The Chinese composer and violinist Ma Sicong was born in Haifeng in Guangdong province in 1912, and was among the relatively few Chinese musicians of his generation to study abroad. He settled in America in 1967.

Successful during his lifetime as a composer in a variety of genres, Rheinberger is remembered today largely for his twenty organ sonatas and other shorter compositions for the instrument.

Although Rheinberger composed dramatic and orchestral, sacred and secular music, he is now remembered for his twenty organ sonatas and other shorter compositions for the instrument.

A seminal figure in the development of North German organ music, Buxtehude spent the greater part of his long career in Lubeck, where he was visited by the young Handel and Bach, eager to hear his legendary performances.

This program features some splendid arrangements, including Serebrier’s own Suite from Bizet’s Carmen, Ginastera's Estancia Suite, with its sensational concluding Malambo, and a rousing “Stars and Stripes Forever” encore. The sonics are particularly good for a live band concert. This was fun!

-- ClassicsToday.com [8/2008]

Karol Szymanowski' Stabat Mater, set to a Polish translation of the medieval poem, makes extensive use of traditional Polish musical ideas. His setting of the Veni Creator was composed for the opening of the Warsaw Academy of Music, of which he was t.

Naxos' many highly-praised recordings of William Alwyn' music have done much to revive excitement among today' listeners for this British composer who is best known for his 200 or so film scores.

Distinctly Russian, unabashedly Romantic and full-bodied, yet intellectually devised and highly disciplined, Medtner' compositions for violin and piano encompass music of rare beauty and power, gratifying for both performer and audience. Violin Sonata No.

The most important Danish composer of the first part of the twentieth century, Carl Nielsen was prolific in almost all genres. Dissociating himself strongly from Late Romanticism.

Joaquin Turina' songs are little-known today, but not only was he part of an important and influential group of early twentieth-century Spanish composers such as Albeniz, Falla and Granados, he possessed a beautiful and individual compositional style.

One of a remarkable series of works Schubert wrote in his final year, Mass No. 6 in E flat lay unperformed until a year after his death.

A pupil of Roberto Gerhard, the Catalan composer Joaqu�m Homs developed a style that, after experiment with atonality, led to a full use of surrealism. His music, however, remains expressive and approachable. Apart from the early Suite, written at fifteen, the other works included here follow the development of Homs�s musical language from the Piano Concertino of 1946 through surrealism to the expressiveness of his String Soliloquy and Piano Diptych of the 1970's.

For British composer William Alwyn CBE the string quartet was the "most perfect of mediums". His String Quartet No. 1 of 1953.

Multiple prize-winner and Grammy award nominee for several of his Naxos recordings, Antoni Wit is one of today' most highly regarded Polish conductors, an ideal interpreter of the exotic, colorfully scored music of Karol Szymanowski.

Domenico Scarlatti is known today for his many harpsichord sonatas. The earlier part of his career, however, was concentrated on sacred and secular vocal music.