MC Maguire - Nothing Left to Destroy
Benjamin Bowman; Douglas Stewart; MC Maguire
Innova 813 www.innova.mu

Once upon a time on the musical planet inhabited by wall-of-sound composer MC Maguire there must have been a catastrophic explosion, scattering the treasures of civilization together with all the cast-off junk of consumerism and the fallout of post-modern warfare. Through the blasted landscape come the remaining voices of humanity, represented on this latest Maguire release by violinist Ben Bowman and flutist Doug Stewart. The CD is called “Nothing Left to Destroy,” and for those interested in references, consider his choice of artist for the jacket: uber bad-boy Istvan Kantor.

Maguire’s works are massively layered and require repeated listenings for one to begin to sort the material out. His is a creative imagination that never seems to lack for material inspiration. Consider the sonic blast-scape of the first track, The Discofication of the Mongols. He references a contemporary icon (nay, cliché), the lonely herdsman with the iPod, to explain his thematic material. If I can decipher nothing else in his liner note explaining the piece’s structure, I can at least appreciate what he means about the loss of indigenous culture, and when you hear Bowman’s gorgeous violin playing drowned by the eventually overpowering disco beat, you understand the intent of the piece. Along the way you’ll want to listen for anything you recognize. “Paul is dead” in retrograde inversion might even be there.

Track two is somewhat shorter and much sweeter. S’Wonderful (that the man I love watches over me) is more homage than lament, remixing three Gershwin songs and quotes lifted from depression-era cinema. Stewart’s flute wanders lonely as a drunken Ginger Rogers, one busted high heel, still dancing with her imaginary Fred. Again, I want to hear the instrumentalist but lose him too often as he ducks behind the scenery. In fact, the critique that feels almost to miss the point is that Maguire’s sonic default setting is too often on “stun.” Regardless, the results are without a doubt stunning and worth the listen.

Ann Southam - Soundings for a New Piano
R. Andrew Lee
Irritable Hedgehog IHM002 www.irritablehedgehog.com

Most people would celebrate a friend’s purchase of a new piano by bringing over a bottle of bubbly. But when Toronto pianist Jane Blackstone bought a grand piano in 1986, composer Ann Southam showed up with a magnificent new work called Soundings for a New Piano, dedicated to Blackstone. On this new release, US pianist R. Andrew Lee gives the work what I believe is its recording premiere.

Southam subtitled the piece “12 meditations on a Twelve Tone Row;” each of its 13 concise movements is like the turning of a musical kaleidoscope that enables the composer to explore a different emotional facet of a 12-interval row. Southam loved this form of musical inquiry, and used it in a number of piano works, culminating in her deeply contemplative Simple Lines of Enquiry (2007). It’s fascinating, in fact, to find several strands of musical DNA from SLoE in Soundings – not just a nearly identical tone row, but also some shared rhythmic and metric features, and a persistent questioning quality in the musical rhetoric.

Lee captures the spirit of curiosity that propels Soundings, and vividly conveys the distinctive, richly nuanced characters found in these 13 compact movements, from the bold insistence of the opening movement through complex tendernesses and passionate outbursts, all of it grounded by a gentle rocking sequence that keeps recurring, at once questioning and comforting.

A welcome addition to the Southam discography, this recording is available as a 23-minute CD or as download from www.irritablehedgehog.com.

Concert Note: Pianist Eve Egoyan launches her latest recording of music by Ann Southam - Returnings – at Glenn Gould Studio on December 2.

Tapestries
Christina Petrowska Quilico; Canadian Ukrainian Opera Chorus; Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra; Daniel Warren
Centrediscs CMCCD-17011 www.musiccentre.ca

Christina Petrowska Quilico’s significant contributions to the recorded contemporary Canadian piano repertoire continue to impress. As David Perlman noted in October’s WholeNote, her 26 CDs to date include many commissions. Both works on this new Centrediscs release were written for her and recorded live.

Canadian composer George Fiala’s three-movement Concerto Cantata for piano and chorus celebrates the 1988 Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine. Not only Quilico’s combination of sensitivity and virtuosity, but also Wolodymyr Kolesnyk’s informed conducting of the Canadian Ukrainian Opera Chorus, convey the work’s nobility of theme. Fiala’s combination of modernism and Ukrainian choral material, along with some incursions of late romantic piano writing, allow for an ample range of expression. I particularly like the high bell-like piano sounds in this work, even more so when actual chimes join in evoking the magnificent bells of Eastern European churches.

Heather Schmidt is a remarkable Canadian composer-pianist who early on established an international profile. Her musical language is somewhere in the same galaxy as that of Corigliano, Schwantner, or Hétu, and her individual voice is still developing. In the Piano Concerto No.2 I find the second movement’s intensity and orchestration particularly powerful. Sense of structure and pacing, idiomatic instrumental writing, and harmonic control are all notable. Making it sound easier than it is, Quilico’s performance in partnership with the fine K-WSO led by Daniel Warren is colouristic and well-paced, justifying indeed the disc’s title, “Tapestries.”

Concert Notes: The Canadian Music Centre (www.musiccentre.ca) hosts the launch of “Tapestries” in a public event on November 2. Christina Petrowska Quilico performs Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Kindred Spirits Orchestra at the Markham Theatre for the Performing Arts on November 5.

Groteske

Mark Fewer; Jonathan Swartz; Andrés Díaz; Wendy Chen

Soundset SR 1033 (www.soundset.com)

Erich von Korngold’s Suite, Op. 23 (1928) is a remarkable though lesser-known work, commissioned by one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein and ably performed here by Jonathan Swartz and Mark Fewer, violins, Andrés Díaz, cello, and Wendy Chen, piano. The viola’s absence de-clutters the middle register, letting Korngold’s left-hand piano writing shine. At the Prelude and Fugue’s opening flourish the piano announces its full and equal participation, delivered here with superb virtuosity by Wendy Chen. Violinists Fewer and Swartz capture the disoriented giddiness of the Waltz while cellist Díaz leads similarly into the almost hallucinatory Groteske, which carries us through turbulent mood contrasts. The intense, post-Mahler Lied followed by the ingenious, energetic variations of the Rondo-Finale complete this exciting performance.

In Toronto-based Kieran MacMillan’s Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Charpentier, commissioned by Swartz for the same instruments, fantasy is the key element. The work weaves in and out stylistically from its theme, taken from a Marc-Antoine Charpentier cantata. I enjoyed the atonal flights in the evanescent Variation 3 and Messiaen-like piano flourishes in Variation 6. The tonal variations are evocative too, some tending to magic realism in suggesting glimpses of the past or the beyond. Mixing styles has been accepted since the 1960s when Foss, Rochberg, Colgrass, Kagel and others started quoting, re-working, or re-creating in the styles of earlier composers. And through being tasteful, aptly conceived for the instrumentation, and welcoming to the listener, these fantasy-variations are worth hearing too.

Ned Rorem - Chamber Music with Flute

Fenwick Smith; David Leisner; Ronald Thomas; Mihae Lee; Ann Hobson Pilot

Naxos 8.559674

Ned Rorem, now in his late eighties was, in his prime, better known for his published diaries than for his music, contributing no doubt to his belief that “society has abandoned its artists in favour of a philistine culture of increasingly embittering ugliness. He feels that his own work is neither recognized nor properly understood.”

Former Boston Symphony Orchestra flutist, Fenwick Smith is joined by pianist Mihae Lee, guitarist David Leisner, harpist Ann Hobson Pilot and cellist Ronald Thomas to play five of Rorem’s compositions. Smith navigates the varied challenges of the music with aplomb: in Queen Mab from the 1977 Romeo and Juliet suite for flute and guitar for instance, he uses dynamics effectively to build excitement, integrates flutter tonguing seamlessly, all the while maintaining great rapport with his collaborator. In …it was the nightingale from the same suite, we hear him as an accomplished virtuoso flutist, but for me the most moving moment in the whole CD was his rendering of Last Prayer from Four Prayers, written a mere five or six years ago, the last track on the disc. The performances can be considered definitive: according to the liner notes “Rorem worked closely with” and was “honoured to be so dazzlingly represented by” the performers on this recording.

Kudos to Naxos for bringing much deserved recognition to Ned Rorem’s work as a composer; I hope it will result in these works appearing more frequently in flute recital programmes everywhere.

Xenakis - Orchestral Works

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg; Arturo Tamayo

Timpani 5C1177 (www.timpani-records.com)

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) was a Greek composer based in Paris, with a long relationship to Canada: four premieres and many visits going back to the 1960s. For all that, there have been just two orchestral performances in Canada. Luckily, next March Esprit Orchestra will reprise its 2006 performance of Jonchaies (1977), a major work included in this set.

Over the 40-some years of his career, Xenakis wrote 40 orchestral scores, an amazing output considering that he composed 100 or so other works as well. Until recently, few of the orchestral pieces were available on disc. Thankfully, in 2000, conductor Arturo Tamayo and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg began recording these works for Timpani Records, a French label. Over the past decade, five discs have been released, now collected in a handy box set. Of the 23 works presented, only a few have been recorded before. The fifth disc includes Achorripsis (1957) for ensemble rather than orchestra. As it is out on disc already, one wonders why it was included. That quibble aside, this is an important collection, very well recorded and performed. Tamayo is a fine, intelligent conductor who performs a great deal of contemporary music all around Europe.

Xenakis’s seminal scores, Metastaseis (1954) and Pithoprakta (1956), have long been available on disc through reissues of early recordings. This new one is a revelation, not only for the pristine quality but for the assurance of the string players, who now very well know how to perform the glissandi, steely non-vibrato, and other extended techniques that earlier musicians struggled with. Hiketides (1964) is a little-known orchestral suite derived from incidental music for the Aeschylus tragedy The Suppliants, and is a fascinating mixture of textural music and archaic-sounding modal passages.

The majority of the works recorded for this set date from the 1980s and 1990s. Most are scored for full orchestra, although Syrmos (1959) and Shaar (1983) are for strings alone, and Akrata (1965) is for winds. Two are concertante works for piano, dazzlingly performed by the young Japanese pianist Hiroaki Ooï: Synaphaï (1969), where the piano part is infamously written on 10 staves, and Erikhthon (1974). The other work in this set featuring soloists is Aïs (1980), written for the extraordinary voice of Spyros Sakkas, jumping between baritone and falsetto. He is heard along with a solo percussion part ably performed by Béatrice Daudin. This work opens the set, and is truly evocative and emotionally gripping. The latest pieces included in the set date from 1991: Roaï, Kyania and Krinoïdi. An extraordinary year! Even more amazing is the variety of character and material between these works. While Xenakis was at that time already suffering from ill health, it certainly does not show in these forceful, sophisticated, beautiful works.

In listening through all this music, various strands of the composer’s thought and expression surface; some — like the glissando textures, the layered polyrhythms, or the modal melodies harmonized in blocks — reappear. Others appear then submerge, giving rise to new ideas. The evolution from one orchestral score to the next is quite organic, and the visceral intensity of the music remains constant. Try listening chronologically as well as following the order presented on the discs.

What is most apparent, in the end, is that all his life Xenakis drew extraordinary inspiration from the symphony orchestra. The important contribution he made to the genre can start to be understood and appreciated with this fine box set.

S. C. Eckhardt-Gramatté - The Six Piano Sonatas

Marc-André Hamelin

Centrediscs CMCCD 16611

Outside Canadian music circles where her legacy lives on in a prestigious music competition, the colourful name of Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté (1899-1974) might not be particularly well known. But rest assured, this woman led an equally colourful life as performer, composer and pedagogue. Born in Moscow, she entered the Paris Conservatory at age eight, studying piano and violin, and went on to a successful concert career on both instruments. Later, two marriages brought her to Barcelona, Berlin, Vienna, and finally to Winnipeg where she settled in 1953 when her second husband Ferdinand Eckhardt became the director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. There she broke new ground as a teacher and composer, her contemporary style very much steeped in the romantic tradition. Among her compositions are six piano sonatas, written between 1923 and 1952 – and who better to perform this technically challenging music than piano titan Marc-André Hamelin? This two CD Centrediscs set is a re-issue of an Altarus recording from 1991.

These sonatas, covering a thirty year period, display a wealth of contrasting styles. The first, written in 1923, pays homage to the Baroque period – think 1920s neo-classicism. Conceived as a two-part invention, the mood is buoyantly optimistic, and Hamelin easily meets the technical demands required to bring it off convincingly. Considerably more subjective is the second sonata, completed only a year later. In four movements, the piece aptly describes Eckhardt-Gramatté’s emotional state over a two year period, from the dark days in Berlin during the Great War to the more cheerful time when she and her first husband, artist Walter Gramatté settled in Spain.

The mercurial nature of these sonatas, with their ever-changing moods presents no challenge to Hamelin. The vivacious finale from the fifth sonata is handled as deftly as the languorous Nocturne of the Sonata No.4.

Eckhardt-Gramatté’s music might not be to everyone’s taste. Some might find it too strident, while others, too deeply-rooted in late romanticism. Nevertheless, she occupies a unique place in 20th century music, and this set is a fine tribute to a composer who undoubtedly deserves wider recognition.

Mathieu Lussier - Passages

Pentaedre; Louise Lessard; Claudia Schaetzle; Fraser Jackson

ATMA ACD2 2657

Bassoonist and composer Mathieu Lussier’s compositions here feature wind instruments and piano in various combinations, some conventional and others unusual. Lussier writes fluently and eclectically for winds in solo and chamber music that has won support of major performers. His works align with the French neoclassical woodwind tradition, and add distinctive touches. I particularly like his Sextet for wind quintet and contrabassoon, a concise three-movement work in which the contrabassoon provides both weight and wit!

Lussier plays and conducts early music, and a baroque influence is noticeable. It shows up in harmonic progressions and in the presence of the siciliano and chaconne, for example. Also, there are popular elements along with the baroque; after all, repeated chord progressions in pop songs can be compared to the ground bass which appears in the last movement of the Sextet and in Passages for bassoon and piano. In the White Rock Sonata syncopation provides a rhythmic spark to the earlier style.

The latter two works show Lussier himself to be an expressive and technically facile bassoon soloist. I am also particularly taken with clarinettist Martin Carpentier’s performance of the Introduction and Sicilienne. In fact the wind soloists are all of high calibre, including also flautist Danièle Bourget, oboe d’amore player Normand Forget, alto saxophonist Claudia Schaetzle, French horn player Louis-Philippe Marsolais, and contrabassoonist Fraser Jackson. Finally, Louise Lessard’s exemplary pianism not only accompanies but periodically steers well-paced and convincing interpretations.

PRES Revisited: Józef Patkowski in Memorium

Various Artists

Bolt Records DUX 0812/13 www.boltrecords.pl

Fascinating in its bravado, this set joins one CD of 1960s and 1970s recordings of important musique concrète by five Polish composers with another CD of acoustic improvisations on these themes by three British and two Polish players. The result not only captures cerebral variants of the compositions but also affirms the originality of the sounds created in the days of bulky tape recorders and thick coaxial cables.

Honouring Józef Patkowski (1929-2005), co-founder of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) in 1957 and its director for 28 years, the original recordings revisit the musical freedom offered by PRES during those Cold War years. For instance Krzysztof Penderecki’s Psalmus (1961) uses electronic filtering and flanges to deconstruct vowels and consonants initially created by the bel canto gurgles and quivering yodels of male and female singers. John Tilbury’s contemporary piano version is more chromatic, with vibrating and strumming strings resonating on top of basso keyboard rumbles. After the tune reaches satisfactory linearity, he shatters the mood by shrilling a lifeguard’s whistle.

Or compare Eugeniusz Rudnik’s 1967 recording of his Dixi with cellist Mikolaj Palosz’s reimagining of it four decades later. Originally a tape collage, the performance swells to forte as dissonant, processed delays almost visually pulsate then dissolves in gradually less audible undulations. Taking an opposite approach, Palosz’s variant mixes strident, spiccato string squeaks at different tempos, reaching raucous volume that sound as if the strings are being splintered as he plays and concluding with string popping fading into dissolving shrills.

Appropriately the final track is a Hommage to Bogusław Schaeffer’s Symphony. Here Tilbury, Palosz, violinist Phil Durrant, guitarist Maciej Śledziecki and percussionist Eddie Prévost combine to coalesce stretched string glissandi, snare ratcheting and cymbal clangs plus faux-romantic piano chording into an ever-shifting performance, which like the Polish composer’s work is both aleatory and multiphonic.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Symphony in F Sharp

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; John Storgårds

Ondine ODE 1182-2

Here is a fine addition to the significant revivals and original works recorded by John Storgårds with the Helsinki Philharmonic. The precocious Erich Korngold was already writing chamber music, orchestral works, and operas at an age when many composers have barely started. But he was forced to leave Austria during the Nazi scourge and turned to Hollywood, becoming an innovator in the new art of film music. The Symphony in F sharp, completed in 1952 after his return to Vienna, is a wonderful summation of his concert and film music accomplishments.

Korngold was a story-teller when critical opinion prized abstract and esoteric music. Only recently have we appreciated his expressive persona, orchestral mastery, and judicious incorporation of musical modernity. The Symphony’s dramatic opening movement demonstrates all these qualities. Its angular melodies, dissonant harmony and interjections by brass and percussion (particularly the xylophone) show his mastery of newer idioms. Storgårds’ transitions assuredly through the work’s contrasting moods, as in a flute solo over hushed strings or in cinematic flashes featuring the horn section. The orchestration of the Scherzo is especially colourful and the Helsinki Orchestra takes it all in stride with tight ensemble work. I find their performance of the anguished slow movement extraordinarily moving. More cheerful and witty is the finale, whose popular American film idiom is interrupted by intense interludes. Rounding off this valuable disk is Korngold’s youthful Tänzchen, which receives a charmingly Viennese treatment by the Helsinki Orchestra.

Arvo Pärt - Symphony No.4

Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen

ECM New Series ECM 2160

Arvo Pärt's fourth symphony is scored for tympani, concert harp, percussion and string orchestra. Although there is no choral element, one cannot imagine that the origins of this creation are not steeped in chant.

Shortly after I was tragically and very suddenly widowed, I attended the Canadian premier performance of this symphony (long before the ECM release). Supportive family members and friends had been encouraging me that once again I would find beauty in a world that seemed so empty, as it often does during the early stages of grief. I will never forget the profound sense of beauty, tonal balance and celestial bliss that surrounded me for the duration of the symphony. It truly was the first time I had encountered beauty amongst my suffering.

For many years, a quote from the Estonian composer has resounded with me: “I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played.” This line speaks volumes of Pärt's tintinnabuli approach to musical expression.

With the ECM release of this symphony, I was eager to discover whether the same sense of wonder that I experienced live could possibly be documented. Esa-Pekka Salonen intimately and delicately conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in a way that masterfully conveys Pärt’s awe-inspiring composition.

This label has a long history of working with Arvo Pärt. His sparse and minimalist style (which seems to rely on silence as much as sound at times) lends itself perfectly to the label's established approach of audiophile recording techniques. It is a superlative recording that draws the listener right in, or rather, right above the front of the stage; there's a stunning balance of direct and reverberant sound, while still maintaining pinpoint imaging. I was also pleasantly surprised to find similar results with open back headphones.

Upon listening to this disc, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a friend who recently moved to Canada from Brazil to learn English. When the word “awesome” seemed to pop up commonly in conversation, I reminded him that the word is indeed overused as of late. It is in fact an adjective that once seemed to be reserved to describe those rare, most magnificent occurrences. I feel that this word could certainly be used to describe Esa-Pekka Salonen's interpretation of Arvo Pärt's Fourth Symphony.

Federico Mompou - Silent Music

Jenny Lin

Steinway & Sons 30004

I understand Federico Mompou’s four books entitled Silent Music for piano (1959-67) as music to be co-constructed by creator and listener. The needed frame of mind, conditions, and responses must come from the listener. Then pensive moments may arrive that take us beyond ourselves. The Spanish title Musica Callada comes from mystical poetry by St. John of the Cross, the 28 pieces sharing a quality of monastic sparseness with soft dynamics and slow tempi.

Since acquiring ArkivMusic in 2008, Steinway & Sons has released several discs showcasing its topflight piano. This is a special recording where instrument, production, engineering, documentation, and performance are all superb. Jenny Lin displays flawless pianism with superb control of dynamics and occasional flashes of virtuosity. I am reluctant to single out particular favourites: the books create cumulative effects and listener responses will vary widely.

In Mompou’s own recordings, melodies are shaped more incisively, rubato is freer, and old-fashioned “breaking of the hands” is heard. As a contemporary listener, I much prefer Lin’s approach. But Mompou’s own passionate playing belies any notion of minimalist intentions. The mood is different than Satie’s and closer to Debussy at his most sparse, in the prelude …De pas sur la neige, or in Le petit berger from the Children’s Corner Suite.

One extra piece, Secreto, comes at the disc’s end. Here, criticism takes its leave and readers are invited to seek their own experiences with this remarkable music.

Daniel Janke - Cinco Puntos Cardinales

Mark Fewer; Coro In Limine

Centrediscs CMCCD 16911

In part compositions for violin solo, a men’s chorus, mixed instrumental ensemble and soundscapes from South America, the unifying principle of this eclectic collection is its design as an accompaniment and essential text to a modern dance work by the Lima Peru dance company, Danza Contemporanea.

The work’s title may be translated as “Five Cardinal Points” and its choreographer Yvonne von Mollendorff suggests a metaphysical reading: the four directions of the compass plus the fifth – “the self, the observer.” The work’s sections range widely in kind from three austere solo violin pieces eloquently performed by Mark Fewer, to the rhythmic sound of palm fronds in Guyana, to the lush male sounds of the Peruvian Coro in Limine. Composer Daniel Janke deftly merges international and his own Canadian musical influences and creates a work that verges on the cinematic in scope. The variety of performing ensembles and where they were recorded geographically reminds one of Janke’s more recent career as a film writer, composer and director.

Adding to the kaleidoscope of aesthetics and genres is a track recorded with some of Toronto’s top improvisers, as well as a West African tinged track Miawezo. The latter composition alludes to Janke’s studies of the kora (West African harp-lute) in the 1970s and ‘80s with some of its leading hereditary Jali musicians.

Long devoted to incorporating world music influences in his compositions, Daniel Janke continues to boldly bridge parts of our globe through the music on this album.

Chamber Music for Harp

Valérie Milot; Antoine Bareil; François Vallières; Raphael Dube; Jocelyne Roy

Analekta AN 2 9985

Gifted young artist Valérie Milot here performs significant twentieth-century works with vigour and elegance. Trained in Quebec and at Juilliard, Milot opens with Germaine Tailleferre’s Sonata for solo harp (1953), capturing telling moments in this occasionally bittersweet piece. She gives a straight-ahead reading of the march-like opening movement, changing moods for the sultry habanera. Milot’s accomplished technique fully realizes accumulating dance-like energies in the finale.

Ravel’s piano Sonatine appears in Carlos Salzedo’s transcription, as reworked by violist François Vallières who joins Milot and flautist Jocelyne Roy. It doesn’t take orchestral colour to transcribe Ravel effectively! His impeccable voice-leading and harmonic “nudges” bring solo lines alive, as the performers demonstrate.

Chez R. Murray Schafer the outdoors beckons. Apparently Wild Bird (1997) received its title from violinist dedicatee Jacques Israelievitch’s “rather orange hair.” Whatever ― skittering, trilling, “nyah-nyah’s” among other birdcalls characterize the leading violin, the harp playing a supporting role. While birdsong and scale constructions evoke Messiaen, the flair, drama, and humour that violinist Antoine Bareil and Milot bring out are pure Schafer.

Philippe Hersant’s chant-based Choral features cellist Raphäel Dubé with Milot. Evocative harp sonorities undergird passionate cello outcries, resolving in a mystical close. Then all performers join in Jean Françaix’s engaging Quintet No. 2 for Flute, String Trio, and Harp for a fine upbeat ending.

Music of Stefan Wolpe Vol. 6

David Holzman

Bridge Records Bridge 9344 (www.BridgeRecords.com)

Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) is still one of the underappreciated great composers of the twentieth century. It has been said by someone that Wolpe has all the complexity of Carter or Boulez, but with the added bonus that Wolpe can swing.

Pianist David Holzman is a persuasive advocate of Wolpe, having known and studied with him. This is his second disc for the Bridge label’s ongoing Wolpe series, his first from 2002 garnering a Grammy nomination. The works span 1926-1959 and range from epigrammatic to large-scale forms. The breadth of Wolpe’s character is in evidence here. An impassioned dramatic sense, rigorous intellect, lightness and wit all have a place.

Four Studies on Basic Rows (1936) is a work for only the most intrepid pianists, exploring particular intervallic relations while making extraordinary pianistic demands. The fourth of these, Passacaglia is a masterly construction of tempestuous drama and brooding introspection. Mr. Holzman’s ability to bring clarity to the dense counterpoint and thick textures is remarkable. An entirely different interpretation from Peter Serkin’s excellent 1986 recording on the New World label, Holzman brings an earthiness to this important work. The Toccata in Three Parts (1941) is a similarly challenging work, its double-fugue finale again presenting Mr. Holzman’s virtuosity.

The disc also features many aphoristic miniatures. Pastorale, a gem from 1941 will surprise those familiar with Wolpe with its gentleness and lyricism. Wolpe’s interest in Jewish folk music is represented by the dance-like Palestinian Notebook (1939), written after his sojourn in Jerusalem (1934-38).

One very enjoyable feature of both of Mr. Holzman’s Wolpe discs are his own liner notes, with a personable and sometimes amusing quality.

Astounding complexity and unabashed simplicity co-exist in Wolpe’s musical world. The concluding miniature Lively. Why not? will put a smile on anyone’s face.