CONTEMPORARY ROMANTICS: Works by Mary Jeanne van...

CONTEMPORARY ROMANTICS: Works by Mary Jeanne van Appledorn, Max Lifchitz, Ron Mazurek, Elizabeth Pizer, Howard Quilling and Harold Schiffman. Max Lifchitz, piano. North/ South Recordings 1001. The eight selections here, coupled with “American Debuts” (N/S R 1002), introduce the listening public to contemporary American piano music. Most of these have programmatic connotations, though the compositional styles vary from Schiffman’s gentle, tonal set of Nine Pieces to Mazurek’s complex interaction between piano and taped, electrically produced sounds in “The Voice Within.” Results differ as well: Pizer’s quiet miniatures are as short in interest as they are in length and Appledorn’s “Liszt Fantasy” impresses more for the technical work than for dramatic impact. Still, the propulsive rhythms of Quilling’s Sonata No. 2, as well as its hypnotic slow movement, and the eerie effect of “The Voice Within” bear attention. Lifchitz shoulders the entire range of demands with convincing aplomb, including those of his own, angry, Vietnam-era protest, “Elegia.” *

PETER SCHICKELE: “Sneaky Pete and the Wolf” (Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”); Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.” Atlanta Symphony, conducted by Yoel Levi; Ralph Markham and Kenneth Broadway, duo-pianists. Telarc CD-80350. Schickele has rewritten and narrates the texts to these popular children’s pieces. Peter’s story is transformed into a Western tale of Sneaky Pete; his lady love, Laura Canard; his old, drunken side kick, Ben Blunderbuss, and dangerous Hugo the Wolf (“El Lobo”), who is out to get Pete for having sold him some bogus real estate in Florida. It is not likely to replace the original, but it does provide plenty of chuckles. Leonard Slatkin asked Schickele to update Ogden Nash’s well-known poems for a 1991 New Year’s Eve performance by the New York Philharmonic of Saint-Saens’ programmatic work. The result was a complete new set of verses, in turn gentle and silly, spiced with occasional barbs. Broadway & Markham rise to the challenge with precise, impressive technical and coloristic flair, neatly complemented by their attentive cohorts.