MOHAMMED FAIROUZ (b.1985): El Male Rachamim (A Prayer in Memory of György Ligeti), TIMO ANDRES (b.1985): Heavy Sleep, J.S. BACH (1685-1750): Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, BWV 869, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903, BACH/REGER: Chorale Prelude in B Minor, BWV 727, BACH/SILOTI: Prelude in B Minor, BACH/KURTAG: Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106.

Description: Despite taking its title from Andres' somber nocturne, with its sepulchrally echoing reflections of Chopinesque harmonies and climactic descent to the depths, Fairouz' Prayer in memory of his teacher, Ligeti, is the principal work on this CD. Taking its cue from a Jewish funeral prayer and Yehuda Amichai's poetic response to it, the work is in five sections; a dark, dissonant exposition, tolling bells rising to an agonised clangor and fragments of desolate, prayerful chanting; a lighter, lyrical episode punctuated by pained outbursts; a hectic totentanz, minimalistically motoric; then an endless line of ornamented monody, ever descending, paving the way for the explosive start of the final movement, which then attempts to find resolution in a variety of fleetingly glimpsed moods before settling into a kind of stately chorale prelude and a final, gentle reflection of the opening. Kurtág's lovely arrangement is a welcome bonus, taking its place among the more familiar Bach pieces and transcriptions. Bruce Levingston (piano).