Marina Thibeault, Marie-Eve Scarfone, Elles, Schumann, Boulanger, Hensel. Clarke, Fuchs, Pidgorna

What is worthwhile comes to us by directed chance. We cannot sample everything yet we choose much of what we find at critical junctures. So I did not simply find today's music, Elles (Atma Classique ACD2 2772)  in my mailbox. I asked for it explicitly. And I am glad I did.

It features women composers, Romantic through Modern, with apt and fine-honed performances by Marina Thibeault on alto/viola and Marie-Eve Scarfone on the piano. What strikes me after quite a few listens is the poise of the artists. They give us a striking musical demeanor. The viola, much as I might love Leonid Kogan's ecstatic high notes on violin, has an alternate universe of burnished sounds in the somewhat lower register and I have a special love for that. Ms. Thibeault knows what she is about and takes perfect advantage of the inherent sound of the instrument to accentuate the musical possibilities suggested and prescribed by the composers on the program. And Ms. Scarfone responds with an equally burnished pianism that goes a long way to ensure an entranced listen.

So the selection of works seems rather inspired. It begins with Clara Schumann's "Trois Romances, op. 22," a work of unabashed depth and piercing presence. Then the mood becomes ever more focused as we revel with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) and a starcasted viola version of her "Trois pieces pour violincello et piano." It is one of her most memorable chamber works and the version here is haunting. I find such programs well enhanced with the presence (as here) of something by Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn), a touching nocturne based on Goethe's vision of nightfall. Goethe admired her music and she quite clearly appreciated his poetry.

The last duet work is by a composer I have only come to appreciate in the last decade, Rebecca Clark (1886-1979). Her "Sonate pour alto et piano" is one of her classic pieces and the version here is as inspired as it deserves to be.

Perhaps the highest point of the program occurs at the end, a leap into the modernity of the later then-as-now with two extended solo viola works played with a convincing fervor by Ms. Thibeault. The 1956 "Sonata Pastoral" composed by violist Lillian Fuchs (1901-1995) makes a lovely and gritty impression, which is then seconded by the living and thriving Anna Pidgorna and her "The Child, Bringer of Life."

In the end I am left with a feeling that an important recital has been savored, that my appreciation for the viola and its deeply inimitable possibilities have been well realized with works by women I hear and learn from, revel in, that I bask within the hearing of same.

Viva Marina Thibeault, viva Marie-Eve Scarfone, and viva Elles.