CRISTÓBAL HALFFTER (b.1930): Planto por las Víctimas de la Violencia for Ensemble (Grupo Modus Novus), Pourquoi? for String Orchestra (Anton Webern String Orchestra), Fantasía sobre una Sonoridad de G.F. Haendel for 4 Cellos and Orchestra (National Spanish Youth Orchestra), Canción Callada for Ensemble (Grupo Manón), Fractal for Saxophone Quartet (Sax-Ensemble).

Description: Marking the composer's 75th birthday, this disc presents works spanning 3 decades, showcasing Halffter's distinctive musical and humanistic preoccupations. The works from the 70s have an overtly protesting social message - against violence and the suppression of human rights and freedom, a long-standing theme in Halffter's work; their somber, overlapping clusters form an uneasy ground against which a dramatic interplay of aggression and resolution unfold. Brief references to classical material (in Pourquoi? and the Fantasia serve as moments of harmonic repose among the tense and uneasy, always full and sonorous, activity of Halffter's musical argument. Fractal, the most recent work here, is, as the title implies, a work of considerable complexity, full of constant activity and aggressive challenge, suggesting that even without an explicitly political message, Halffter continues to challenge the listener on purely musical grounds in keeping with the artistic tenets of the avant garde of previous decades. José Luis Temes (conductor).