The fifth volume of Cecile Licad’s ‘Anthology of American Piano Music’ offers an intriguingly curated programme focusing upon dance. Amy Beach’s Tyrolean Valse-fantaisie makes for a rhapsodic and occasionally rambling opener, in which Licad’s dynamic and volatile interpretation seizes your attention in a manner different from the transparent reserve characterising Joanne Polk (Arabesque) and Alan Feinberg (Argo, 5/93). Her chiaroscuro shadings and slight tenutos in William Grant Still’s Cloud Cradles underline the music’s subtle debt to Scriabin. Licad describes Carlos Troyer’s Kiowa-Apache War Dance as ‘pre-Prokofiev’s Toccata’, and plays it as such, although I could imagine a lighter and lither reading of Henry Gilbert’s Negro Dance.

Samuel Barber’s solo piano arrangement of his Souvenirs for piano duet features thickly detailed textures that push all 10 fingers to their limits. Licad’s rhythmic leeway and wide dynamic range convey the feeling of a live performance in the studio, yet I prefer Leon McCawley’s clearer and more incisive pianism (Somm, 11/11): compare his crisp élan in the ‘Two-Step’ to Licad’s heavier articulation and you’ll hear what I mean. On the other hand, her perfectly timed breath marks and caesuras elevate her ‘Hesitation-Tango’ to the top of the list. Micah Thomas’s Rotation works best when the young composer allows his lyrical gifts to take wing, and works least in dour harmonic sequences that linger too long in the lower and middle registers.

Louis Gruenberg’s Jazz Masks II, an eight-plus-minute paraphrase based on Chopin’s C sharp minor Waltz, similarly goes on too long for what little it has to say, as does Gottschalk’s exuberant yet over-extended and empty-headed Grande Tarantelle. Given Licad’s propensity for supple fingerwork and daring, I was surprised by her rather sedate and sometimes over-pedalled MacDowell Witch’s Dance, particularly when heard alongside Stephen Hough’s far more scintillating recording (Erato, 1/89), not to mention the old acoustic 78rpm versions by Leopold Godowsky and Guiomar Novaes. In all, a less consistent yet nonetheless noteworthy instalment in a valuable series, with fine sound and excellent annotations.