EURICO CARRAPATOSO (b.1962): Aver-o-Mar - pequena sinfonietta maritima, EUGÉNIO AMORIM (b.1963): Danças com Mar - Nem todo o mar é água, FERNANDO C. LAPA (b.1950): Canções de Negro e de Sal (Luis Rodrigues [baritone]), CARLOS AZEVEDO (b.1964): Nem sempre o Mar é azul (all Orquestra Sinfónica da Póvoa de Varzim; Osvaldo Ferriera), ANTÓNIO PINHO VARGAS (b.1951): 4 ou 5 movimentos fugidios da água for Clarinet, Cello and Piano.

Description: Carrapatoso's piece is a sort of miniature Sea Symphony, inspired by the coastal region in Northern Portugal where the festival at which these works were premiered. It's four movements function as descriptive tone-poems, entirely tonal, attractive and accessible. Amorim's work, after an atmospheric introduction, alternates sections of lively energy and picturesque nature-painting, with something of a Sibelian elemental feel and a warmly tonal harmonic vocabulary - Atterberg or Moeran. Lapa's work is an orchestral song-cycle to texts by a poet of the region; neo-romantic with a few modern gestures, and effectively atmospheric. Azevedo again evokes the region, the musical vocabulary is that of the Bartók of the Concerto for Orchestra, nothing more modern than that; an appealing eight-minute single movement with a solemn, songlike double-bass solo at its heart, taken up and elaborated by the ensemble. Vargas' trio, though a curious coupling and considerably less tonal and more modern than anything else here, is more than a makeweight; a series of contrasting sections, now enigmatic and fragmentary, now fluid and insistent, finally consoling and lyrical, it adds up to a convincing whole.