Virtuoso pianist and composer wrote a good deal of music of the sort represented on this album by pianist , but it is by no means clear what it should be called. In the graphics here, the music is designated as transcriptions of and , but that is not quite what they are: with the exception of the , which appear in the middle as a kind of jazzy intermezzo, all the music is altered considerably from its original form. Nor are they fantasies; the pieces, although adds a good deal, remain rooted in the original works rather than having them serve as a point of departure. "Arrangements" would come the closest, but there is more of a sense of freedom than that term would imply, and this freedom is what catches so well here. Perhaps the closest comparison would be 's , which adds quasi-improvisatory elements to familiar songs. Those pieces were probably created by at the keyboard, but they fix in place what might be called explorations of the original works, in much the same way as treats the songs from the various sets of Romances treated here. The is similar; it is not quite a fantasy, for the sections aren't connected. It is more of a suite of expansions and explorations. There are virtuosic junctures in many of these pieces, but keyboard heroics are not the main point, and offers nice, low-key performances that keep this in mind. 's works of this kind have been heard from time to time, but they are generally a bit underexposed, and 's elegant performances are most welcome. Another attraction here is the sound, recorded at California's Soka University; producer gives the music a certain interiority, and the album helped her garner a Classical Producer of the Year Grammy nomination. ~ James Manheim