Joly Braga Santos (1924-88) was one of the most important composers in twentieth-century Portugal. In his early works his fondness for modal harmony, absorbed from the Portuguese masters of the Renaissance, and his busy counterpoint combine to make him sound surprisingly close to such particularly English composers as Vaughan Williams and Moeran. Although his harmonic language became more astringent with time, it retained a burly sense of humour and a powerful charge of energy, often infused with the spirit of Portuguese folk-dance. [Volumes 1-3: TOCC 0207, 0428, 0588]

In the early years of the twentieth century a first wave of composers in the Caucasus laid down the basis of their national schools by grafting the outlines of western classical music onto local folk traditions. By mid-century a second generation took up the challenge more thoroughly, their compositions confidently handling the large forms of the concert hall, though still drawing on regional idioms. The Soviet orthodoxy of the day expected it's composers to abide by the rules, but the three composers heard here - two Azeris and a Georgian, all young men when they wrote the violin concertos on this album - brought something fresh and individual to the task, marrying east and west, form and freedom, tradition and originality.

Drawing from influences as disparate as the blues, jazz, Broadway, gospel, folksong and the wild west, the 'American vignettes' in this album merge popular idioms into a new canon of the repertoire for cello and piano, in a series of musical snapshots that are as varied as the men and women who composed them and yet all remain quintessentially American in spirit. The distinctive voices of six US composers, from the late twentieth and early 21st centuries, here come together to weave a virtuosic and colourful tapestry of Americana.

The Lithuanian pianist and composer Vytautas Bacevic?ius (1905-70) - exiled to the New World by the outbreak of the Second World War - is one of the undiscovered pioneers of the twentieth century. This third volume of his piano music presents works written between 1926 and 1959 and shows the evolution of his musical language from the post-Skryabin style of the early works, via the influence of Debussy, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, to a highly individual modernism that can occasionally nod to the jazz of his adoptive New York. It is a testament to the strength of Bacevic?ius' personality that his musical identity remains consistent even as his manner evolves - his individuality is never in doubt, not least because of his enduring fondness for a playful gesture.

Ferenc Farkas (1905-2000) is often viewed as a gifted miniaturist, sifting through Baroque and popular Hungarian sources to produce glittering orchestral dances of infectious energy. That Farkas does indeed exist, as in the suite from the ballet The Sly Students, but this album also shows an entirely different side to his musical personality. His Preludio e Fuga finds him experimenting with dodecaphony - but he offered a caution: 'In the twelve-tone theme of the fugue, I did not use Schoenberg's orthodox model but a softer form, more euphoric, with a rounder and more attractive sonority - I am thinking of works by Luigi Dallapiccola or [...] Frank Martin'. His only symphony was a victim of Communist orthodoxy, so severely criticised at Party meetings that Farkas shelved the score. This first complete recording reveals a work that is both big-boned and big-hearted - one of the finest of all Hungarian symphonies.

The Portuguese composer Cesar Viana - born in England, in 1963, and now resident in Spain - is an all-round musician: conductor, pianist, early-music enthusiast, folklorist and flautist, with a special interest in the shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute. His resulting familiarity with Zen Buddhism has left it's mark on his music, where the clean lines of Japanese art combine with a fondness for the contrapuntal textures that form the basis of much European art-music - imagine Bach and Hindemith in the formal elegance of a stone garden, warmed by a touch of western wit.

Although Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) was born in Massachusetts and ended his days in Seattle, his music was profoundly coloured by his Armenian heritage, in particular through his fondness for the modal melos of the ancient Armenian church. His combination of modality and melisma, of hymn and dance, can often make him sound like an eastern cousin of Vaughan Williams. The organ is an ideal medium for his musical language, allowing it to range from timeless, questing prayer to gloriously full-bodied statements that stir the soul.

The music of Artur Lemba has been strangely neglected, even in his native Estonia - although during his lifetime (1885-1963) he was held in high regard as a pianist and teacher. That oversight is all the more surprising in view of the expansive lyricism of his writing - listeners who enjoy the music of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov are likely to find Lemba's appealing. This first release in a pioneering series discovering his chamber music is accompanied by two historical recordings, one with the composer himself at the piano, and the other, almost a century old, of the one Lemba miniature to achieve some degree of popularity.

The reputation of Havergal Brian (1876-1972) as a late-blossoming symphonist obscures the fact that he was an early-blossoming composer of choral music for the huge market of amateur choirs thriving in Edwardian England. His choral songs range from simple unison settings for children's or women's voices to harmonically complex essays intended to tax the ability of groups taking part in the choral competitions once popular in many parts of Britain.

Hans Gal (1890-1987) wrote extensively for the viola, first as a major composer in the German-speaking world in the 1920s and '30s, and then as a leading cultural figure in post-War Edinburgh, where he had taken refuge after the Nazis seized power in his native Austria. This second volume of his music for viola spans four decades, with four trios from before and after that dislocation, each with it's own background, sound-world and personality, although they are unified by Gal's gift for melody, counterpoint and poised, elegant chamber writing.

Thomas Pitfield (1903-99) was a polymath: artist, bookbinder, cabinet-maker, calligrapher, cartoonist, composer, designer, poet, printmaker and more. He brought to his compositions the same skill and craftsmanship as to his other activities, but during his long lifetime his personal modesty impeded public recognition of his achievements. Pitfield's fondness for folk-music sites his music within the broad tradition of English pastoralism established by Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Howells and others - though a touch of steel can occasionally be heard behind the lyricism.

The sound of the accordion is an underexploited resource in classical music; it is heard even less frequently in combination with other instruments. This recital of music by Irish composers for cello and accordion - from the nimble folk idiom of Turlough Carolan to the passionate Romanticism of more recent men and women - demonstrates just how effectively these colours blend together. And it is not just the medium which is unusual: much of this music is as good as unknown.

Ukrainian classical music is not even two centuries old, and for most of that time has had to contend with active attempts at suppression by a bullying neighbour. But Ukrainian composers have stood their ground, not least by taking inspiration from the folk-music that has long thrived in Ukraine's mountains and fields. In this first of a series of Postcards from Ukraine the Ukrainian-Australian violinist Markiyan Melnychenko presents a programme of largely unknown miniatures for violin and piano, all based on, or inspired by, that folk-culture. Alternately sparkling and soulful, these violin showpieces make the case for a more thorough examination of the riches still to be discovered in Ukraine's musical heritage.

As composer, pianist and educationalist, the Prussian-born Philipp Scharwenka (1847-1917) was one of most highly respected musicians of his day, although his star faded soon after his death. His music - more conservative and classical in orientation than that of his pianist-composer brother, Xaver - sits somewhere between Chopin and Brahms, with echoes of Schubert and Schumann. This second instalment of a survey of his piano music is intended to put these immediately attractive works before the public once again - for the first time in over a century.

The music of the Romanian composer Anatol Vieru (1926-98) is an arresting fusion of classical procedures, avant-garde modernism and folk roots; an accent from his Jewish heritage - he narrowly escaped a pogrom in the ghetto of his native Iasi in 1944 - also underlies his musical impulses. These divergent influences fed into a musical language that is simultaneously familiar and intriguingly unconventional, with hypnotic, quasi-minimalist passages rubbing shoulders with bursts of wild, gypsy-like energy. It can likewise encompass both an epic sense of scale and chuckling good humour.