Sofia Gubaidulina has found a soulfulness and freedom in the guitar which speaks to her musical language of expressive mood and often mysterious but precise sonorities. In both Repentance and Sotto Voce she combines guitars with lower stringed instruments, creating a virtuosic, multi-dimensional and deeply poetic role for each voice. Fascinating new sounds from the guitar are produced from the most eloquent chorales to remarkable effects using a drinking glass. The earlier Serenade is ‘music for pleasure’, while this première recording of the Toccata reveals a work with a driving momentum that hardly stops.

Chamber music breaks exciting new ground with these three works by leading American composers. Aaron Jay Kernis’s beautiful Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby is a touching song cycle for the unusual combination of soprano, violin, guitar and piano. In the rhythmically agile Aged Tunes, Jorge Liderman contrasts the sonorities of guitar and string quartet. Steven Mackey’s Measures of Turbulence, a remarkably subtle soundscape despite its title, explores the gonglike multiphonic sounds of acoustic and electric guitars. Each of these new pieces was written for the artists who perform them here.