Album Review

Guy Bunclark [www.sonic-recreation.com]

Paulina Drake, born in 1942, was a pianist originally from Hong Kong, who moved to the US in the late 1950's, settling in California and studying at UCLA. She married Norberto Cappone, and they concertized and taught piano from their base in Anaheim, occasionally giving two-piano recitals.

She made at least three LP's, and this Genesis record makes it all the more regrettable that she didn't record more (the first, a recital of Prokofiev, Muczynski, Rachmaninoff and Kabalevsky is also excellent). She had a strong technique, and her lightness of touch and sensitive musicality make this a very desirable record for those with a taste for fin de siecle piano miniatures.

The MacDowell pieces are, of course, pretty well known; she plays them all with aplomb, and never sentimentalizes them. ''To a Wild Rose'', his most famous piece, is simply played and all the more effective for that. Her sure technique makes light work of the well-known ''In Autumn'' and ''Will o' the Wisp'', and she finds a good deal of poetry in ''To a Water-Lily'' and humor in ''From Uncle Remus''. All in all, she more than has the measure of this composer, and it's possibly the most successful recording of these pieces so far made.

Side A, with miniatures by another Mid-Atlantic composer, Ethelbert Nevin, is altogether on the same level pianistically, but the music itself is more of the ''parlor music'' variety than MacDowell. It's all very pleasant, but hardly makes for repeated listening. ''Narcissus'' was, of course, by far his biggest hit, played rather too slowly here, perhaps. The ''A Day in Venice'' suite is rather more interesting, but it doesn't have MacDowell's inventiveness or melodic charm. The intelligent pianism is never in doubt, though.

Paulina Drake passed away in 1996, and this LP is a fitting memorial to her.