Ursula Mamlok lived for many years in New York before returning to Berlin, the city of her birth, in her eighties. + Featuring a conspectus of her much admired chamber music, this recording is of the concert given in the city’s prestigious Philharmonie in celebration of her ninetieth birthday. + Mamlok herself has said: ‘My main concern is that the music should convey the various emotions in it with clarity and conviction. + It interests me to accomplish this with a minimum of material, transforming it in such multiple ways so as to give the impression of ever-new ideas that are like the flowers of a plant, all related yet each one different.’

Known for his large-scale compositions, Leonard Bernstein also wrote for his own instrument, the piano. The sequence of four Anniversaries, published between 1944 and 1989, are brief, deftly evocative vignettes written to celebrate his many friends, colleagues and family members. The early Piano Sonata is imbued with youthful self-confidence, and explores certain compositional techniques to which he was to return in more mature works. The rhythmically incisive Music for the Dance No. II is another important early work.

John Cage was one of the twentieth century’s most radical thinkers who redefined his own contribution to musical history in the light of his ceaseless exploration. + One aspect of this was the technique of ‘indeterminacy’, exemplified by Winter Music, a major work on the grandest of scales that can be freely interpreted as to time but which remains coloristic and resonant. + Two2 is one of Cage’s ‘Number Pieces’, and one of his most forward-looking works, a composition that considers the structure of listening itself and one that continues to influence a new generation of composers. + This is the final disc in the series (volume 1 is on 8.559726, volume 2 on 8.559727).

A uniquely valuable release consisting entirely of world premiere recordings of works by a highly respected and influential name in American 20th Century music. They include a Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 15 which had been lost for more than 70 years until rediscovered by the soloist on this recording, Hasse Borup.

Eleanor Cory's music is performed throughout the US and internationally and has been recognized by many awards and commissions including the Aaron Copland and Fromm Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. The shifting musical languages that give her compositions their unique vibrancy include the "modal, tonal, atonal mix" of her First Violin Sonata, as well as jazz elements. All of this and more can be found in Things Are, her memorial for composer Milton Babbitt, and in the Celebration of pianistic virtuosity. Cory's Third String Quartet expresses both "sweet melancholy" and playful dialogue. Epithalamium explores the flute's flexibility in elegantly shaped gestures, while the instrumentation of the Fantasy is light in it's mood and airy textures.

Lukas Foss may be regarded as a mirror of twentieth century music, since his works seem more influenced by other composers and trends than influential in their own right. Whether experimenting with neo-Classicism, as in his Two-Part Inventions (4) (1938), the Passacaglia (1940), the Prelude in D (1951), and the Scherzo Ricercato (1954), or dabbling with popular song in his Grotesque Dance (1938) and the Fantasy Rondo (1944), Foss toys with styles and mannerisms with an amused detachment. Ever mindful of his craft but reticent in expression and apparently unconcerned with originality, Foss seems to approach composition with a utilitarian attitude, and his results are quite similar to Hindemith's Gebrauchs music. Even in such late works as the stylistically varied Solo (1981) and the witty For Lenny, Variations on "New York, New York" (1987), Foss seems a distant observer, and writes what is effective without revealing much of his own personality. Pianist Scott Dunn plays these works with a crisp touch and a disciplined control of line, but at no point does he express more than Foss indicates.

"The performance on this disc by John Salmon is of the highest caliber. He plays beautifully, both with precision and expertise, and pulls the most out of each note. His facility at the keyboard is wonderful. If a better performance of these works can be done, I would be amazed... this disc is truly excellent. The music is a joy. The performance is exquisite. Very highly recommended."
-- Patrick Gary, www.musicweb.uk.net

"This fine disc of [Brubeck's] more formal piano pieces was born from long years of dedication by American pianist John Salmon...Throughout the disc, Salmon plays with rhythmic strength and remarkable digital clarity."
-- Bradley Bambarger, Gramophone

Born in 1938 into a musical family, John Harbison studied at Harvard, and with Roger Sessions at Princeton. He is one of America’s most accomplished musicians, with four symphonies, three operas and a Pulitzer Prize-winning cantata to his credit. Of his Piano Trio No. 2, Harbison writes: ‘[It] makes little contact with the Mozart-to-Shostakovich central trio repertoire, and a great deal with the transparency, ambiguity, and shiftiness of Papa Joseph Haydn’. The Gatsby Etudes, ‘pianistically challenging and fun to play’, were written while Harbison was preparing the opera The Great Gatsby for production by the Metropolitan Opera. The Violist’s Notebooks were inspired by Bartolomeo Campagnoli’s (1751-1827) Caprices for viola, Harbison’s own instrument. Other works on this disc include an earlier piano trio and a cello suite, which the composer describes as ‘baroque in origins, more private, and very compact’.