(+++) INSTRUMENTS OF CHOICE

Stephen Jaffe: Light Dances (Chamber Concerto No. 2); String Quartet No. 2 (Aeolian and Sylvan Figures); Sonata in four parts. Da Capo Chamber Players; Borromeo String Quartet; David Hardy, cello, with Lambert Orkis, piano. Bridge Records. $15.99.

Beth Mehocic: Piece by Piece; Somewhere Between D and C#; Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Left of Winter; Picasso’s Flight; Tango Concerto. Navona. $14.99.

David Loeb: Five Fantasias for the Japanese Consort; Fantasia on a Rondeau of Dufay; Chanson Malagache; Fantasia sobre ‘una Hija Tiene del Rey’; Yaku (Night Crossroads); Arietta; Gaunkyo (Bridge to the Lingering Clouds); Between Sea and Sky; Het Nieuwe Madrigaalboek. Furious Artisans. $16.99.

Jake Heggie: Eve Song; Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia; Camille Claudel—Into the Fire. Melissa Davis, soprano; Jerry Wong, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     Contemporary composers are often especially careful to select specific instruments or instrumental combinations that will reflect their thinking in particular pieces and forms, and will produce sound worlds that express very different thoughts and emotions while still reflecting their individual musical styles. Listeners who enjoy recent classical or classically inspired works will find CDs devoted to individual composers – but using a multiplicity of instrumental combinations – especially interesting for showing how the composers’ approach varies (or does not vary) depending on chosen sounds. For example, a new Bridge Records release of the music of Stephen Jaffe (born 1954) offers works for a chamber group, a string quartet, and a cello-and-piano duet. Light Dances (Chamber Concerto No. 2) is a pleasant three-movement assemblage of atonal but strongly rhythmic (although not particularly danceable) material. Percussion, including piano, produces much of the flavor of the work, especially in the middle movement; the finale’s enthusiasm is especially welcome. Throughout, Jaffe uses the varying tonal possibilities of the chamber ensemble to good effect. The sounds are quite different in his five-movement String Quartet No. 2 (Aeolian and Sylvan Figures), which uses the traditional string-quartet ensemble but tends to treat the instruments individually more than as a group. Jaffe is fond of evocative movement titles that may or may not accurately reflect the music: in this work, “Muted Interlude” fits well, “Scherzino Chickadee” less well, and “Homage to the Breath” surprisingly effectively in a work without winds. Reducing the instrumental complement still further, Jaffe’s Sonata in four parts also offers titles intended to reflect the musical notes, among them “Breathing, Still, Undulating” and “Strutting.” Jaffe here treats the cello-and-piano combination as more of a cooperative endeavor than the strings tend to be in the quartet, with the two instruments’ differing sounds and ranges intermingling to good effect. This fourth volume of Jaffe’s music on Bridge does a good job of showing how the composer approaches varying instrumental groupings.

     The instruments chosen by Beth Mehocic in the works on a new Navona CD cover an even wider span, from a piano trio to a full orchestra plus piano, accordion and bandoneon. In Piece by Piece, Mehocic (1953-2022) produces an interestingly scored chamber work (flute, bass clarinet, trumpet, bass trombone, violin, contrabass and percussion) that never really goes anywhere but sounds quite good not getting there. Somewhere Between D and C#, for violin, cello and piano, is a musical interpretation or commentary on a poem Mehocic wrote about being on the edge of here-or-there. Musically, it is rather inconsequential, although here too the interplay of instruments is well-handled. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (featuring pianist Charlene Farrugia with the Croatian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Miran Vaupotić) is a large-scale work from early in Mehocic’s career (it dates to 1974). In the traditional three movements, it is unashamedly conventional tonally and somewhat reminiscent of Tchaikovsky in its insistent percussion – all in all, a derivative piece that is nevertheless well-made. Left of Winter is also for orchestra (here, the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jiří Petrdlík) but is a much later work, dating to 2014. Strongly martial – it was written as a men’s dance about soldiers going off to war – it is suitably intense and percussion-focused, and not at all celebratory. As occasional, programmatic music, it is effective enough, although its overall sound is somewhat obvious and overdone. Picasso’s Flight is for string quartet and is not about the artist but about Mehocic’s African Grey parrot and its struggles to fly gracefully (this type of parrot is not an elegant flyer). This is strongly representational music that neatly indicates the parrot’s struggles with airborne life – and even listeners who do not know what the music is about can enjoy the skillful way that Mehocic combines and contrasts the sounds of the four string instruments. The CD ends with Tango Concerto for orchestra (the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ivan Josip Skender) plus piano (Farrugia) as well as accordion and bandoneon (Franko Bozac). Written in 2018, it is a carefully balanced work – each of its three movements runs four-and-a-half minutes – that treats the piano and accordion/bandoneon more as obbligato instruments than as full-scale soloists. This gives the piece a pleasant level of intimacy, with Mehocic writing more idiomatically for the piano than for the other instruments – which provide a kind of exotic color but are not as fully integrated into the work as is the piano. Even if Mehocic was not entirely comfortable with this specific instrumental combination, though, she uses it mostly sure-handedly and retains her career-long willingness to produce essentially tonal music that retains a contemporary feeling through its rhythmic vitality and willingness to explore instrumental effects thoroughly without trying to make performers produce sounds beyond those of which their instruments are normally capable.

     David Loeb (born 1939) also retains an essentially tonal orientation in many works, but he likes to explore sounds beyond those typical of Western instruments – and to do so, he sometimes turns to instruments from different musical traditions. This is clear on a new Furious Artisans release featuring nine Loeb works of varying length and from different compositional periods. The Five Fantasias for the Japanese Consort (1985-1993), played by the Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort, use scales and harmonies of non-European musical cultures (Japan, Indonesia, India) to produce very brief character sketches. Fantasia on a Rondeau of Dufay (1978/2008) is for two guitars (Vilian Ivantchev and Daniel Lewis), but the writing suggests lute music of the time of Guillaume Du Fay (1397-1474). Chanson Malagache (1996), for violin (Antonin Hradil) and orchestra (the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ruben Silva), uses a Malagasy theme but explores it in European ways, both older (Bach-like) and newer (à la Bartók). Fantasia sobre ‘una Hija Tiene del Rey’ (1980) is an extended, indeed somewhat overextended, solo-guitar work (played by Terry Champlin) that is based on a Sephardic melody of Renaissance times – listeners to this CD will by now realize that Loeb has a fondness not only for mixing styles but also for reinterpreting and developing elements of the musical past in new ways. In Yaku (Night Crossroads), which dates to 1985, he also introduces a non-Western flute, the Japanese shinobue, having the solo performer (Kohei Nishikawa) combine its sound with that of the Western flute in various ways that show more of the instruments’ similarities than their differences. Arietta (1986/2008) is for violin (Sabena Torosjian) and guitar (Champlin), with the violin muted throughout – the sound world here is one of gentleness and quietude in which the instruments complement each other well. Gaunkyo (Bridge to the Lingering Clouds) dates to 2001 and includes the Japanese mouth organ called a sho (played by Mayumi Miyata), plus the Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort. This work has the most unusual sound on the CD – an emphatic and at times almost unpleasantly strident intensity contrasts with comparatively gentle string tones. Between Sea and Sky (1998), played by the Six Hands Guitar Trio, is another work in which Loeb tries to illustrate a specific non-Western scene (a villa on Kyoto’s highest mountain) by using traditional Western instruments (acoustic guitars) in ways that accentuate some of the traditional elements of non-Western musical expression. And the five-movement Het Nieuwe Madrigaalboek (1983), played by the Netherlands Clarinet Quartet, is another work showing Loeb’s interest in and absorption of music of the past: its five very short movements evoke the feelings generated by Renaissance madrigals without actually using tunes or instruments of that time.

     One instrument frequently used by composers to produce very specific effects is the human voice – which is what Jake Heggie (born 1961) employs in three song cycles on an MSR Classics CD featuring soprano Melissa Davis and pianist Jerry Wong. Eve Song (2000) includes eight settings of texts by Philip Littell (born 1950). The songs range from the operatic (“My Name”) to the Broadway-show-like (“Good”) to the somewhat over-dramatic (“Snake”). Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999) includes four pieces, the first using Heggie’s own words and the others setting texts by Edna St. Vincent Millay. A certain level of seasonal cyclicality is intended here, with the first song being “The Spring Is Arisen” and the last one “Spring.” The overall impression, enhanced by the piano’s comparatively modest contribution in underlining the words throughout the sequence, is one of gentleness and resignation. More ambitious and considerably longer (nearly 35 minutes), the eight-movement Camille Claudel—Into the Fire (2012), originally for mezzo-soprano and string quartet, uses texts by Gene Scheer (born 1958) exploring the life of the French sculptor (1864-1943). Claudel, who worked mainly in bronze and marble, became famous only after her death, but Scheer’s words and therefore Heggie’s cycle – several of whose songs are rather extended – focus mostly on her life and personality, not her work or its eventual recognition. The piano has greater importance in this cycle than in the others, introducing the entire sequence, doing considerable scene-setting throughout, and sometimes almost seeming to take on the role of a character in Claudel’s story (notably in “La Valse”). Familiarity with Claudel’s life and creations is a necessity for full understanding and appreciation of the vocal material. For example, “Rodin” is about her time as the older sculptor’s student and lover, and “Shakuntala” (usually spelled Sakuntala) refers to a sculpture made by Claudel in several versions from 1886 to 1905. The cycle’s final song refers both to Claudel’s 30-year confinement to the asylum where she died and to her relationship with Jessica Lipscomb, which dates to the time when they both worked in Rodin’s studio. Without an understanding of Claudel’s life and times, this extended exploration by Heggie will be an interesting instance of musical biography but not an especially distinctive use of the voice to create a sound world commensurate with its topic. Indeed, the piano, although it does not dominate the cycle, often seems to have more-interesting things to say than does the singer. Because piano and voice are used in different ways in the three song sequences on this disc, the CD, taken as a whole, does show Heggie’s skill at vocal writing and at using the voice-and-piano mixture to explore several topics in differing sonic environments.

(+++) VOICES AND MORE

Rhona Clarke: Choral Music. State Choir Latvija conducted by Māris Sirmais. Métier. $18.99.

Jonathan Östlund: Vocal and Instrumental Music. Divine Art. $27.99 (2 CDs).

James Cook: Excerpts from “Abishag” and “Jane the Quene.” Joanna Songi, soprano; Roberto Abate, tenor; Adam Green, baritone; Paul McKenzie, piano. Diversions. $13.99.

Frederic Hand: Music for Guitar. Frederic Hand, guitar; Lesley Hand, vocals. ReEntrant. $16.99.

     Topics and sounds of the past remain fascinating to contemporary composers, perhaps especially so in the field of vocal music. And top-notch vocal ensembles are as expert at bringing modern compositions to vivid life as they are in singing older material. The first-rate, smooth-voiced State Choir Latvija shows this clearly on a new Métier CD devoted to works by Rhona Clarke (born 1958). And Clarke’s choice of material is equally clear in showing how composers of today continue to interpret and reinterpret some material that has fascinated musicians for many centuries. From the opening crescendo of the first piece on the disc, O Vis Aeternitatis (2020), Clarke proves herself adept at writing for massed voices that are declaiming Latin texts with emotional engagement as appropriate in the 21^st century as in the far more traditionally religious times hundreds of years ago. Indeed, Clarke’s Two Marian Anthems (2007) use texts that listeners familiar with older vocal music will know well: Regina Caeli and Salve Regina. However, this does not mean that Clarke always handles the texts in the expected manner. This is especially true, for instance, in Ave Atque Vale (2017), whose opening (and later repeated) drum stroke sets a surprising, distinctly funereal tone that emphasizes the latter part of the title phrase, “Hail and Farewell.” On the other hand, the Three Carols on Medieval Texts (2014) are set with the light transparency that would be expected, aside from a few unanticipated dips into gloom in the central Lullay, my Liking (the other two are Glad and Blithe and Make we Merry). The most-extended work on this CD is a Requiem (2020) that is not as extensive as most works of its type but still includes 20 minutes of heartfelt and particularly elegantly set versions of Introit, Lux Aeterna, Pie Jesu and In Paradisum. The combination of evanescence and earthiness in this work fits the topic particularly well. The five remaining pieces on the disc are shorter, self-contained, and generally more secular. They are The Kiss (2008), A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (1991), Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep (2006), The Old Woman (2016), and Rorate Caeli (1994). In all cases, Clarke’s settings fit the words well and allow the texts to come through clearly; and the fine pacing and clarity of the choir under Māris Sirmais show the music in its best and most-effective light.

     Modern choral music, no matter how well composed and performed, is something of a specialty item – and a new two-CD release on the Divine Art label, featuring the music of Jonathan Östlund (born 1975), is even more so. That is because there is such a large amount of material here – a true wealth of music for those already familiar with and interested in this composer, but an overwhelming offering for most potential listeners. The discs contain nearly two-and-a-quarter hours of material, and it is of all types: choral, vocal, chamber, and orchestral. Sorting through all of this music, much less listening to it in the order presented (the sequence is essentially arbitrary), is a lot to ask of an audience; and the attempt to bracket the material by sandwiching it between the brief Imago Theme at the start of the first disc and Imago Theme 2 at the end of the second is not particularly useful. To the extent that there is any connection among these disparate works, it lies in the way that Östlund uses and pays tribute to the past – a way quite different from that used by Clarke. For one thing, Östlund frequently makes use of Impressionistic techniques, employing instruments and voices to emotive effects that are intended to elucidate scenes including La Neige de Noël, Turquoise Spring, Night of June, and Zephyr. For another thing, Östlund deliberately quotes from, paraphrases or creates fantasias or variations on specific music of the past, from Bach’s Komm süßer Tod, Komm selge Ruh to Reger’s Mariä Wiegenlied. This element of Östlund’s approach is most clearly on display in the seven-movement Bouquet (Suite for Two Clarinets), which is a set of fantasias – on a Swedish folk song, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5, and Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, plus The Last Rose of Summer, two parts of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Tchaikovsky’s June. The mixing of classical and folk music works well, thanks to the specific items chosen by Östlund and his way of delving into their expressive potential. And in fact, a great many of the pieces heard here are inviting and pleasant to listen to, staying firmly in a tonal universe and paying respectful tribute to music of the past from a wide variety of sources, including several from Östlund’s native Sweden. Listeners unfamiliar with Östlund may be pleasantly surprised at the accessibility of his works and the consistent quality with which he produces them. And all the performances, by a very large number of soloists and ensembles, are engaging and effective. Nevertheless, this is a great deal of material by a single contemporary composer, and one whose sensibilities tend not to vary much from piece to piece. Therefore, for most audiences, this recording will be far more enjoyable in small doses than as a start-to-finish experience.

     The experience is more or less opposite, at least temporally, on a Diversions CD featuring excerpts from two operas by James Cook (born 1963). This entire disc runs just half an hour – which will whet the appetite of listeners who are favorably inclined toward contemporary opera composition, but will be more than enough for those less interested in it. Cook’s music is testimony to the continuing interest of some modern composers in the potential intensity and over-the-top melodramatic possibilities of opera, a form once memorably described by Franco Zeffirelli as “a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts.” The operas Abishag and Jane the Quene, however, are scarcely celebratory. The title character in Abishag is a young woman assigned to the Biblical King David to lie next to him and give him body heat, since in his old age nothing else could warm him. She was not his concubine but was regarded as one by some in the palace, the result being intrigue that, in the book of Kings, led to the assassination of one of David’s sons. The three excerpts from Abishag are the opening and closing scenes and the brief David’s Liebestod, all arranged for voice and piano. The opening is suitably dramatic, the closing suitably quiescent, and David’s Liebestod is simply suitable to its topic. Jane the Quene is about Lady Jane Grey, England’s “Nine Days’ Queen” in the 16^th century. This too is a story of intrigue and family drama, and one that does not end well for the title character. The two excerpts on the CD are Gentle Mr. Aylmer, the reference being to an English bishop who tutored Jane, and Love’s Farewell, which is as gentle and wistful as would be expected from its title. There is not enough material on this disc to judge the worth of the two operas themselves, but there is enough to show that Cook knows how to handle various vocal ranges and typical-for-the-stage operatic concerns.

     The voice is expected in an opera recording, of course, but certainly not in one of guitar music. Yet there are three voice-and-guitar works on a CD on the ReEntrant label that features the music and playing of Frederic Hand (born 1947). These pieces – The Poet’s Eye, I Am, and There Is a Splendor – are nicely sung, or rather sung-and-declaimed – by Lesley Hand; and the unusual circumstance of classical-style writing for voice and guitar (as opposed to standard folksongs in which the guitarist does the singing) proves interesting, if not really more emotionally appealing than the rest of the CD, which is for guitar alone. The other works here are called Renewal, Ballade for Astor Piazzolla, The Passionate Pilgrim, Romantic Etude, A Waltz for Maurice, Simple Gifts, Trilogy, Late One Night, and Cooper Lake. Among them, Simple Gifts – Hand’s very perky arrangement of the simple Shaker tune well-known from Copland’s Appalachian Spring – is surprising in its counterintuitive approach to the material. A Waltz for Maurice is counterintuitive as well: it is scarcely danceable and is more of a reminiscence than anything else. Everything on the CD is brief, Trilogy being the longest piece because it is in three movements – marked Moderato, Gently, and Allegro. This work, whose final movement is the most interesting-sounding of the three, and Late One Night are the earliest works on the disc, dating to 1977. Renewal, Ballade for Astor Piazzolla, and The Passionate Pilgrim are the most recent pieces, dating to 2021. The gentleness of Renewal at the disc’s opening is reflected at the CD’s conclusion in Cooper Lake, a contemplative piece in which the guitar sings gently of peace. Hand plays his own music with considerable feeling and, not surprisingly, technique that matches the works perfectly, since he wrote them for himself to perform. Other classical guitarists will be especially enamored of this disc, in which the emotional capacity of the guitar is well-explored and is used to create a wide variety of moods and feelings. Non-guitarists will likely find less of interest here, although every work is at least intermittently interesting – this is another of those CDs that is better heard in several listening sessions than in a single start-to-finish one.

(++++) MARVELS AND MONSTERS

Mythic World: Color Timeless Legends. By Kerby Rosanes. Plume. $15.

     Kerby Rosanes’ fascinatingly intricate drawings seem perfectly suited to the illustration of myths of all types, in light of those tales’ surface simplicity with underlying complexity, and all the psychological underpinnings that led Carl Jung, among others, to speak of a “collective unconscious.” Mythic World is one of Rosanes’ wonderfully conceived adult coloring books, to be sure, but there is more to it than the chance to color exceptionally detailed and fascinatingly rendered characters out of legends from all over the world. The book really makes those legends come alive – even for those who may not feel like adding color to Rosanes’ art and would just as soon enjoy it in black-and-white.

     Rosanes hopscotches the world for the subjects of his illustrations, and provides at the back of the book a brief explanation of what is shown on every page (with one unfortunate omission: the explanations refer to page numbers, but the book has none). What is remarkable here is the mixture of better-known and less-known myths, and the way Rosanes offers new perspectives even on the most-familiar ones. The story of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, for example, is as well-known as can be, but Rosanes’ illustration is very unusual. He shows Atlas’ legs emerging from what appears to be a mountain of which they and he are a part; and the Titan is standing amid broken columns, apparently the ruins of a great Greek temple; and instead of the traditional globe atop his shoulders, Rosanes’ Atlas carries an open-work sphere out of which animals of all sorts, real-world and imaginary, are emerging. For colorists, this creates a whole set of challenges in differentiating the portions of the drawing; but even those not inclined to color the art will find a great deal to study, absorb and marvel at here.

     Similarly striking is Rosanes’ portrait of Thor, his legs emerging from the rocks on either side of a river, his hammer Mjöllnir raised aloft as if to strike again to widen the valley he has just created with a mighty blow.

     Most of the pages in Mythic World focus on creatures, gods and other beings far less familiar than Atlas and Thor. And again, Rosanes’ depictions of them excel in their detail and impress in their illustrative prowess. One of the wild monkey spirits of Japan, the sarugami, is depicted looming over the famous Matsumoto Castle as a samurai swordsman stands in front of the building in what appears to be a hopeless challenge. For another Japanese legend, Rosanes shows a gigantic, vaguely turtle-like kappa, its head holding the traditional pool of water associated with these water spirits, and with a complete island and landscape growing from its back – it is a Rosanes trademark to show creatures merging with and/or creating the natural environment in which they are believed to live.

     The expressiveness that Rosanes brings to these mythic beings is a constant source of amazement. The Russian witch Baba Yaga, who lives in the famous hut on fowl’s legs, emerges from or into a woodland scene, bearing a skull and leering a grin filled with too many teeth. The Scandinavian tree spirit known as the askafroa blends into the ash tree she inhabits and looks out on the world with an intense, menacing expression. The bloodthirsty, nine-tailed fox spirit of Korea, the kumiho, seems gently to caress the skull she holds, which she has presumably taken from one of the graveyards that she prowls in search of human hearts. One of the Japanese whale spirits called bake-kujira is seen with a realistic-looking whale head but an entirely skeletal body, swimming and leaping while accompanied by bizarre, toothy, birdlike fish and fishlike birds.

     Mythic World is an unending series of wonders, page after page, whether Rosanes is depicting the griffin or moirai (fates) of Greek mythology, the trolls of Iceland or the landvættir that protect the nation, the giant scorpion men (aqrabuamelu) of Babylon, or the life-creating rainbow serpent of Australian Aboriginal mythology. Many readers will find that it is more than enough simply to return to this book again and again to read and re-read the brief summations of legends and absorb the skill with which Rosanes illustrates them. Others will prefer to accept the book’s official purpose by bringing color to all the places and creatures that Rosanes so adeptly renders in black-and-white. Color would certainly add a new element to Mythic World, and the detail of the drawings means colorists can spend many, many hours adding hues to the book’s pages. But anyone simply wanting to marvel at the skill with which Rosanes breathes new life into old mythic tales can do that by simply sitting with the book for a while and absorbing the details so skillfully rendered on all its pages.

(+++) VOICES IN THE WINDS

Music for Clarinet and Piano by Gabriel Fauré, Helen Habershon, John Lenehan, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy, Sir Edward Elgar, Gerald Finzi, Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvořák, and Joseph Horovitz. Helen Habershon, clarinet; John Lenehan, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.

Music for Oboe and Piano by Paul Hindemith, Pavel Haas, William Bolcom, Benjamin Britten, José Siqueira, and Klement Slavický. Alex Klein, oboe; Phillip Bush, piano. Cedille. $16.

Karl Kohn: Complete Works for Flute. Rachel Rudich, flute; Karl Kohn and Gayle Blankenburg, piano; Mark Robson, organ; Jack Sanders, guitar; Andrew McIntosh, violin; Christine Tavolacci, Daniel Lemer, and Sarah Wass, flutes. Bridge Records. $31.99 (2 CDs).

Michael Cohen: I Remember; Prelude; String Quartet; Just a Little Sky Away; A Song for Silenced Voices. Navona. $14.99.

     A very clear encapsulation of the pluses and minuses of highly personalized recitals and recordings, a new Divine Art CD featuring composer/performers Helen Habershon and John Lenehan is a treat for their fans, a matter of middling interest for those who enjoy clarinet-and-piano recitals, and a less-than-compelling offering for anyone who may not share the specific sensibilities that led Habershon and Lenehan to select these particular works and to perform them in this particular sequence. On one level, this release is by intent a strong focus on the music created by the performers: of the 19 short pieces here, six are by Habershon and six are Lenehan’s – he composed two and arranged four others. So more than half the music is written or adapted by the players. The longest work offered (although still lasting less than six minutes) is actually not an arrangement or adaptation and not by either performer, but is the third movement of Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata, Op. 120, No. 1, which is nicely played but fits rather oddly into what is essentially a disc filled with encores. Habershon and Lenehan are certainly capable players of classical works – for example, the CD also includes two of Gerald Finzi’s Five Bagatelles – but their main interest is in lighter, fairly moody music that they either create themselves (Habershon’s Yesterday’s Dreams, Lenehan’s Dreaming of Summer) or arrange to suit a specific crepuscular mood (Lenehan’s arrangements of Fauré’s Après un rêve and Schumann’s Träumerei). Whether newly composed, arranged, or drawn from tradition (Lenehan’s setting of Deep River), the music here is moderately paced, pleasantly played, and rather static in overall effect: it is basically “mood music,” better suited as background while doing something else than as anything repaying close attention and focus. This is, as a whole, a rather calming disc, but also a rather unremarkable one – the impressions it creates during the performances fade quickly thereafter, and it does not seem like the type of CD to which listeners who are not already fans of Habershon and Lenehan are likely to listen with any frequency.

     Equally personal and equally combinatorial of diverse works, a new Cedille recording featuring Alex Klein on oboe and Phillip Bush on piano has an ostensible theme tying everything together – “revolutionary works for oboe and piano” – but much depends on how one defines and interprets “revolutionary.” Does it mean the works explored significant new musical territory? Does it mean they were born of political upheaval or designed to promote it? Are the pieces intended to incite revolution, respond to it, lament it, or what? There are in fact explanations for the inclusion of each work here, but the reality is that the issues of war and peace and the times within which each piece was written are only tenuously connected: if anything, the rationales for these works simply show that people have been horrible to other people in many ways, in many places, for a very long time – and that only includes the 20^th century, when all this music was created. Ultimately, as with any mixture of disparate pieces, what will matter to listeners is whether the individual works come across well and whether, as a totality, they communicate effectively. Certainly Klein and Bush play all the music with admirable sensitivity and involvement, and certainly they seem equally at home in the very different styles of these six composers. But the program as a whole is somewhat less than the sum of its parts: many listeners will be able to find one or more works here that they will enjoy and/or find emotionally satisfying, but the disc as a whole will be attractive mostly to people who simply want to hear some fine oboe-and-piano writing and playing from the last century, and who enjoy a mixture of material by better-known and comparatively obscure composers. Hindemith’s two-movement Sonata for Oboe and Piano dates to the eve of World War II (1938) and contrasts a short, unusually perky (for Hindemith) movement with a broader, more-expansive one. Suite for Oboe and Piano by Pavel Haas (1899-1944) is a three-movement work of the same vintage. It is more thoughtful and inward-looking than Hindemith’s sonata, although its movement designations do not entirely fit the music, notably in the non-furious Furioso first movement. The year 1938 has a different meaning where William Bolcom is concerned: it is the year in which he was born. His short Aubade—for the Continuation of Life (1982) does not really sound like a work for early morning, but it effectively conveys a rather dour mood and uses the interplay of instruments well. Britten’s Temporal Variations range from the thoughtful to the jaunty after the initial presentation of the rather mournful theme. Each short variation neatly encapsulates a specific mood, with more than one hint of sly humor – notably in “March,” the deliberately overdone “Exercises,” the not-very-threatening “Commination,” and the slow and sultry “Waltz.” The beauty of “Chorale” is particularly noteworthy. Three Etudes for Oboe with Piano Accompaniment by Brazilian composer José Siqueira (1907-1985) are more harmonically conventional than Britten’s work and more direct in expression, veering pleasantly into and out of dance rhythms. The four-movement Suite for Oboe and Piano by Czech composer Klement Slavický (1910-1999) concludes this interestingly varied recital with some especially subtle interplay of oboe and piano that shows to better effect in a complex and intense Scherzo movement than in the rather straightforward Triste that follows and is twice as long. There are pleasures of all sorts throughout this CD, even if the specific combination of music does not hang together thematically or topically to quite the extent that is intended.

     The two-CD Bridge Records release of the complete flute music of Karl Kohn (born 1926) is yet another specialized item. There is well over two hours of music here, written as far back as 1966 and as recently as 2021. Rachel Rudich’s fine and sensitive flute playing ties all 15 pieces together – she is the dedicatee of a number of Kohn’s flute works – and she is joined by a series of committed and able performers in various instrumental combinations. Kohn’s musical style is eclectic: although largely tonal and based in the European tradition and neoclassicism, it contains elements that are not so easily classifiable, especially in terms of how he handles individual instruments within larger groups – and how he structures pieces for a solo instrument. The sequencing of these two discs is rather peculiar, the works on the first CD having been written in 1966, 1989, 1958, 1972, 1982, 2009, and 1974; while those on the second CD date to 1993, 2005, 2018, 1986, 2016, 2012, 2007, and 2021. This unfortunately makes it nearly impossible to follow Kohn’s stylistic development in his flute works, if one is so inclined; and it does not allow an easy way to hear how Kohn’s handling of different forms that include flute has varied over the decades. This is too bad, because there are some intriguing ways in which For Four Flutes (1989) and Cantilena for Flute and Organ (1982), both on the first disc, show approaches that differ from those used by Kohn in the five flute-and-piano works on the remainder of this CD. Similarly, More for Four Flutes (2005), which could logically be juxtaposed with the 1989 four-flute piece, simply shows up on the second disc, which includes Concords for Flute and Guitar (1986), A Bar for Three for Flute, Violin and Piano (2016), and Soliloquy for Solo Flute (2007) as well as four flute-and-piano pieces of varying length and provenance. Kohn is not exactly a miniaturist, but he has a sure sense of length and pacing, and the works here tend not to overstay their welcome. The longest by far is Paronyms for Flute and Piano (1974), which lasts nearly half an hour – but is in four well-differentiated movements. The two four-flute works are particularly intriguing in their use of massed and individual voices, although the solo-flute Soliloquy goes on somewhat too long (almost 10 minutes). One thing Kohn shows throughout is considerable ability to contrast the flute’s range with the much larger one of the piano, playing off the wind instrument skillfully against what is essentially a percussion one. The single flute-and-organ work is especially interesting in the way Kohn highlights these two very different wind instruments, while the brief work that includes violin as well as flute and piano shows him to be adept at blending and contrasting the three instruments’ very different sounds. Everything here is played well and with committed enthusiasm, and if the project as a whole is very definitely a highly specialized, limited-audience one, it is certainly one that listeners interested in Kohn’s multi-decade engagement with the flute as a solo and chamber instrument will find thoroughly involving.

     Flute, piccolo and alto flute are featured in one of the five pieces on a Navona CD devoted to a wide variety of works by Michael Cohen (born 1938). The three instruments, all played by Mary Kay Ferguson, are responsible for much of the effect of I Remember, an extended song cycle using text by Enid Futterman, based on the diary of Anne Frank. The use of Frank’s diary in music meant to be both touching and commemorative has become, unfortunately, something of a commonplace, resulting in a sense of having heard these words (sung by soprano Sandra Simon) before, whether or not these specific ones have been used elsewhere. Cohen sets the material carefully and dutifully, and it fulfills its purpose of drawing attention to Frank as an ongoing symbol of the terrors of the Holocaust. And the piece is nicely performed – it also uses cello (Ralph Curry) and harp (Lisa Wellbaum), resulting in a kind of dreamlike evanescence that fits the material well by contrasting with the terrors that the audience realizes are ever-present, even if not overtly portrayed. I Remember is effective enough as occasional music, but not especially distinctive in its handling of its topic. The other vocal work on this CD, the aria Just a Little Sky Away from the opera Rappaccini’s Daughter (based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story), is much shorter and more modest in scope, with lyrics by Linsey Abrams sung by soprano Samantha Britt, and with Elenora Pertz on piano. The piece’s brevity and simplicity are appealing, and it reaches out in a heartfelt way that the much longer I Remember never quite does. The remaining music on this disc is instrumental. Prelude is a short piano piece (played by Anna Kislitsyna) that nicely contrasts upbeat and lyrical material. The two-movement String Quartet (played by the Sirius Quartet: Fung Chern Hwei and Gregor Huebner, violins; Ron Lawrence, viola; Jeremy Harman, cello) has a similar contrast, but makes it rather less effectively – the first movement is mostly driven, the second quieter and more lyrical, but there is an obviousness in the evocation of moods that makes the quartet seem studied rather than sincere. The final piece on the CD is called A Song for Silenced Voices, but it includes nothing vocal: it is for cello (Norman Fischer) and piano (Jeanne Fischer). It is a somewhat extended vocalise or “song without words” in the Mendelssohnian sense (although not harmonically resembling anything by Mendelssohn). It is an effective piece, emotionally evocative although it does not actually evoke anything in particular. What makes it most attractive is the interplay of cello and piano, the way in which the differing emotive capabilities of the two instruments are employed skillfully by Cohen to communicate a series of feelings. Of the five works on this CD, A Song for Silenced Voices is the one most likely to leave listeners with a lasting impression. The disc as a whole is not quite at this level, but each of the pieces on it has at least occasional effective moments, and all are well-designed and carefully crafted.