Quasi Parlando

Issued in the wake of the great Armenian composer s 75th birthday, this important New Series album opens with Tigran Mansurian s fiercely-concentrated Double Concerto, composed in 1978, and proceeds to new music performed by its dedicatees: the lyrical Romance, dedicated to Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and the intensely expressive Quasi parlando, dedicated to German cellist Anja Lechner. Both are premiere recordings, as is Mansurian s Concerto No 2 (2006), subtitled Four Serious Songs, again with Kopatchinskaja, which concludes the program. Throughout, the soloists and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, under the direction of Candida Thompson, deliver committed performances