose rudeness and impatience conceal family unhappiness involving her status-seeking, pushy, dishonest mother and her blue-collar father: “Life simply wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t her mother have married someone like [movie star] Lawrence Ridley instead of her loser vacuum-cleaner salesman father? Sloane dreaded the other girls finding out about that. She’d never live it down.” So Sloane puts on airs about the people she knows and the things she knows how to do, and even though Alice-Miranda is quite well aware that Sloane is twisting the truth into unrecognizable shapes, she is too good-hearted to do anything but smooth things over. Thus, when Sloane gets angry at Alice-Miranda for not mentioning something that Alice-Miranda did in fact mention (“I’d have remembered that,” says Sloane), Alice-Miranda offers the mild response, “Well, I thought I did [mention it], but perhaps I didn’t.” Sloane lies about knowing people, upsetting Alice-Miranda’s friend Millie, and Alice-Miranda just says, “Give her a chance, Millie. …She’s just trying to fit in.” And so on. Between the Sloane issues and the machinations of Sloane’s mother, there are problems aplenty here, and they all eventually tie into the school play that gives the book its focus. The play is “Snow White,” with Alice-Miranda typecast in the title role and Sloane equally typecast as the wicked queen. To complicate matters further, Sloane’s brother attends the boys’ boarding school that is jointly involved in the play (it is called “Fayle School for Boys,” and yes, that turns out to be important); and he is cast as the prince. Everything eventually works out just fine, of course, thanks to Alice-Miranda, of course, and of course readers get treated along the way to plenty of upper-crust boarding-school elements, such as a “maths lesson” teacher named “Professor Pluss” who opens class by saying, “Greetings and salutations, lads.” Despite the boy characters, this and the other Alice-Miranda books will mostly be fun for girls who want some insight into how the wealthy and well-connected live – at least those in a fictional world.

     But at least Harvey’s books have the veneer of reality about them. It is, by design, much less present in Lynne Jonell’s Magical Mix-Ups series, whose first two entries involved an enchanted hamster and a mystic lawn mower (yes, lawn mower). The third returns to the magical-living-things realm with a story in which Abner Willow needs bravery lessons from his sister Tate, so he will not be too frightened to give a speech to the entire town. The first lesson Tate comes up with is to have Abner eat a roasted grasshopper – but, see, the Willows’ house is built over a sort of magical something-or-other, which means the grasshopper has been soaking up magic for a long time before becoming food, which means that when Abner eats it, he, well, goes “sproing” a lot, and so does Tate (who has also partaken of a magical-grasshopper snack). There is nothing scary about this – the point of this series is that the kids genuinely enjoy the magic they encounter, although they do worry about adults finding out, so they keep things secret. In this case, “Abner laughed out loud as the air whistled past his ears. If he had to be a grasshopper boy, he might as well enjoy it.”  Eventually the grasshopper magic, which ends up affecting other kids, too, helps Abner become a hero, but he knows that enough is enough, so “he bounced half the night, until the grasshopper magic was all used up,” and by then he realizes that making his speech (a scene that is not included in the book – or needed) will not be very terrifying after all.

     Nor is there anything particularly scary in the Ballpark Mysteries series, where baseball and the individual major-league stadiums are of greater interest than protagonists Mike and Kate. In fact, the stadiums have more character than the characters, but fans of the series will at least know what to expect from the latest book, The San Francisco Splash. What happens is that a hit clears the walls of the San Francisco ballpark and the baseball lands in the water – and then a former ballplayer also ends up in the water after falling out of a boat. Rescued, he finds that his World Series ring is gone. There would seem to be little mystery about where it is – in the water – but David A. Kelly arranges things so that Ray Reynolds, the former player, becomes convinced that his old-time rival, Lenny Littleton, took the ring. Kate and Mike soon figure out how to prove that Lenny is not guilty, but then the question is what actually did happen to the ring – and the kids soon figure that out, too, and manage to recover the ring by making a well-timed trip to Alcatraz Island. Like the other Baseball Mysteries books, this one includes not only scenes from the geographic area but also information about the team and its history. The plot is mild and the mystery not really very mysterious, but it is the color of the settings that most readers of this easy-to-read series will enjoy – provided, of course, that they are enthusiastic baseball fans.

(+++) FROM LIZARDS TO THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories. By Robert Craft. Naxos Books. $34.98.

     The title of this review encompasses not only the actual arc of Robert Craft’s latest book about Igor Stravinsky but also, metaphorically, the wide-ranging nature of Craft’s writing – here and elsewhere – and of Stravinsky’s own life. Be prepared to span the world, and not just the musical world, with Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories.

     A book like this is, by definition, for a limited audience, a subset within the subset of people interested in classical music and classical composers. Yet for that audience, this is an enormously rich work, filled – like so much of Craft’s writing – with a mixture of erudition, humor, reminiscence and first-person knowledge of the people and events discussed. The cover of this Naxos Books volume shows Craft and Stravinsky walking together in Italy, on a walkway behind which ancient ruins stand in picturesque grandeur, looking down at their feet to avoid the lizards along the path. By the book’s conclusion – a fascinating section filled with short, pointed discussions of Stravinsky’s relationships with people from Puccini to Mussolini – Craft is writing about physicist Edwin Hubble, the eponymous telescope, and the findings of the Large Hadron Collider.

     But it is not just the future as it relates to Stravinsky that fascinates Craft. It is also the past, both the musical past and Craft’s own past multi-decade relationship with the composer. For example, in discussing Monumentum Pro Gesualdo, which Stravinsky secretly orchestrated and whose original manuscript he then inscribed to Craft in 1960, Craft segues from the music into information on the life of the notorious 16^th-century murderer and far-ahead-of-his-time composer: “He married his beautiful twenty-year-old cousin Maria d’Avalos, whose notorious infidelities soon compelled Don Carlo to commit uxoricide in order to restore his honor. …As these were crimes of honour, the cuckold was not prosecuted. …[Later, his second wife, Leonora] discovered that his castle was also the residence of his favourite concubine, who seems to have been a witch. The elixir she prepared for the prince was a mix of her own menses and his semen (a less digestible cocktail, one supposes, than Donizetti’s in L’elisir d’amore). Leonora also became aware that the genius composer she had married was an algolagniac…”  This is a fair sample of the way Craft drifts effortlessly into and out of musical references and historical ones, not shrinking from matters that some would deem tasteless – and in what is ostensibly a book about classical music, no less – and seamlessly showing his own erudition as if in passing (“algolagniac” rather than “sadomasochist”).

     When Craft does delve into the specifics of Stravinsky’s life and music, he does so forthrightly and with rather less hagiography than might be expected – although certainly with some: “In spite of his late start as a composer, the speed and extent of Stravinsky’s development from age twenty-seven to twenty-nine, from The Firebird to The Rite of Spring, are without precedent or succession in the history of music.” Craft’s volubility, the clear joy he takes in being a raconteur, emerges everywhere in Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories, a book that includes very-well-known episodes in the composer’s life as well as less-familiar ones. In the former category is his spirited defense of Tchaikovsky in 1924: “Tchaikovsky’s music is very easy, for which reason he has been considered vulgar. In reality he is the most Russian of Russian composers.” In the latter are parts of a chapter called “Amorous Augmentations,” which starts with Craft writing, “An exploration of this subject is long overdue. …It will come as a surprise to most people that in the early Diaghilev period Stravinsky was exclusively in an ambisexual phase…” Actually, Stravinsky’s sexual proclivities are not particularly shrouded in mystery, and some of his affairs, such as the one with Coco Chanel, are quite well known. They are also quite irrelevant to his music, except incidentally: artistic voyeurs will enjoy learning which pieces were dedicated or given to or written for which lover at what time and under what circumstances. Craft obviously enjoys telling these stories, but he keeps them moderate in tone and thoroughly non-titillating.

     Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories is filled with fascinating tidbits of information, and not just in the narrative. The 32 pages of photographs are thoroughly fascinating, showing Stravinsky and members of his family, Ravel, Nijinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Balanchine, Charles Chaplin and many others. A Picasso sketch made for Craft, and Stravinsky’s own sketch of his first wife – on music paper, of course – are among the highlights. A CD bound into the book’s back cover, containing a Craft performance from 2007 of The Rite of Spring, with the Philharmonia Orchestra, is an apt and excellent bonus. And Craft’s footnotes are often marvelous, managing to encapsulate in a few lines material that could fill a book on its own, such as his brief discussion of Lucia Davidova, translator into English of Stravinsky’s widow’s diaries and “one of the first women to fly the Atlantic solo in Lindbergh’s path, having been taught aviation in Connecticut by Igor Sikorsky.” There is more in Craft’s passing comments than in many other authors’ entire tomes.

     Craft has written a great deal about Stravinsky already, and re-covers certain territory in Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories, albeit not in quite the same way he has handled matters before. He appears to have a nearly inexhaustible well of information on the composer, his music and his times, and an unfailing ability to enliven the biographical information without ever cheapening or sensationalizing it (which, given Stravinsky’s life and reputation, would be easy enough to do). Yes, Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories is a book for a limited audience, but it is one that will delight that audience on all levels while transporting it to a time of considerable musical and intellectual ferment and fascination, in the company of an expert and fervent narrator whose personal observations add a great deal to what is already a thoroughly remarkable story.

(++++) A COMPLETE SUCCESS

Dvořák: Complete Published Orchestral Works. Jenő Jandó, piano; Ilya Kaler, violin; Alexander Trostiansky, violin; Maria Kliegel, cello; Dmitry Yablonsky, cello; Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Oslo Philharmonic Wind Soloists and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser, Antoni Wit, Camilla Kolchinsky, Dmitry Yablonsky, Michael Halász, Felix Korobov, Zdeněk Košler, Libor Pešek, Jaroslav Krček and Robert Stankovsky. Naxos. $59.99 (17 CDs).

     Among Naxos’ many classical-music innovations was the White Box, a bargain-price collection of complete this, that or the other thing. More than a decade ago, Naxos released a number of White Box recordings, including, for example, ones offering the complete symphonies on Mozart, Shostakovich and Bruckner – the last of those in performances by Georg Tintner that remain fascinating today. Naxos continues to produce or re-release impressive “complete” music packages even though it has moved beyond the White Box format to offer stronger boxes with more-modern graphic design. These new “complete” sets have both the strengths and the weaknesses of the original White Box releases, which means that they have far more positives than negatives. The 17-CD complete Dvořák set, essentially a repackaging of performances from the original Dvořák White Box, is a case in point. As a compilation and one-stop-shop for the composer’s orchestral music, it is fully successful, even if a number of individual performances may not be the strongest ones available.

     It is clear from the listing of artists that this set – unlike, say, the Tintner White Box of Bruckner – is not a fully integrated group of performances; it is more of an anthology of recordings in the Naxos catalog, pulled together into 17 identical-looking CD sleeves, with timings and performer credits on the back of each one and with a nicely done 42-page booklet with information on the music and the many performers.

     Every single performance stands up well. The nine symphonies are all offered by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra under Stephen Gunzenhauser, and all are played quite stylishly and with idiomatic, almost intuitive comprehension of Dvořák’s rhythms and the richness of his scoring. The orchestra is not the most precise one around, nor the fullest in string sound, and Gunzenhauser never brings the fire and passion to the symphonies that were delivered István Kertész in his pioneering London Symphony Orchestra recordings in the 1960s – but no one else has ever matched Kertész, either. Gunzenhauser is a more-than-serviceable conductor who clearly has studied the music of the symphonies and come up with an intelligent, sensible approach to it. He is in fact the dominant conductor in this set, and does an equally fine job with the 10 Legends, three of the late tone poems, and half a dozen of the composer’s sumptuous overtures – including the Nature, Life and Love trilogy, here presented in the correct order (In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello).

     The numerous other performers also acquit themselves quite well. Dmitry Yablonsky does double duty, as cellist in Silent Woods and Rondo for Cello and Orchestra and as conductor in the “American” Suite and elsewhere; the magnificent Cello Concerto, though, features Maria Kliegel, who handles it beautifully and with great sweep and focused intensity. Capella Istropolitana under Jaroslav Krček performs the Serenade for Strings, the Oslo Philharmonic Wind Soloists offer the Serenade for Winds, and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra – the most-used ensemble in the set – has Zdeněk Košler as conductor for a fine rendition of the two sets of Slavonic Dances. One of the pleasures here is having all this excellent music in the same place – 19 hours of it! Another joy is the overall quality of the performances, most decidedly including those of Ilya Kaler in the Violin Concerto and Jenő Jandó in the Piano Concerto. And yet another major plus is the opportunity to discover orchestral pieces that listeners may never have heard before, such as Seven Interludes for Small Orchestra, the overture to King and Charcoal Burner, and excerpts from The Jacobin.

     These recordings were made in various locations between 1989 and 2003, but the sound is at a consistently high level and the performances fit together better, stylistically, than might be expected from the plethora of performers. The prices of Naxos CDs have gone up since the days of the White Box, but remain well below the norm for today’s recordings – and the $3.50-per-disc cost of this particular set is simply unbeatable. Far too many concertgoers and home listeners know Dvořák’s music through only a handful of works, from the ubiquitous Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) to the Scherzo Capriccioso. What this set does is present the familiar works very well indeed, while also offering a great deal of marvelous, less-known music by the Czech master, in performances that have stood up very well for a decade or more and give every evidence of providing continuing listening enjoyment for many years to come.

(++++) COMPOSERS IN FOCUS

Sousa: Music for Wind Band, Volume 12. Royal Swedish Navy Band conducted by Keith Brion. Naxos. $9.99.

Rossini: Complete Overtures, Volume 2—Guillaume Tell; Eduardo e Cristina; L’inganno felice; La scala di seta; Demetrio e Polibio; Il Signor Bruschino; Sinfonia di Bologna; Sigismondo. Prague Sinfonia Orchestra conducted by Christian Benda. Naxos. $9.99.

Michael Daugherty: Mount Rushmore; Radio City—Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra; The Gospel According to Sister Aimee. Paul Jacobs, organ; Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony conducted by Carl St. Clair. Naxos. $9.99.

Jerome David Goodman: Montségur Suite; Three Piano Preludes; Saxophone Quartet; Violin Concerto. Navona. $16.99.

Yves Ramette: Works for Piano; Works for Orchestra. Navona. $19.99 (2 CDs).

     It is difficult to get a full portrait of any composer from a single CD release, although companies sometimes try to provide one. More often, though, a series – sometimes a long series – is necessary to give listeners a satisfactory musical picture. That is certainly true for John Philip Sousa, who wrote more than 200 works, including suites and operettas, but is known to most listeners only for his marches – and only for a very few of those. It is true that his greatest march tunes are unsurpassed in their melodic gifts and upbeat attitudes, but it is also true that a great deal of less-known Sousa music is exceedingly delightful and ought to have a more-prominent place in concert halls and at outdoor musical presentations than it typically does. Several of the works on the 12^th CD in Naxos’ first-rate ongoing Sousa series fall into this category. One is the Mikado March (1885), which manages to encapsulate many of the famous tunes from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in less than two-and-a-half minutes. And then there are three Sousa marches that are intended for actual drills and date to the composer’s time as conductor of the U.S. Marine band: Right Forward (1881), Right-Left (1883), and Sound Off (1885), whose very names sound like military commands. Two of Sousa’s earliest marches are here as well, both dating to 1876: Revival and The Honored Dead, the latter a funeral march that Sousa conducted at the funeral of Ulysses S. Grant in 1885. And there are a couple of Sousa’s occasional marches here as well, written for specific purposes: Transit of Venus (1883), marking an astronomical event, and Marquette University (1924), a late work written after the Wisconsin school awarded Sousa an honorary doctorate. In addition to presenting rousing performances of the march tunes, Keith Brion and the Royal Swedish Navy Band showcase some music in which Sousa goes beyond the form for which he is most famous. There is Marching Through Georgia—Patrol (1891), a setting of the famous Civil War song; Peaches and Cream (1924), a charming foxtrot reflecting a popular dance of its time; Maidens Three (1887-1901), a three-movement suite lightly portraying “The Coquette,” “The Summer Girl” and “The Dancing Girl”; Leaves from My Notebook, a much later suite (1923) dedicated to the Campfire Girls of America; and, in its world première recording, the overture to Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (1899), Sousa’s take on the famous tale of Aladdin. There is much more to Sousa than The Stars and Stripes Forever and the Liberty Bell March, as wonderful as those pieces are – and this excellent series continues to show just how much more there is.

     Naxos’ series of Rossini overtures conducted by Christian Benda will be only four volumes long, but here too there is a considerable amount of highly enjoyable music that goes well beyond the familiar. In the series’ second release, the Prague Sinfonia Orchestra seamlessly mixes some very lighthearted works with some showing Rossini’s much-more-serious side – opening with a highly dramatic rendition of the all-too-familiar but still exceptionally effective overture to Guillaume Tell. The seven other works on this CD range from very familiar concert pieces (La scala di seta, whose scurrying is particularly well handled here, and Il Signor Bruschino) to a series of less-known overtures, including one (Sigismondo) that Rossini dipped into repeatedly for other works in the self-borrowing for which he was famous (or notorious). Rossini’s overtures have often been subject to trivialization because of the formulaic elements that many of them share, such as the “Rossini crescendo” and a sort of bright bubbliness that is not always in keeping with the subject matter of the operas that the works introduced (Rossini did not hesitate to use the same piece to open a comedy and a drama). But what many listeners do not realize, and will appreciate all the more after hearing the works in this Naxos series, is that Rossini had a remarkably short operatic career: it began with La cambiale di matrimonio in 1810 and ended with Guillaume Tell in 1829. That the composer created so much excellent music – a good deal of it quite serious, even tragic – within this time span is a significant accomplishment, and one to which listeners do not always pay sufficient attention. This very well-performed series of Rossini overtures helps put the composer into much clearer focus.

     The latest Naxos CD of the music of Michael Daugherty (born 1954) shows only part of his musical personality, but it is a very intriguing part. Daugherty is a particularly American composer, in the sense that he draws his inspiration repeatedly from events and personalities that are unique to the United States. Some background on the works’ inspiration is helpful in listening to Daugherty’s music, which can be enjoyed as is but does benefit from knowing what he is trying to portray and communicate. Whether this is a strength or weakness is debatable: knowing what the music is about lends extra interest to it, but having the music’s full effect dependent on the story behind it is a disadvantage for listeners who do not take the time to find out what Daugherty intends them to hear. In the case of the three works here, all commissioned by and very well performed by the Pacific Symphony and Carl St. Clair, Mount Rushmore (2010), for chorus and orchestra, pulls readers into its musical story through the sung texts – which are by or about each of the four presidents portrayed on the famous South Dakota monument. But the specific text choices are not as evocative as they could be. Those for Thomas Jefferson, for instance, include not only Jefferson’s explicit comment on music as “the passion of my soul” but also love-letter excerpts that listeners will not comprehend at all without Daugherty’s explanatory notes. The George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt sections of the work mix the presidents’ words with lines from an anthem (Washington) and hymn (Roosevelt); and the Lincoln segment, the work’s last and longest, includes – unsurprisingly – the entire text of the Gettysburg Address, an obvious choice that at this juncture sheds no new light on Lincoln the man or Lincoln the president. Mount Rushmore is a serious and carefully constructed work, but takes a rather foursquare, expected approach to its subject matter, especially where Lincoln is concerned. The Radio City fantasy (2011) is more interesting, its three movements portraying Arturo Toscanini – brilliant conductor and notorious martinet – at work in the New World after fleeing Italian fascism. Cleverly designed to contrast New and Old Worlds and then, at the end, to give an impression of a Toscanini radio broadcast – complete with the breakneck tempos that the conductor favored – this is an effective musical portrayal of an important musical figure. The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) for organ, brass and percussion is even more effective, being as bright, forthright, and in-your-face as was evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (“Sister Aimee”), a huge media star in her time and a revivalist whose life and preaching were so over-the-top that they inspired Sinclair Lewis to write Elmer Gantry. The work’s three movements reflect specific circumstances in McPherson’s life: “Knock Out the Devil!” for her preaching at a boxing match; “An Evangelist Drowns/Desert Dance” for her notorious staged drowning and disappearance, possibly to meet with a lover in Mexico; and “To the Promised Land” for the end of her life – she overdosed on sleeping pills, apparently accidentally, in 1944. Paul Jacobs’ excellent organ playing pulls together the elements of this suite, whose overall effectiveness as pure music is not significantly diminished even if listeners know little about its subject – although it is certainly enhanced by knowing more about the work’s reason for being.

     Two new Navona releases do try to encapsulate composers’ overall musical stances, and both are successful to a considerable degree – although the music itself is of somewhat variable quality. The works by Jerome David Goodman (born 1933) are generally interesting. His musical language differs from Daugherty’s, but Goodman also produces some pieces whose background it is necessary to know in order to obtain their full effect – such as Montségur Suite, a four-movement exploration of the viciously murderous 13^th-century Albigensian Crusade, through which Pope Innocent III arranged the killing of tens of thousands of supposed heretics and the seizure of their property to enrich the Catholic Church. The castle of Montségur, a stronghold of the Cathars who rejected Catholic orthodoxy, was razed in 1244 after the Catholics’ victory; the nine-month siege of the castle is the subject of the suite’s final movement. This work is scored interestingly: it is performed by the New Slovak Wind Quintet and Double Bass, and its unusual instrumentation adds to its effectiveness. None of the other Goodman works here is program music. Three Piano Preludes, played by Ron Dank, are well-constructed and satisfying in their frequent mood changes, if not especially gripping. Saxophone Quartet, performed by the Prism Saxophone Quartet (Timothy McAllister, soprano; Michael Whitcombe, alto; Matthew Levy, tenor; Taimur Sullivan, baritone), is more subtle, its four movements interweaving the sounds of the instruments’ varying registers to good effect. And Goodman’s Violin Concerto, played by Jana Herajnová with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Válek, is an attractive work in traditional three-movement form, its movement designations (“Vigorous,” “Leisurely,” “Spirited”) very accurately reflecting its pacing and moods.

     The two-CD set of music by Yves Ramette (1921-2012) does not sustain as well and gets a (+++) rating. Ramette’s music draws on multiple influences and absorbs or integrates many of them, but does not sound as if it has a distinctively original point of view or any characteristics that immediately identify it as by this specific composer rather than another schooled in similar French works. The first CD is entirely given over to solo-piano music, performed with sure-handed skill by Eric Himy. The works are sometimes Impressionistic, sometimes written in traditional forms – but pushing their bounds – and generally on the rather mild side despite some passages of considerable technical difficulty. The Variations sur un thème d’Honegger show one of Ramette’s influences; Naïades, Pastels and Fontaines et Cascades are three pieces that give full rein to Ramette’s Impressionistic leanings; Sonate and Humoresque are in more-traditional forms and have some intriguing passages, especially in Sonate, but do not seem ultimately to have a great deal to say. The second CD in this release features Prélude, Fugue et Postlude – another piece with strong traditional roots, performed by Himy with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Válek – plus two of Ramette’s symphonies. No. 3, played by the same forces but without piano, is a single-movement work built in an arch-like structure that opens and closes with Adagio sections and confines more-active elements to the center. No. 5, “Hymn for Life,” is played by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jan Stulen, and sounds more interesting even though its subject matter is pedestrian: the movements are called “The Struggle,” “Dreams and Visions,” and “Ascent to the Light,” and the music tends to follow that progression in generally predictable ways. Ramette was an effective composer but not a particularly innovative one, and while Navona’s two-CD set does a good job of showing his skills in various forms, it also leads to the conclusion that his music may be better heard in modest doses than in a wide-ranging retrospective.