The pieces and instruments of this recording are an unexpected weave of cross-cultural and anachronistic interconnections. Tying disparate pieces together are numerous musical threads: the composers’ concern with melody and its fragmenting; a sensitivity to harmonic relationships; an evanescent sense of tonality that slips in and out of focus; and in the ensemble pieces an ambiguity that disturbs the traditional roles of melody and accompaniment. Formally this music concentrates on the infinitely small, or on the infinite internal variety concealed within the material.

This strange companionship dissolves boundaries of history and familiar musical proprieties to create an open territory of creative possibility. And as the spaces of this music reveal, it is a territory resonant with musical reference and imaginative play: a parable and a musical poetic for the late twentieth century.

CLAUDIO POMPILI

1. Lo specchio del Fiore

CHRISTOPHER BUTTERFIELD

2. Flamingo Limo

JOHN ABRAM

3. Aeneid Music V

OWEN UNDERHILL

4. Partita

MICHAEL J. BAKER

5. Bird in Hand

RUDOLF KOMOROUS

6. The Necklace of Clear Understanding