PHILLIP RAMEY (b.1939): Diversions, Epigrams - Book 1, Leningrad Rag (Mutations on Scott Joplin), Winter Nocturne, Toccatas Nos. 1 and 2, Ode for F.D.R., Sonata No. 4, Primitivo.

Description: Ramey's piano music is a high-octane extravaganza of twentieth-century styles, mainly tending toward the chromatic end of tonality, straying into quasi-atonal regions especially in the watershed works of the late 60s through 70s, when the composer was establishing his individual voice. A generous sense of post-Romantic bravura is thrown in to offset any suggestion of non-avant-garde modern piano writing. The early works are characterised by an indebtedness to Prokofiev (as in 1966's Diversions), Epigrams (1967) comes closest to atonality, while the dark and dramatic sonata (1988) is the composer's largest-scale work in the genre. Mirian Conti (piano).