From Amazon.co.uk
A new addition to DG's stylishly packaged contemporary music series 2021, this is a portrait CD of the work of Peter Lieberson, one of the less-often heard voices in modern American composition, known (if at all) to British audiences through the championing of Oliver Knussen in past Aldeburgh Festivals. Compiled from various recording sessions between 1995 and 1998, it covers a quarter-century of work, mostly of chamber-scale dimensions and in concise, single-movement forms, although the first item is the substantial 1986 orchestral score
Drala, which established his reputation and remains his calling-card. Collectively these pieces leave you with a sense of Leiberson as a reflective, meditative spirit, capable of energy and virtuosity but tending to deliver it in recollection rather than straight up, and through the disciplines of serialism which have indelibly coloured his compositional language. This is music that reveals its pleasures slowly and obtusely, but they're there and worth the effort of entrapment. The performances--all under the control of Knussen--are meticulous and well-prepared. --
Michael White
