Various Artists, The Devil’s Music (Naxos, two discs). Let’s grant that it was tacky for Naxos to release this two-disc anthology of classical music with Satan’s Touch without identifying the musicians involved more explicitly (you have to try to read disc covers in miniature) but the general plan and execution are so much fun that you can almost forgive them. In a collection of music that features everything from Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor” (in Gothic Stokowski adaptation) to Gyorgi Ligeti’s “L’Escalier Du Diable” with all the favorites you expect (Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre,” Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz”) and a lot you don’t (diabolic musical imaginings by Vaughan Williams, for instance, and Johann Strauss, not to mention a “Mephisto Waltz” by Prokofiev). The conceit here is that the devil wrote the disc notes, too. “Music from the Dark Side” indeed. (J. S.)

He plays with fluency and understanding, but Ehlen’s recording has the bad luck to have reached me at the same time as a remarkable DVD (reviewed elsewhere) in which the Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov performs three Beethoven sonatas in an altogether more probing way. Where Ehlen’s are unmannered readings of the scores, Sokolov’s uncommonly imaginative piano playing brings more energy and greater insight to these familiar works. Ehlen’s recording is slightly hampered by a brittle and almost metallic quality of sound in the higher register of his Steinway that severely limits the range of possible color. Boosting the bass and lowering the treble improves the sound.

Sonic shortcomings aside, this is often very sensitive playing. If Ehlen doesn’t offer a strongly individual “take” on these sonatas, he also lacks eccentricity or fussiness, and that is all for the good. I particularly like his performances of the third and fourth movements of the first sonata, op. 2/1, volatile and incendiary, respectively. The first movement is marred by unwanted accents on the turn figure that ends the main motive, and the second movement (Adagio) needs a greater feeling of repose at the start.

The “Moonlight” Sonata’s first movement receives a lovely, delicate performance, very quiet, and the succeeding movements are satisfyingly well paced. The “Hammerklavier” is by far the most difficult of the 32 sonatas, and any pianist would feel justifiably satisfied (relieved?) to have successfully recorded it in Volume 1 of the cycle. Ehlen has the technique to handle the monumental and propulsive first and last movements, and he turns in a solid, accurate performance that’s missing a certain gravitas. The Adagio sostenuto—for me, the most touching slow movement that Beethoven ever composed—goes by too quickly, more andante than adagio. On a recent disc, pianist Gabriel Chodos takes 21:19 compared to Ehlen’s 16:36 to play this movement. Chodos gives us a more meaningful unfolding of this journey “from the heart to the heart.”

As more and more complete Beethoven sonata cycles have appeared over the years, the legacy of recordings (starting with Schnabel, who set the bar almost impossibly high) should cause a young pianist to strongly consider waiting to record their interpretations until they feel certain that they have something new or important to offer. At that point, said pianist will probably not be so young and will almost certainly have a stronger affinity for some sonatas than for others, which will call into question the idea of recording the complete cycle. Ehlen’s Volume 1 is by no means a bad start, but I hope that he will communicate a more personal view of the sonatas as future installments appear.

Oddly, Azica doesn’t mention anywhere on the CD the recording location or the name of a producer or engineer.

David was not the only one in his day besotted by Oriental exoticism. It was all the rage from the time of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt on. David traveled to the Middle East in the early 1830s, and was permanently smitten. Le désert is perhaps the best of his many responses to Middle-Eastern culture. Apart from its exotic moments—the muezzin’s call in the third part is often claimed to be the first Muslim music heard in Western Europe, despite not being particularly Islamic—its ability to suggest the vast spaces of the desert and to give one sense of its peoples made it a powerful contribution to the increasingly popular genre of the orchestral tone poem before the term arrived. It’s not difficult to see why Berlioz proclaimed him a new great composer after its premiere in 1844.

David’s chief gift was his ability to exploit orchestral color, and we hear that at once in the first section, a fine evocation of the desert, using broad ostinato orchestral basses to suggest the vast silence, over which come various colorful moments, such as the arrival of a caravan. The second movement depicts the desert at night, a much more lively time of day. The third movement portrays morning and the passing of the caravan. Though it shouldn’t, it may surprise some to hear God addressed by the chorus in this piece as Allah.

The orchestra in this 1989 recording plays very well indeed, and Guida knows what this piece needs to make it work. The Speaker is French, and if I say that I hear an odd accent in his voice, I admit I cannot immediately identify it. Tenor Lazzaretti is, frankly, underpowered, and recorded fairly far back on the stage, and the chorus is simply woefully uneven and unsubtle. This is a shame because, as music, this piece has a lot going for it and, despite a certain resemblance of the third movement to the first, I think this would be a good work to restore to the choral-orchestral repertoire. The booklet has Auguste Colin’s original French text and a German translation only.

Georg Vogler was one of the 18th (and early 19th) century's great "characters". He began his career at Mannheim where, if Mozart is to be believed, no one especially liked him, although he evidently was successful enough. He then traveled all over the world, literally, from Paris to Sweden to North Africa, teaching music as he went. His two most famous pupils were Weber and Meyerbeer, both of whom loved him. And no wonder.

This music is full of personality. The D minor symphony, written in Paris around 1782, is a Sturm und Drang masterpiece, exciting as hell and fabulously scored, especially for the winds. So is the Ballet Suite No. 1--note the piccolos in the final dance--featuring music taken from La rendez-vous de chasse. It makes you desperately want to hear the complete work, which is readily available for perusal in score as part of Volume 1 of A-R Editions' wonderful series of Mannheim court ballets.

Here's the bottom line: if you're interested in some really worthy, totally unknown music of the Classical period, then you need to hear this. Matthias Bamert and the London Mozart Players turn in performances that are as lively and colorful as the music. There's plenty of rhythmic fire and spontaneity in the quicker music, and the (modern) strings never turn dessicated, which is a good thing because Vogler specifically asks for vibrato in his orchestral scores--and even in his piano music--so we know that it's both expressively necessary as well as stylistically appropriate. Only the engineering sounds a bit boomy at times, but it's no big deal.

The Corghi is an oddity, a piece with a political agenda. The agenda is in fact obscured by the music. Azio Corghi was evidently hired to produce a piece in honor of the French Revolution. He chose to set, or perhaps deconstruct, five songs that the revolutionaries sang, including “Ah, c’ira” and call them, I am guessing ironically, Chansons d’élite. Perhaps in a fit of self-criticism, he seems to be making a point about the classicizing of popular songs—in which case, he is also biting the hand that feeds him. He fragments the songs, and parodies them. “La Camagnole” is stated in bits by both instruments, the cello sounding choked, the piano distracted. There does seem to be a pattern established: the cello plays melodically, sometimes boldly, a bit of the melody, which the piano then dances around. They often take turns in a cockamamie conversation. In the notes, Corghi asks what the relevance of the Revolution is to today’s culture. He doesn’t give us a clue in his music, which is nonetheless amusing to listen to.

The opening of The Golden Spinning Wheel is arresting despite Kreizberg’s slow tempo that he maintains consistently until an unfortunate final headlong rush. Kreizberg takes about two minutes longer than Kertész, and not surprisingly, Kertész’s instrumental textures and tempos are lighter and more dance-like. Kreizberg is darker in tone and generates a little more dramatic impact. He doesn’t hesitate to linger over Dvořák’s seemingly endless stream of melodies. Once again, it seems that Kreizberg is more temperamentally in tune with the tone poems than the symphonies.

PentaTone’s sound is typical for this series. Orchestral balances and the fine instrumental detail at the beginning of The Golden Spinning Wheel are outstanding. The high frequencies could benefit from a little more sparkle and presence. To sum up, Kreizberg’s Dvořák Seventh is quite good, but his Golden Spinning Wheel is excellent. PentaTone needs to eventually release a collection of the tone poem fillers when Kreizberg’s cycle of symphonies is completed. It would also be good to hear his take on Dvořák’s concert overtures.