The Places: In the peace treaty of 1919 the Tyrol was divided into three regions, Southern Tyrol being ceded to Italy. The Eastern Tyrol, Austrian territory, is bounded to the south by the Lienz Dolomites, with the town of Lienz the regional capital. The region is popular with summer visitors, it's climate relatively mild, in spite of it's height above sea level. There is also a glimpse of the Earth Pyramids at Ritten (Renon) in the Italian Southern Tyrol. The Music: Music for the tour is by Franz Schubert, the son of a schoolmaster who had settled in Vienna. Although his life was chiefly spent in Vienna, he was, nevertheless, able to enjoy the Austrian countryside, during country holidays spent with friends. The beauty of the landscape is reflected in his music and, in particular, in his songs. The tour of the Lienz Dolomites is accompanied by music by Schubert for piano trio, written towards the end of his short life.

REVIEW:

There’s a very serious talent at work in this music by Stacy Garrop. Silver Dagger is a folk-song setting for piano trio, along similar lines to Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, and it’s extremely beautiful and quite fetchingly composed for the three instruments. In Eleanor’s Words is a cycle of six songs drawn from the newspaper columns of Eleanor Roosevelt. The concept is a good one: Roosevelt’s prose often approaches poetry, and her unfailing intelligence makes for texts that are worth reading on their own, and for which Garrop has found a similarly conversational musical style that fits them perfectly. The music is attractive and approachable, but not facile. There’s a version for chamber orchestra that I would dearly love to hear, but it would be difficult to imagine a more affectingly sung performance than that by mezzo Buffy Baggott—and Kuang-Hao Huang accompanies beautifully.

Gaia is an ambitious string quartet in five movements lasting about 34 minutes...I loathed Garrop’s Second Quartet “Demons and Angels”, and this one strikes me as far more appealing and successful. The sonics are just great...this disc makes an excellent case for exploring more of Garrop’s music.

-- ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)