By JD88992
27-Dec-2011

All the animals, two by two  

As a counterpoint to Saint-Saens’ famous musical menagerie, Lucas Richman has composed an accompaniment for Jack Prelutsky’s rhymed collection of imaginary beasties. Though the orchestration is great fun--in “Ballpoint Penguins”, you can hear the animals scratching away in a sort of soft-shoe rhythm--and some of the text is actually quite clever, I don’t think the author’s sing-song delivery will wear well on repeated playings. (Admittedly, there’s not much option when the words are set to be spoken over the music, but he comes across as if performing to a very large and not very bright audience, and might have scaled it down for the recording).

Prelutsky has also provided new verses for the older piece, no real improvement on the Ogden Nash we’re used to hearing, but better than Peter Schickele’s attempt. Meanwhile, Parker and Shaham play with the requisite twinkle, and actually pull off something I’d not heard before in “Pianists”! Nice engineering presents the two pianos as separate instruments; good sound overall. Detailed booklet notes explain all the musical in-jokes.
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