The art of making solo-piano transcriptions of music originally plotted and penned for larger forces is an old and noble one, stretching back to the days when the only way to hear a new Beethoven symphony, for instance, was to play it yourself at home. Andrew Russo, whose adventures in music by Crumb, Corigliano and Adams have drawn widespread praise, updates the concept with Mix Tape, a collection intended to serve the same social function as those old cassettes you gave your high-school sweetheart. These 14 arrangements of songs by Billy Joel, Gary Numan, the B-52’s and other pop icons aren’t meant as novelties, but as declarations of real affinity and affection.

Some arrangements, like Phil Kline’s tot-sung “Search and Destroy” and David Lang’s deadpan “Born to Be Wild,” are cockeyed but faithful. David Cossin uses Common’s “The Corner” as a template for ingenious timbral exploration; more surprisingly, Russo fashions James Blunt’s hackneyed “You’re Beautiful” into a cavernous aquarelle. Daniel Felsenfeld (a TONY contributor) turns “All Tomorrow’s Parties” into cubist boogie-woogie, and offers a “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” that’s pensive and prickly by turns. The grandest detours come from Marc Mellits, who makes a minimalist workout of King Crimson’s “Three of a Perfect Pair” and converts “Jerusalem”—by Hubert Parry, via Emerson, Lake and Palmer—into a sublime drone meditation.

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