BENET CASABLANCAS (b.1956): Epigramas (Barcelona 216; E. Martinez Izquierdo), String Trio (Trio à cordes de Paris), Introducción, Cadenza y Aria for Violin, Clarinet, Cello and Piano (Grupo Manon), String Quartet No. 2 (Arditti Quartet), New Epigrams (London Sinfonietta; Edmon Colomer), Full d'Àlbum, 2 Apunts, Aforismo (Miquel Villalba [piano]), 3 Epigramas (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra; Salvador Mas).

Description: This disc gathers together three examples of a form repeatedly revisited by the composer for its incisive concision of expression; the increasingly substantial groups of Epigrams. The first is brief, brittle, obviously atonal; the New set timbrally lucid and intensely expressive; the sequence culminates in the orchestral set of 2001, consisting of two powerfully surging outer movements framing a mysterious nocturne with a somewhat Mahlerian feel. The string trio is a work of great harmonic richness and lyrical polyphony in a vocabulary reminiscent of pre-serial second-Viennese atonality, while the quartet, in much the same idiom, is more restless, agitated and emotionally unsettled.