120 American Record Guide May/June 2023 WILDER: Piano Pieces 2 John Noel Roberts Albany 1886—62 minutes Alec Wilder (1907-80) was a largely self-taught composer who in the 1930s and on wrote popular songs for the likes of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, thanks to his gift for crafting memorable melodies. He also revered the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel and the contrapuntal mastery of Bach, letting these figures guide him into a path all his own, strad- dling the worlds of classical music and jazz but not fully comfortable in either. As Jack Sullivan put it in his review of the first volume of his piano music, his music was “too tuneful for the classical avant-garde and too sophisticated for the pop crowd” (Albany 1294, M/J 2012). Over a decade later, here is the second volume of his piano pieces, nearly all of which are miniatures. There are bonafide jazz pieces, some of which were composed for film and theater. Others skew closer to classical, though shadows of jazz remain. His fifth and sixth piano suites show him at his most curious, working with whole tone and octatonic scales colored with blue notes, unexpected chromaticism, and surprising tonal shifts. Many of these pieces combine impressionist harmonies with contrapuntal and fugal experiments. Even at its most adventurous, the music is never harsh on the ear and almost always pleasant. John Noel Roberts has the right feeling for the music’s special blend of jazz and classical. Sound is great. If there is more piano music by Wilder in the pipeline, let’s have it sooner than a decade this time! FARO