This recording showcases both the rich variety and the sonic surprises to be heard in contemporary Chinese piano music. Myth and landscape loom large. Pulitzer Prize-winner Zhou Long’s Pianobells takes legend as its inspiration in an evocation of sonorous bells borne on the wind. The goal for Doming Lam is reinterpreting Chinese ancient melodies and imitating gongs and drums to evoke the atmosphere of Chinese opera. For GRAMMY® Award-winner Tan Dun, his Eight Memories are a ‘diary of longing’ – musical watercolors inspired by folk music.

The Yellow River Concerto is one of the most popular of all Chinese works, a richly melodic exploration of scenic variety, and a forceful expression of patriotic pride. Written in 1958 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto has achieved world renown for it's moving and beautiful synthesis of Western and Eastern traditions. In 1985 Chen Gang made an arrangement for piano and orchestra, played on this recording in the edition by the brilliant international soloist Chen Jie. Since her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch, at the age of sixteen, Chen Jie has performed in many leading concert venues around the world. She has won praise at many international competitions including the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (USA). Carolyn Kuan is recognized as one of the most exciting, innovative and outstanding conductors of her generation. Her North American engagements include the Baltimore, San Francisco, Detroit and Seattle symphonies. She holds the distinction of being the first female to be awarded the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellowship.

In the first phase of the composer's career, his music for solo piano is represented by a relatively limited number of significant pieces. In contrast, one of the more obvious characteristics of recent works of Casablancas is the impressive quantity of piano compositions offered, as shown by the dates when pieces in the present catalogue were written. The maturity which characterizes his musical language has enabled him to achieve results influenced by the instrument's great literature but with an increasing virtuosity in the writing and extraordinary richness of textural detail in both harmonic and polyphonic elements, subject always to the piano's sonorities and natural dynamics as the final criteria of musical structure. The selection offered here brings together almost all the piano works of Benet Casablancas, it's earliest contribution being Preludi I Fuga En Do (Prelude and Fugue in C). This provides an interesting introduction to his work by presenting a very early piece which, despite the fact that it is enormously different from the composer's mature style, demonstrates in it's firm contrapuntal writing, his search for structural integrity and a concern for craftsmanship. How the musical personality of Casablancas would develop is perhaps revealed more clearly in the mild disquiet of the quasi-expressionistic Prelude rather than in the Fugue's neoclassicism (written somewhat in the style of Hindemith). But this study in polyphony already gives us insight into a young composer setting himself unusually high standards in the service of his profession.

Chamber music was a prominent feature of Enescu' music from his earliest years. Though separated by almost four decades, the two Cello Sonatas were not published until 1935.

This recording of recent compositions by Bright Sheng, "[a] leader in exploring and bridging musical traditions", demonstrates once again his distinctive lyrical and dramatic fusion of Western and Asian styles and sonorities. Earlier Naxos releases include works such as the Red Silk Dance (8.559610) and Spring Dreams concerto (8.570601).

Born in Shanghai, now resident in Greater New York, Ge Gan-ru is one of China’s foremost composers. Very different from his previous exploration of the Western avant-garde, Shanghai Reminiscences is a warm and affecting evocation of “the street scenes and sounds” of Gan-ru’s childhood in pre-Cultural Revolution Shanghai, viewed through the lens of his adopted American traditions. Butterfly Overture is the composer’s symphonic tribute to a beloved teacher from his Shanghai Conservatory days. International Record Review described Ge Gan-ru’s string quartets (8.570603) as “Nothing short of contemporary masterpieces”.

Piano music featured prominently for the most part of Alwyn' career. The composer himself was no mean pianist, as evidenced in the varying technical demands made on the pianist in the works included here. The major work on this recording, Fantasy Waltzes.

Nirse Gonzalez, First Prize Winner in the 2006 International Francisco TArrega Guitar Competition, has studied at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid under Jose Luis Rodrigo Bravo, and is at present studying at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule.

A leading representative of 'New Folklorism', the Lithuanian composer Feliksas Bajoras conveys his interest in Lithuanian folk-music in a strikingly individual and personal voice. The Symphony-Diptych, which draws on themes from the composer' opera Lamb of God to this score.

Chamber music purely for wind ensembles was largely overlooked by Romantic composers and as a result Carl Reinecke' genial Sextet and Octet for wind loom rather large in a sparse landscape.

While the piano is a western invention, it has come to occupy a special position in Chinese musical life. The earliest Chinese piano pieces date from the first half of the twentieth century; many remain popular in the concert hall today.

Complementing his highly praised Naxos series of Turina' piano music, Jordi Maso Acute joins Eva Leo Acute to present Turina's two violin sonatas.

This is the second of two discs of the complete piano quartets and string trios of Max Reger.

Xavier Montsalvatge was one of the most important composers to emerge from Catalonia in the course of the twentieth century.

Having visited in recent times many new countries, many diverse sites, many places hallowed by history and poetry, having felt that the various aspects of nature and of related scenes did not pass before my eyes as vain images.