Badinage: Piano Music of Mana-Zucca

Pianist Nanette Kaplan Solomon, Professor Emerita of Music at Slippery Rock University has long been involved with the work of women composers. With this recording, she performs the music of the legendary Mana-Zucca in the first recording devoted to her music. Born in 1885, Gussie Zuccamanov (Zuckermann) had nearly a century long career as a child prodigy pianist, musical comedy star, prolific composer, and patron of the arts. She reinvented herself via her multiple talents as the winds of change and tides of time dictated. Even her name is an invention -- switching the syllables of her last name to create the artful, but gender mysterious Mana-Zucca. The piano pieces on this disc, written at various periods in the composer's life (from youth to age 90), represent excellent craftsmanship in the handling of small and large forms, and contain lush, chromatic harmonies. Because of her prolific output, vivacious personality, ingratiating melodies, and her impact on her life and times, Mana-Zucca was often called the "Chaminade of America." Like Chaminade and other women musicians, however, her importance to the musical world during her lifetime has been somewhat eclipsed. Recordings such as this one offer the opportunity to reassess her remarkable achievements.