The bushy eyebrow raising CD of Dallapiccola's piano music arrived much
sooner than I had anticipated.  One of the pieces, 'Sonataina Canonica
su "Capricci di Niccolo Paganini"' (1943) is in 4 movements of which the
third sounds surprisingly like a late Beethoven sonata slow movement and
the fourth sounds like wrong note Weber inviting one to the dance.  'Tis
a good, foot-stomping start to this new release, which also includes the
grim and delirious 'Tre Episodi Dal Balleto "Marsia"' (1949) and 'Quaderno
Musicale Di Annalibera' (1952) in which the composer parades his
contrapuntal learning before all and sundry.  The CD then moves on to
include 5 piano pieces by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, including the seaweed
inspired 'Alghe'.  All pieces are competently played by a woman who is
reputed to be distantly related to Giovanni Paisiello, namely Mariaclara
Monetti.  She has incidentally also recorded all 8 of Paisiello's Piano
Concertos for ASV, though I know nothing of these, other than the fact that
they are in a harmless 18th century idiom, and any parents of musically
accomplished, keyboard playing teenage daughters should be able to set them
to work on any of these concertos without fear that they will be in any way
spiritually corrupted or otherwise exposed to lascivious harmonies, whether
they be hidden or not!

Once again, I could not resist adding more Beethoven to my CD collection,
this time the Octet for Winds in E flat, Op.103, played by the Marlboro
Festival Octet.  This appears on Sony Essential Classics SBK 62412, coupled
with Mozart's Serenade KV 388 and Dvorak's Serenade, Op.44.  A cheap, but
safe purchase.

The big disappointment of the week was culinary rather than musical.
I missed out on the purchase of a sale price book of "Recipes from the
Titanic".  My heart and spirit sank to a profound depth, when I realised
that a book that I had thought could safely be left on the shelf for one
more day had gone when I returned.  I had so looked forward to creating
authentic 7 course first class meals for VIPs and plain steerage class
meals for certain others of my acquaintance.

Geoffrey S.W. Gaskell