A commanding spirit Chamber music from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - appreciated by PATRIC STANDFORD '... beautifully recorded and artistically stimulating.'

In the fourth of Steven Honigberg's series of chamber music recordings from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, five composers with strongly defined musical personalities are brought together in a varied and arresting recital, beautifully recorded and artistically stimulating. Throughout all the pieces it would be difficult to allow the attention to wander, for each has a commanding spirit and an individual voice, and each is given a strongly committed performance.

Steven Honigberg is the cellist in all the pieces, and is the dedicatee of the solo work Song of Solitude written in 1995 by Robert Starer who died in 2001 at the age of 77 -- an apparently liberated exploration of wide linear arches, skilfully crafted, using the full range of the instrument to brilliant effect [listen -- track 2, 5:19-6:18].

The pianist Carol Honigberg plays a rare and entertaining group of six pieces about Don Quixote by the eleven-year-old Erich Korngold, an astonishing technical achievement that is a delight to have on disc. The third of the set entitled Don Quixote goes forth is worth a brief quotation, showing as it does a precocious pianism and imagination [listen -- track 14, 0:01-1:00].

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