CHARLES WUORINEN (b.1938): String Quartet No. 1 (Curtis Macomber, Jesse Mills [violins], Lois Martin [viola], Fred Sherry [cello]), Piano Quintet No. 2 (Peter Serkin [piano], Brentano String Quartet), Scherzo for Piano (Serkin), Viola Variations (Martin).

Description: The lively, engaging Scherzo may be in Wuorinen's customary harmonically rich but nonetheless totally chromatic (for which the term 'atonal' seems unnecessarily harsh) language, but its overall impression is of rhythmic buoyancy and virtuosic high jinks. The piano quintet alternates music of exuberant virtuosity with serene, introspective episodes (including a profound and beautiful slow movement) in a structured yet flexible formal design as unexpected as it is logical and precisely ordered. The quartet of 1971 is an early mature work, with the pitch-centred tonal center gravitational pull that characterises Wuorinen's non-tonal idiom explored in three movements of intricate counterpoint. Like his other solo instrument variations, the viola piece is a compendium of technical and expressive devices idiomatically tailored to the instrument.