Eugene Z�dor was a remarkable colorist and orchestrator whose Hollywood film work was extensive. He described himself as a 'middle of the road extremist'. The Aria and Allegro is a beautifully crafted work brimming with rhythmic energy. Five Contrasts for Orchestra demonstrates his rich sound world at it's most vibrant; film noir jostling with a big-booted country dance. The lighter a Children's Symphony is one of his most popular pieces - communicative, witty, accessible. We also hear two small and captivating evocations of his native Hungary. Mariusz Smolij is a founding member of the Penderecki String Quartet, former artistic director of the Lutosawski Wrocaw Philharmonic and International Festival Wratislavia Cantans, Poland, and currently serves as Music Director of the Acadiana Symphony in Louisiana and Riverside Symphonia in New Jersey.

The daughter of the composer Elizabeth Maconchy and Professor of Music at York University, Nicola LeFanu has composed some sixty works, orchestral, chamber, solo and operatic, which have been played and broadcast all over the world.

Featuring such well-known names as Ethel Smyth and Elizabeth Maconchy, as well as less familiar female composers, the works on this disc illuminate a crucial but under-explored aspect of musical life in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain.

William Mathias' eloquent and accessible style comes to the fore in these premiere recordings of his music for violin and piano. His unpublished Violin Sonata is a highly original and ambitious work from his student days.

An innovative genius, Claude Debussy is famous for his mature 'Impressionist' music, though he rather disliked the term.

Naxos' Takako Nishizaki Plays Suzuki Evergreens albums feature acclaimed violinist Takako Nishizaki who, as a child, studied with her father, Shinji, and with Shinichi Suzuki himself.

Although Martinu is known for a number of significant choral works, including his oratorio the Epic of Gilgamesh, relatively little attention is given to his vocal music. Songs with piano, many of them still unpublished or only made available in print.

BEETHOVEN: Diabelli Variations, Op. 120

Naxos' Takako Nishizaki Plays Suzuki Evergreens albums feature acclaimed violinist Takako Nishizaki who, as a child, studied with her father, Shinji, and with Shinichi Suzuki himself.

Astor Piazzolla' tangos, beloved around the world for their pathos, passion, longing and sensibility, are here given fresh interpretations in arrangements for piano by the Argentinean-born, Brussels-based pianist Aquiles Delle-Vigne.

These three Catalan piano trios reveal illuminating facets of each composer. Roberto Gerhard�s early trio exudes a distinctly French ethos, alongside that of de Falla, very different from his later asperity. Xavier Montsalvatge�s much later work, written between 1986 and 1988, owes its origin to disparate sources but forms an impressive whole, and is lyrical, expressive, sensual and dance-like in turn. Admired as a cellist, Gaspar Cassad� composed a brilliantly virtuoso trio, influenced by earlier Spanish models, but revealing great panache and considerable demands via guitar imitations, Malague�a rhythms and lashings of folkloric brio.

This programme brings together aesthetic and musical elements of East and West. Zhou Long captures the essence of the Chinese plucked ch'in and Cambodian aesthetics are preserved in Chinary Ung's expressive Spiral III. Tan Dun's Eight Colors combines the exotic timbres of Peking Opera with Second Viennese School tonalities. Gao Ping's Bright Light and Cloud Shadows has been admired for it's 'long-breathed brush strokes' (Washington Post). Taking it's inspiration from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake Toru Takemitsu's beautifully crafted a Way a Lone evokes a shimmering sound world.

GURIDI: El caserio (The Homestead)

The viola works on this recording fuse lyricism with virtuosity, and sometimes invoke folkloric moments as well as more rhapsodic flights. Martinu' 1955 Sonata plays on elements of folk music and rhapsody, as well as a toccata-like intensity.

Sir Malcolm Arnold' preference for classical forms is fully explored in this representative but uniquely distinctive programme.