This Italian CD collects four international works, all written in 1924, to 
highlight the effect of the post-World War I light-music influences (jazz, 
operettas, cabarets, and the like) on classical music. Any number of years would 
work to illustrate this idea, of course, but maybe this is just the first of a 
series of “year“ CDs. These particular “forgotten“ compositions were chosen 
purposefully to avoid “a certain official historiography“ while seeking to 
rediscover minor pieces that, “contrary to the testimony to which the usual 
'history of great masterpieces' is limited, . . . give a better sense of the 
atmosphere of the period, for the simple reason that they present more simply 
the aesthetic circumstances that conditioned the era of composition.“ (The 
English translation of the Italian notes is coarse, and you have to read 
carefully for the ideas.)

Louis Gruenberg composed The Daniel Jazz for Voice, Clarinet, Trumpet, Piano, 
Percussion, and String Quartet to Vachel Lindsay's parody-poem of a Biblical 
psalm, using a style that combines spirituals, jazz, ragtime, and other popular 
styles. It is fun to finally hear this work; there are so many references to The 
Daniel Jazz in print that I was half-expecting it to be a small masterpiece - 
which it isn't, but that's O.K. It is perfect for this collection and worthy of 
rehearings. The text is sung in English. De Falla's Psyché for Voice and Five 
Instruments, based on a lyric poem by Jean Aubry, was chosen by virtue of its 
folklore and sacred-music properties; it is uncomplicated, showing influences of 
Ravel and Stravinsky but remaining a good example of one European culture's 
concession to a totally different kind of “popular“ influence. Auric's 
incidental music to Marcel Achard's ironical drama Marlborough s'en va-t'en 
guerre incorporates the sounds of the music hall and fair grounds, displayed on 
a lean, Stravinskian neo-Classical soundboard. Martina's Concertino for Cello, 
with Winds, Piano, and Percussion is basically a microcosm of all the 
influences: composed in Paris, it is modern urban music - sassy and bustling, 
yet economical and without pretentions. This is the first concerto that Martinů 
wrote, and it's a good one.

This is a worthy, if not vital, gathering of seldom-to-never-heard pieces. The 
Italian performers are excellent; soprano Diane Rama, born in Queens, New York, 
has a pleasing roundness to her tone, though her diction is often not clear. The 
studio sound is a touch dry but is clean and dimensional. Texts enclosed.

  --Stephen Ellis