The Italian composers of the Baroque, led by Antonio Vivaldi, often honored the small instruments of the lute family in their rich compositional oeuvres. At the time these instruments with a fourth-third tuning were known by names, for example, as the leuto, leutino, mandola, or mandolla. Today the small lute is uniformly termed the “Baroque mandolin” and more rarely the “soprano lute.” The number of composers who wrote attractive works for the mandolin documents the fact that it was then a much-played instrument that musical audiences liked to hear. Accordingly, this new recording brings together concertos, trios, and sonatas by Carlo Arrigoni, Johann Adolf Hasse, Ranieri Capponi, and – of course – Vivaldi. What is particularly surprising here is the so very homogeneous sound of the dialogue between the Baroque mandolin and the Baroque violin – since they are two very different instruments in the field of tonal production. The tonal beauty of both solo parts, with one duo partner supporting the other with accompanying broken chords, produces a captivating effect in the second movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto RV 548. The magic of the fascinating tonal idiom of the mandolin and violin duo makes us wish that this rediscovered version will find many delighted listeners. Anna Torge, our soloist on the Baroque mandolin (six courses), has made a name for herself as one of the leading virtuosos on this instrument.

Evergreens

The Akathistos Hymn to the Virgin Mary is a lyrical masterpiece in 24 stanzas that has been treasured for nearly 1,500 years by Eastern Christians. Father Ivan Moody's 1998 setting, composed specially for Cappella Romana, weaves beloved Greek melodies into Russian choral textures as it progresses from reverent contemplation to ecstatic transcendence. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in it's exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. It's name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and it's Slavic commonwealth. "purity and radiance in perfect realizations" (Gramophone) "The sound is splendid" (American Record Guide) "light and warmth over an ancient musical ground" (Willamette Week)

The life story of the American composer and pianist George Antheil is the tale of a multiple taming. Almost a hundred years ago the young Antheil set out to conquer Europe with his “ultramodern” piano compositions and soon came to regard himself as the enfant terrible of contemporary music. His early concerts created sensational public scandals; audience members laughed and exchanged blows when he performed, and the press corps polarized the public. However, Antheil soon exhausted his potential for provocation: he became older, tamer, and more considerate, experienced bitter defeats, energetically and repeatedly got back on his feet, and on his return to the United States developed a style that interested some of the most renowned conductors in his native America – because with it he appealed effectively and originally to a broad public. The present production follows the winding path taken by this composer with four standout works exemplifying his creative periods. Golden Bird (1921), an exotically instrumented miniature of “Chinese coloration,” is followed by the iridescent music for the ballet Dreams (1934), which Antheil wrote in response to a commission from the famous choreographer George Balanchine. The two Serenades (1947-48) show us a composer of digestible and easily graspable music who was searching for a genuine »American tone« and during the course of his life learned that modesty can be a key to success.

During his lifetime Anton Rubinstein was regarded as the greatest pianist among composers and as the greatest composer among pianists. He himself assigned clear functions to his two fields of activity: he concertized to live, and he lived to compose. Such a plan of action finds its greatest fulfillment when the two spheres overlap: in Anton Rubinstein’s piano concertos, which were products of his compositional calling for his concert profession and works by the composer for the pianist. Thirteen years, stylistic nuances, and a decisive step on the career ladder came between his Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4. The twenty-one-year-old’s early second concerto met with a very favorable response in its time because of its marvelously beautiful tonal effects. It was then above all his fourth concerto that from the very beginning was enthusiastically received by fans of symphonic orchestral music and friends of virtuoso solo performance. Here Schaghajegh Nosrati, who is regarded as an extremely versatile musician and owing to her outstanding reputation as a Bach interpreter very early was able to establish herself as a concert pianist, interprets these works for us.

One aspect in the life and work of the great Genoese virtuoso Nicolò Paganini that may be lesser known but in no way should be underestimated is the pronounced interest with which he dedicated himself to chamber music both as an interpreter and as a composer. He was drawn in particular to the genre of the string quartet – and here we are presenting his energetic String Quartet No. 3, a work revealing his brilliant mastery in the field of chamber music. In his Tre Duetti for violin and bassoon Paganini also proves to be a very sophisticated composer of chamber music who succeeds in lending each of the three duets an individual, independent character. Among other things, these works have in common the beautiful cantability of their themes and a writing style radiating obvious joy in the shared musical experience, in “jouer,” as the French so fittingly term it. The influence of song is in constant evidence when we speak of the Italian instrumental music of the nineteenth century in general and in particular of Paganini’s chamber music or that of composers such as Rossini and Donizetti who distinguished themselves mainly in the field of the opera. In the three duets this vocal influence is naturally combined with the clear requirements of instrumental part writing.

Over the course of his life Max Bruch often made uncomplimentary remarks about the piano as an instrument – even though he himself was an outstanding and successful pianist. On the whole it was not until his later years that increasing occupation with the piano could be observed in his compositions. His late chamber music with the piano and the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra may be understood as a return to this instrument. The selection of piano works recorded here by the pianist Christof Keymer demonstrates beyond any doubt Bruch’s mastery in the compositional treatment of the piano and its special resources. Here we find a cosmos of romantic emotional worlds that in Bruch’s hands produce original, unique tones. This very personal treatment of piano sound, melodic invention, and melodic leading shows us Bruch as a great composer personality. The transcriptions almost incidentally reveal his great command of the tonal transformation of the originals, while many virtuoso elements in turn have a signature that is very much Bruch’s own. All the piano works have in common Bruch’s love of melody, which was his creed as a composer.

Following our first album with sacred concertos by Johann Rosenmüller, we are now releasing another album with concertos for larger ensembles by this genial composer and musician who quite soon attracted attention with his perfect musical blend and tireless creative drive as well as with his persistent striving for innovation. In his works Rosenmüller succeeded in blending the new Italian colorfulness and tonal sensitivity with the gravity of Central German music into a unique, sublime style. The more than one hundred works by Rosenmüller that have come down to us, most of them dimensioned on the large scale, reveal a composer who gave everything he had to bring to perfection the mixing of Central German and Italian stylistics begun in Leipzig and ultimately to lend the sacred concerto a personal signature. “The music speaks for itself, for it is filled with enthralling moments. Such a discovery would not be possible without such an impressive interpretation as that of the Ensemble 1684. The soloists shine in their outstanding textual articulation and flawless vocal technique; the instrumentalists always provide for optimally balanced dialogues.”

Our previous release of three piano concertos by Joseph Wölfl featured the recording premieres of “mirthful pieces in the style of Mozart and Early Viennese Classicism" And our second new release with more concertos by Wölfl – this time congenially interpreted by Nastaša Veljkovic – shows just what magnificent music this composer working in Beethoven’s immediate musical environment was writing. As in Wölfl’s second piano concerto, so too in his third such work: he follows the tradition shaped by Mozart in matters of form. However, here a tendency toward formal trimming is already in evidence, a tendency that Wölfl pursued in his later London concertos and very decidedly so in the Concerto da camera WoO 97 for piano, flute, and strings. What we have in this work, which was published in London in 1810, is in every respect a reduced concerto, not only in the dimensions of the orchestral ensemble but also in length, though the overall formal scheme is retained. The solos in particular are more tightly constructed and more strongly integrated into the orchestral part – with the small ensemble size contributing its share here.

Since Oscar Straus began his career in the cabaret, it was only natural for him to bet on comedy in his first operetta, Die lustigen Nibelungen (1904), a parody of the Nibelungenlied, Wagner, and Wilhelminism. In this way, Straus, more than any of his Viennese contemporaries, became the heir to Jacques Offenbach, the founder of the genre, whose last period of flourishing influenced Straus (who was born in 1870) as well as Franz Leh�r, Leo Fall, and Emmerich K�lm�n. Straus's Serenade for String Orchestra is written in an always-radiant classical style. Especially the last two movements, "Walzer" and "Alla marcia," have an elegant structure already anticipating the later operettas. The highly romantic Piano Concerto in B minor displays a very different compositional design. Even though the three movements based on Franz Liszt's "New German" model form a seamless whole, they remain clearly recognizable and follow the pattern of the Classical-Romantic piano concerto, a form to which his teacher Max Bruch adhered until the very end. Oscar Straus's claim that he was Bruch's "favorite pupil" is made understandable by this romantic piano concerto, but he very much moves beyond his teacher, is bolder harmonically, and is more reminiscent of Liszt, whom Bruch rejected, along with his idea to have movements form sequences without breaks.

We now once again can continue our comprehensive and successful Röntgen Edition with a new production containing two albums dedicated to his last symphonies. These works once again demonstrating that Röntgen was the most highly imaginative composer in Holland during the second half of the nineteenth century. Julius Röntgen composed his Symphony no. 12 in C major (“In Babylone”) in 1930, along with eight further symphonies. Seven of these works are laid out in a single movement and last from ten to 15 minutes. The actual main theme of Symphony no. 12 is only heard at the end in the plein jeu of the organ. At the beginning of 1930 Julius Röntgen was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Edin‑burgh. The degree was proposed by Professor Donald Francis Tovey, with whom he had already developed a friendship by 1910. Tovey considered Röntgen the last link in a chain proceeding from Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, a man capable of telling and teaching us of these 19th‑century titans. Röntgen was so surprised and delighted at the prospect of this tribute that he immediately set out to compose his Seventh Symphony in F minor, the “Edinburgh” Symphony. Following the model of Joseph Haydn and his “Oxford” Symphony, he intended to present it to the university’s senate at the awards ceremony. Röntgen celebrated the Christmas season and New Year’s Day with the newly married couple in Winterthur, where his newest – and last – symphony originated in 1930. Symphony no. 14 in D major (“Winterthur”) makes do with a small amount of material. The horns enter on natural harmonics in D major, seemingly emerging directly from the Alpine scenery.

Andreas Blau and his orchestral colleagues of the Berliner Philharmoniker are to be admired for discovering the treasure that is Anton Hoffmeister’s Flute Quartets, and they play them superbly well, while placing Hoffmeister’s output in close proximity to Mozart and Haydn, and in the vicinity of early Beethoven. The solo parts are evidently tailor­made for the flute, and their virtuoso passages seem modeled on cadenzas from Mozart piano concertos. Their musical sensitivity, evident enjoyment and great orchestral experience ensure the recordings do not just document the artistry of so­called minor masters, but are a valuable addition to our view of the brilliant epoch of Viennese classicism.

The five works brought together on our complete recording of Johann Kuhnau’s cantatas once again cover a wide spectrum of forms. Presumably, these works as a whole date from the first half of his tenure as music director at St. Thomas in Leipzig – presumably, because once again most of them have been transmitted only in secondary sources, which means that the dating process depends solely on stylistic criteria. Above all the concluding psalm concerto, “Singet dem Herr ein neues Lied,” is one of the most impressive examples of the outstanding artistry of the St. Thomas music director Kuhnau. The opulent instrumental ensemble with two trumpets, timpani, and five-part strings offers a tonally magnificent setting of Psalm 98. Here the individual instrumental and vocal groups engage in vigorous interplay in almost all the sections, thereby perfectly staging the jubilating, singing, and music-making to the glory of God as celebrated in the text. Throughout these works Kuhnau holds in store polyphonic feats, great challenges for the virtuosic talent of his musicians, and highly effective tonal blends and echo effects. Once again the Opella Musica ensemble of soloists founded by Gregor Meyer in 2011 and the historically oriented Camerata Lipsiensis perform the cantatas on the basis of the recently published musicological critical edition.

The logical continuation of the series “Organ Works of the North German Baroque,” recorded by Friedhelm Flamme, is the works of Dietrich Buxtehude, the most important master of North German organ music. In order to underscore the features of his personal style of interpretation, which is the result of decades of study of virtually the entire repertoire of North German music, the incredible and mostly intact original Treutmann organ in the Grauhof monastery near Goslar was selected. This organ can produce Buxtehude’s innovative, visionary sound artistry in a very different way than the well-known Schnitger organs in North Germany. Each album is set up as an exciting concert program which shows the diversity of Buxtehude’s compositions – free-form and chorale-based works, works for manuals only or with virtuosic pedal playing, and whose styles vary from lighter canzonettas, weighty basso ostinato forms to strict movements in “erudite counterpoint.” This recording also shows some of the infinite timbral possibilities of the Treutmann organ, both in their variety but also the tension felt in the different tonalities. Vol. II thus continues this series of recordings with representative works of the greatest masters of organ music before Johann Sebastian Bach as well as his contemporaries. The Treutmann organ, thanks to its tuning, also allows for a faithful stylistic rendering of pieces in distant tonalities, which would be impossible on instruments with mean tone tuning.

An absolute highlight rounds off the Offenbach Year 2019: two one-act operettas presented in historical performance practice by renowned soloists and the K�lner Akademie on instruments from the epoch. Trafalgar sur un volcan is set in Dublin during the Napoleonic period, while the action of Pomme d'api, it too with it's love triangle, takes place in the household of the retiree Rabastens in Paris. He forces his nephew Gustave to renounce his beloved Catherine, nicknamed "Pomme d'Api" (Little Red Apple), a bride beneath his social class. Gustave pretends to agree to this arrangement, but a little later is surprised to find her as the unsuspecting Rabastens' new housekeeper. In other words, this too is a m�nage � trois that will not last in the long run. Both works are full of witty arias, duets, and trios and rise to the absolute heights of Offenbach's melodic genius, which is magnificently revealed in his brilliant instrumentations!

Individuality that unfolds in the common effort – it is here that we are likely to find the secret of the Vogler Quartet, an ensemble that has pursued a unique career with the same membership ever since 1985. “The Vogler Quartet demonstrates that homogeneity, tonal warmth, and rich sonority need not stand in opposition to transparency and clarity. This is congenial performing on a benchmark level!” This is what klassik-heute wrote of the preceding release in our edition of Dvorák’s quartets. We are now presenting Dvorák’s Quartets Nos. 2 and 5 and the Terzett op. 74 on Vol. 4 in this edition with these highly acclaimed interpreters. To paraphrase Hartmut Schick, the author of the most important German-language monograph on Dvorák’s quartets, the formal idea to return to the essential themes of the preceding movements in the finale of a cyclical work in order to form a summation from them at the end played a significant role in Dvorák’s composition of instrumental music in more than one movement. In his last works, such as his ninth symphony, he developed this process to its fullest potential, and it is also a factor in his young Quartet No. 2. In his Quartet No. 5, however, the composer again sought close contact with the Classical quartet tradition. Nevertheless, it is unusual that all four movements of the quartet are in F minor. His Terzett op. 74 is not a four-movement sonata cycle but a freer collection of four character pieces. This was the way that Dvorák stylized Slavic folk music: In the main part he interlocks 2/4 time and 3/4 time in the manner of a furiant. The theme of the A major trio has a second beat with syncopated accentuation and resultant lengthening pointing to closeness to the slow mazurka type. The last movement is formed by a series of variations on a theme invented by Dvorák in the manner of an instrumental recitative and then varied a total of eleven times.

Friedhelm Flamme's series featuring organ works of the Northern German Baroque now finds it's logical continuation with Dietrich Buxtehude, the leading master in the discipline of Northern German organ artistry. In order to underscore his special interpretive style, the result of his many decades of occupation with practically the entire Northern German repertoire, Flamme has selected the Treutmann organ in the Grauhof Monastery near Goslar, an instrument that has been preserved largely in it's original form and conveys Buxtehude's innovative, visionary musical artistry in a very different way than the well-known Schnitger organs in Northern Germany. Each album is designed in the manner of an exciting concert program revealing two things: first, the variety of Buxtehude's compositions, which include free pieces and chorale settings to be executed on the manuals or with virtuosic pedal playing and occur in styles ranging from nimble canzonettas and basso ostinato forms filled with gravity to strict textures in �erudite counterpoint�; second, the vast tonal resources of the Treutmann organ, both in the sense of varietas and in view of the line of suspense traced by the musical keys. It is thus that Vol. 1 forms the beginning with magnificent works by the most important Baroque master of organ artistry prior to Johann Sebastian Bach and along with him. Owing to it's temperament, the Treutmann organ enables the realization of the stylistically correct rendering of pieces in remote keys, something that would have been impossible on mean-tone instruments.

“For a long time no child prodigy has appealed to us so sympathetically as the little Ferruccio Busoni. Precisely because he has so little of the child prodigy about him, but instead a lot of the good musician, both as a pianist and as a budding composer.” This is what Eduard Hanslick, the famous Vienna music critic, had to say in 1876 about the ten-year-old Ferruccio Busoni. Around this time Busoni had already composed many works – mostly for clarinet with other instruments, and all these works were very much born of the spirit of his father, who played the clarinet. In his time Ferdinando Busoni was a famous virtuoso and created a sensation as a traveling artist with opera fantasies and virtuoso showpieces.

Of his son’s two Violin Sonatas composed in 1889 and 1898, the op. 36a second sonata is to be regarded as an absolute key work. According to Busoni’s own testimony, it first delineated his unique character as a composer. The entire work is based on a Bach chorale, and it culminates in a magnificent variation movement on the same. However, his enormous public appeal and the admiration for his transcription technique made Busoni skeptical, and he thought that he had strayed onto conventional paths – which was not the case. The op. 29 first sonata is very much more conventional. Within its limits, very much in keeping with its composer’s life and times, the work today speaks unusually clearly to us, as an homage to Brahms, who supported Busoni, or as a link to the great pianist of those times, Anton Rubinstein, who himself published three violin sonatas.

On the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, the L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra is releasing the present recording of Franz Schubert’s complete symphonies and complete symphonic fragments. It is the most recent gem in this orchestra’s multifaceted repertoire ranging from the suite of the French, German, and Austrian Baroque through the sinfonia of the Mannheim School to Viennese Classicism and Early Romanticism. Although Joseph von Spaun termed Schubert a “song composer” not long after his death, Schubert’s compositional oeuvre may be said to be framed by a symphonic fragment and a sketch for a symphony. The first of these fragments was the score for an overture (D. 2 A) committed to paper around 1810/11 and abandoned in the middle of the exposition, and the last was a draft of three movements for a Symphony in D major (D. 936 A), largely worked out in full, from the last weeks, if not from the last days, of his life. During the period of some eighteen years between these two manuscripts, Schubert occupied himself creatively with almost all the established forms, ensembles, and genres. The symphonic fragments heard here often consist of scores containing only a few measures with the later addition of the instrumentation of a piece, for example, measures 209 to 223 from the first movement of the String Quartet D. 74. Since the composer assigned the date “3 September 1813” to this movement following its final notes, he must have written the fragment immediately prior to beginning his work on the Symphony No. 1 in D major (D. 82).

The conductor Ulf Schirmer has a special knack for the light Muse – as his regular operetta performances with the Munich Radio Orchestra, many of them documented on cpo, have shown over the years. Munich was also the site of the 1906 premiere of Die vier Grobiane / I quatro rusteghi by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, a work answering to the description of a modern comic opera and displaying this composer’s typical combination of marvelously chatty parlando and charming melodicism. There are two sides to the conflict fueling the plot: four curmudgeonly husbands who believe that they can and should exercise absolute rule over their wives and children and female characters who engage in intrigues. The action of the opera is set in Venice and elaborates a source text by Carlo Goldoni (1760). The composer scores his points with a tone of considerable lightness, a small orchestral ensemble entrusted with the presentation of a famous intermezzo, and spirited melodies in part based on folk songs. The wealth of ideas developed in his harmonic scheme remaining within tonal limits is also surprising.

FonoForum termed Vol. 1 in our series with Henri Marteau’s works for string quartet “a highly welcome addition to the as yet much too small Marteau discography.” At long last we now are following up with Vol. 2, which includes the Clarinet Quintet op. 13 ranking as his best-known work and the String Quartet No. 1. In his first quartet Marteau presents an ambitious work in which he explores how to bring his personal style into harmony with this genre. He draws on German and French Romantic tradition and on his great models from music history and experiments with compositional-technical forms and structural elements. To date, not a single renowned quartet ensemble has risen to the challenge of recording this work, and in the concert literature it is also practically not at all represented. It is hardly a coincidence that Marteau had the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms very much in mind when he wrote his Clarinet Quintet op. 13. From the very beginning Mozart and Brahms played an important role in his career. Here too the Belgian clarinetist Jean-Michel Charlier and the Isasi Quartet show Marteau’s French and German sound worlds in perfect harmony.

Even 20 years ago, even in his place of work, Ludwigslust, where he held a prominent position in the famous court chapel of Duke Friedrich Franz I for a quarter of a century, nobody knew of Roman Patkolo’s extraordinary fellow citizen and most important double bass player of the Vienna School: Johannes Matthias Sperger! The “Sperger competition” for double bass, which has been taking place every two years since 2000, has not only drawn attention to Sperger, but above all to his compositional legacies. No double bass player has treated the instrument as virtuoso and compositionally as versatile as Sperger. This is evidenced by his 18 double bass concerts, of which the famous Slovak double bass player Roman Patkoló devotes himself to the 2nd and 15th concertos. The release is complemented by Symphony No. 30, in which the absolute closeness to Haydn's tonal language is striking. The concerts offer spirited, striking and profoundly moving melodies and extremely virtuoso sequences. In addition to Johann Baptist Vanhal's double bass concerto, the 15th concert is now one of the most valuable and now much played classical double bass concertos.

The soprano Ania Vegry, the recipient of many prizes, was nominated by Opernwelt as the Young Artist of the Year in 2009 and has been an ensemble member at the State Opera of Lower Saxony in Hanover since 2007. The Online Musik Magazin certifies that “her soprano voice, most highly fluent in the coloraturas, possesses warmth and substance, expressive power, and flawless intonation” – which makes her the ideal choice for the rich affections of the arias of Florian Leopold Gassmann, an Austrian composer on the cusp between the Baroque and Early Classicism. After two years of study with Giovanni Battista Martini, Gassmann became an organist in Venice. In 1757 he composed his first opera, and through 1762 he composed an opera every year for the Carnival season In Venice. The musical settings heard on this recording include arias belonging to the genre of the opera seria, the Italian-language serious opera of the eighteenth century. Others are exit arias in da capo form and typical of the genre: after the action – designed as a recitative in the music during the course of a singer’s time on stage – has advanced, one of the protagonists expresses his state of heart and mind in an aria before he exits from the stage. The da capo form (A-B-A) underscores the fact that dramaturgically the static unity of the affection to be expressed occupies the foreground. In his later vocal works Gassmann goes much farther in his elaboration of textual nuances, so that the works have the effect of vocal arias for an opera buffa. The text is bursting with emotional excitement, which Gassmann sets in a relaxed tone and with long coloraturas composed with fine art.

Nikola Šubic Zrinski ranks ahead of Jakov Gotovac’s Ero the Joker as the most prestigious and historically most important Croatian opera of all time. Its composer, Ivan Zajc, even gave his name to the Rijeka Opera. cpo is now presenting the first complete recording of this opera for distribution not only in Croatia but also beyond this country’s borders. Following the performance, on which our recording is based, the singers and the presentation as a whole received rave reviews from the press and the critical guild, with Robert Kolar reaping special praise as the best Zrinski ever! The fact that musicologists refer to the relevant phase in Croatian music history as “the Zajc period” reflects the central importance of Ivan Edler von Zajc in Zagreb’s music world and the significant role played by him in Croatian art music in general. The Croatian writer Hugo Badalic drew on Zriny, a tragedy by the German dramatist Theodor Körner, in his libretto for the opera Nikola Šubic Zrinski. The story behind it is based on the historic Battle of Szigeth of 1566. The composer conducted the premiere of this work regarded as the Croatian national opera at the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb on 4 November 1876. It consists of three acts, is subtitled “A Musical Tragedy,” and in its genre and form is a classical opera with musical numbers like those encountered in Gioacchino Rossini’s opere serie, which became established in Italy during the first half of the nineteenth century. Two factors have contributed to the reception of Nikola Šubic Zrinski as a historical, heroic, and national opera: the subject matter of the libretto and its rich supply of choral numbers – of its total of thirty-two numbers, a third are assigned to the chorus.

Music from the Sebastian String Quartet’s native Croatia, by Croatian composers or by composers who spent a significant part of their careers in Croatia, forms a special focus in this ensemble’s work. Bozidar Kunc was one of the most distinguished Croatian composers of the twentieth century as well as an extraordinary pianist who was known as “the Croatian poet of the piano.” His only String Quartet very freely treats tonality, expands its space through the linking of instrumental parts, and often uses them as a colorful backdrop for melodies full of imaginative aspiration in which traces of folkloristic idiom sometimes come into view. Kunc’s deftly articulated and richly colored string sound reveals a composer of a unique individuality. The Czech composer Fran Lhotka exercised a strong influence on the Croatian music scene for more than fifty years. He brought the best Czech traditions to Croatia and fit so perfectly into the environment of his new home that it hardly would be possible to discuss the national musical movement that arose in Croatia during the first half of the twentieth century without mentioning his name. Lhotka’s captivating Elegy and Scherzo proves to be a fascinating work with contrasting themes invented in the spirit of folk music. Josip Štolcer Slavenski compiled one of the most interesting and most unusual life’s works that Croatian music of the twentieth century has to offer. This enthusiastic innovator was interested in a great many things and open to the most recent musical events in Europe even though he was absorbed in his own world. He composed powerful and unconventional works without direct models or formal and stylistic determinants. In 1938 he wrote his fourth and last Quartet to Balkan dance music and with highly varied and finely crafted themes.