Topical or not, the horrific tale of a quadriplegic murderer who ''disposed of his victims in a particularly heinous fashion'' hardly augurs well for benign musical entertainment. However, quite apart from questioning the nature of evil and our place in its strategy, Paul Schoenfield's existentialist response to a 70-year-old murderer's release from prison prompts a wildly diverting, madcap tone-poem that opens amongst pensive, dank shadows and suddenly flies into dizzy, high spirited confusion—a sort of Gershwin-cum-Shostakovich, complete with sliding brass, high-hat cymbals and tam-tam. This is the first of Schoenfield's hugely enjoyable Four Parables; whereas the others deal, respectively, with a man going senile, a young religious fanatic whose refusal to see a doctor caused his own death, and a touching (though humorous) ''Dog heaven''—created for a couple of children as part-compensation for their confiscated family pet. Schoenfield, a degree-holding, award-winning 47 year old, etches these 'slices of life' with a combination of wry humour and pathos: senility is depicted as bluesy, cool and devil-may-care; the fundamentalist's pain recalls Sibelius's Fourth Symphony and early Penderecki, and the heavenly dogs frolic to the choicest variety of musical 'cross-over'.
Vaudeville takes its cue from Schumann's versicoloured brand of thematic transformation (as displayed in Carnaval), with piccolo trumpet and clarinet taking centre stage. As in the Klezmer Rondos, Jewish folk-style music has a spot to itself, whereas elsewhere, Schoenfield's roll-call of effects includes the sentimental ballad, hectic dancing and a hilarious send-up of Mahler's Second Symphony as the ''Sketches'' swing into ''Carmen Rivera''. The Rondos themselves are perhaps the most 'mainstream' items on the CD, with telling but well-integrated side-glances at Bartok, Stravinsky, Weill and Bernstein. Here, as elsewhere, Schoenfield symbolizes the highly creative contradiction of individualist plagiarism: initially, one strains to recall where this or that idea might 'come from', but not for long. Ultimately, the composer's resourcefulness and originality in juxtaposing his ideas wins through, and you leave his work with a party-bag full of good tunes and the meaningful recollection of his own guiding aphorism, that ''Life is tantamount to a burlesque show''.
So, sit back—and enjoy, as they say. Which barely leaves enough room to pay adequate tribute to the performers, all of them first-rate, with Jeffrey Kahane on dazzling top form: his is the sort of pianism that Earl Wild fans will go mad for. Wolfgang Basch plays a mean piccolo trumpet, Carol Wincenc varies her tone according to the momentary complexion of Schoenfield's changing moods, and the New World Symphony rise to John Nelson's vivid prompting with obvious relish. The sound, by the way, is superb. A real tonic!'