V.A. Piano Music Of The Near East

This stunning 20th-century piano music was inspired by national traditions but uses the language and form of Western music. It compiles music by AMIRAM RIGAI, MANOLIS KALOMIRI, PAUL BEN-HAIM, ILHAN MIMAROGLU, ANDRE AMINE HOSSEIN and ANIS FULEIHAN.

"In the countries of the Near East, as in any other country where occidental culture is adoptive, musical composition modeled after its occidental counterpart came into being out of an intellectual necessity: that of nding a substitute for a traditional music which, under the dictate of its very essence, resisted evolution and was consequently in decay.It was logical, as far as both the ideals and the basic methods of this process of substitution were concerned, that the fashioning be done after the examples of the national schools of the late nineteenth-century Europe. The rst stream of the westernized near eastern music was therefore romantic (or post-romantic, or impressionist) in its overall gesture. Regardless of the composition date of each individual opus, all of the works recorded here fall into this category: music inspired by national traditions (musical, or other), displaying at least that intangible called “national character” whenever a national element is not evident, but employing a language and a medium belonging to western music (...)" (original liner notes)