PIOTR MOSS (b.1949): Elan for Strings, Concertino for 2 Violins, 2 String Quartets and Double Bass, Canti for Flute and Strings, Capriccio for Piano and Strings, Fantaisie for Cello and Strings.

Description: Moss' idiom is typically grounded in tonality to a greater or lesser extent, but he displays great ingenuity in finding textures and ornamental material to cast an incandescent, dissonant halo around his basic material. Elan, as the title suggests, is a brief, sprightly allegro. The Concertino consists of four contrasting movements with an underlying sense of nostalgia which is reinforced by the recurring, romantic-sounding melodic and harmonic material, each containing many divergent episodes with greater or lesser degrees of dissonant, clustered obscurement. Canti operates in much the same way, though here it is the flute that plays the melodic 'ancient songs', constructed by the composer from fragments of plainchant, troubadour songs and the like. Capriccio is a one-movement miniature piano concerto, with ambiguously expressed suggestions of romantic gestures throughout. The piano and strings are in constant dialogue, with the ensemble seeming to reject the piano's efforts to assert an argument based in tonal harmony. Fantaisie is also based on contrasts between diverse elements, again in a romantically expressive versus disruptively dissonant modernist dialogue. Véronique Briel (piano), Elzbieta Gajewsak (flute), Andrzej Bauer (cello), Amadeus Chamber Orchestra;  Agnieszka Duczmal.