Lukas Foss - Complete Works for Solo Piano (Naxos)

Lukas Foss has had an eclectic career as a prominent conductor, pianist and composer. His music is similarly eclectic, drawing upon a wide range of styles with chameleon-like versatility, witty humor, and consummate technique. Scott Dunn records his complete piano music (to date) for the Naxos label. The earliest pieces are "Four Two-Part Inventions" and "Grotesque Dance", written in 1938, when Foss was just sixteen years old. Obviously, the Inventions are strongly influenced by the Bach Two-Part Inventions, but Foss also peppers his with hints of Hindemith and Bartok. Grotesque Dance is a brash, ebullient piece; you can imagine a saucy teenage version of Foss penning it and playing it with aplomb. The Prelude in D (1951) evokes a Coplandesque neoclassicism. More avant-garde is Solo. Written in 1981, it playfully combines minimalism and post-tonality in a quixotic tornado of a piece. The 1987 composition For Lenny, Variation on "New York New York" is also appealing. It's based on a song by dedicatee Leonard Bernstein from the Broadway show On The Town. The tune is given a lilting, tango treatment with playful, jazzy syncopations. Dunn plays Foss's music with a sensitive touch and palpable enthusiasm.

Charles Wuorinen - Piano Works (Col Legno)

Alan Feinberg is one of the foremost performers of American piano repertoire. He has recorded a diverse assortment of composers: Ives, Gershwin, Griffes, Beach, Cowell and Babbitt, to name a few, and here he turns his attentions to the music of Charles Wuorinen. Wuorinen, a formidable pianist himself, writes piano music that is both technically demanding and expressive. Feinberg makes Blue Bamboula (1980) shimmer, revelling in its dance rhythms and colorful harmonies. Ave Christe (Josquin) (1988) is Wuorinen's solo piano transcription of part of a motet by the Renaissance composer Josquin de Prez. Its harmonic language is worlds and centuries away from the post-tonal techniques used in Wuorinen's own music, but both composers share a penchant for lively counterpoint. The reflective Album Leaf is also based on a vocal work, Wuorinen's own Mass for the Restoration of St. Luke in the Fields. The Third Piano Sonata, written in 1986, is the recording's most substantial composition. Cast in three movements, it is rife with finger busting passages and requires tremendous interpretive sophistication. Feinberg plays it with authority. He brings off the breakneck-paced outer movements with crystalline clarity and elegantly performs the slower middle movement, perfectly balancing the intricate web of gestures and wide dynamic shifts. The nine-minute long Bagatelle (1988) is deliberate in its pacing, filled with piquant verticals and delicate melodic threads. 1977's Self-Similar Waltz playfully deconstructs its titular dance form. Capriccio (1981) layers several strands of activity in a complex and rhythmically diverse polyphony. Feinberg is a wonderful interpreter of Wuorinen's piano music; the Col Legno disc is vibrant and engaging throughout.

Arvo Pärt - Lamentate (ECM)

ECM has long championed Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. His latest recording for the imprint includes two works. Da Pacem Domine is a brief piece for a cappella vocal soloists. Performed here by the Hilliard Ensemble, this paean to peace takes a ninth century Gregorian antiphon and blows it up into an expansive, slowly unfolding work filled with sumptuous modal harmonies. The reverberant acoustic of the recording environment, the Propstei St. Gerold, is ideal for the Hilliard Ensemble's elegant rendering of this eloquent work.

The CD's main course is Lamentate, a piano concerto cast in ten movements. The piece is dedicated to Anish Kapoor and his sculpture "Marysyas"; it was commissioned by the Tate Modern, which houses the monolithic artwork. The composition also has an imposing character, bringing out Pärt's adventurous side; the composer describes it as a "lamento for the living... struggling with the pain and hopelessness of this world." His signature bell-like harmonies (tinntinabuli) and meditative passages are present, but they are sometimes offset by a considerable dose of dissonance and a powerful gestural language. Pianist Alexei Lubimov excels at both ends of this stylistic spectrum, forcefully playing the brash Spietato and imbuing the Fragile e conciliante with poignant delicacy.

George Crumb - Complete Crumb Edition, Volume 9 (Bridge)

The latest volume in Bridge's George Crumb Edition features two important works by the composer from earlier in his career -- Ancient Voices of Children (1970) and Madrigals, Books I-IV (1965, 1969) -- as well as a recent work for piano, Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (A Little Midnight Music, 2001). Tony Arnold is the soprano soloist for both Ancient Voices and the Madrigals; her supple voice and enthusiastic performance of the scores' numerous vocal effects make her a compelling interpreter of Crumb's music. Pianist Emmanuele Arciuli performs Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik, which is subtitled "Ruminations on Round Midnight by Thelonious Monk". Crumb deconstructs Monk with abandon. In places, he calls upon the pianist to play extended techniques inside the piano, including percussive interjections and harmonic overtones (Arciuli also gets to shout a bit). Other variations feature rapid-fire repeated notes, impressionistic harmonies, clusters, and a bumptious quotation of Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk". While most of the piece is a far cry from traditional jazz, it's wild to hear this experimental take on such a venerable standard.

-- Christian Carey