MARK LOUIS LEHMAN (b.1947): Solo Piano: Hungarian Suite, Sonatina in C, 3 Primitives, Sleeping Cats, Sonatinas for Cello and Piano and for Violin and Piano, October Farewell for Solo Cello.

Description: The first CD devoted entirely to the composer's music contains a pleasing selection of his attractive, neoclassical, tonal works. Lehman acknowledges Hindemith as a significant model, and his influence is certainly apparent in the clarity and economy of his chromatically inflected, elegantly structured works. The three sonatinas from successive years show the composer's growing confidence in the use of sonata form, and increasing harmonic adventurousness. The piano sonatina has an engaging hint of ragtime in the capricious outer movements, and the cello work is noticeably more assertive and dramatic than the more restrained violin work, with a graceful slow movement that searches greater emotional depths than one encounters elsewhere on the disc aside from the moving elegy October Farewell, a genuinely affecting in memoriam piece. The wistful little elegies for five favourite cats will also bring a lump to the throat of any cat lover who has enjoyed and lost the companionship of a feline friend. Angela Park, Albert Mühlböck (piano), Cole Tutino, Alan Rafferty (cello), Rachel Patrick (violin).