**** Andrew Rangell

A RECITAL OF INTIMATE WORKS

(Dorian)

One of our stellar pianists has produced a delectably rangy album of pieces that make for a surprisingly compatible program. Beethoven's six late Bagatelles, Opus 126, are the spiritual centerpiece here, and Rangell plays them with zest and complex rhythmic nuance that reveal both their comedy and their lurking tears (these pieces may be short but they're far from trifles). There's an elegant Bach Menuett and an exquisite Sheep May Safely Graze, both transcribed by the nearly forgotten Austrian pianist and Busoni disciple Egon Petri. Rangell sees a connection between J.J. Froberger's 1654 Ricercare and the profound opening Fugue of Beethoven's C-sharp-minor String Quartet, neither originally composed for piano, but the one follows the other here, in Rangell's own piano versions, and they work together beautifully, on the deepest intuitive level.

There are eloquent performances of Mozart's great Rondo in A and Sweelinck's Variations on "My Young Life Is at an End," and, to cleanse the palate, night-and-day interspersals of an "impalpable" Messiaen "dawn" prelude and Enescu's brilliantly chiming Carillon nocturne. Rangell is one of our treasures. These pieces were all recorded both before and during his recent hiatus from live performances. He's now playing in public again, so the addition of this recording to the catalogue gives us the best of both possible worlds.

-- Lloyd Schwartz