JAN VAN LANDEGHEM (b.1954): Piano Trio No. 1 "Ano raniyam mahatoo maniyam", Piano Trio No. 2, String Quartet No. 2, Quand la lune danse for Soprano, Violin and Piano.

Description: Van Landeghem's music crosses stylistic boundaries - repeatedly, even within the confines of one short piece. This eclectic mixture of styles runs the gamut from classical pastiche through a more generally chromatic 20th-century idiom to dissonant cluster-laden textures and aleatory, passing through all points between, not excluding jazz and elements of minimalism. The trios take inspiration for their wide-ranging expression from philosophical or mystical ideals, the second in a freely modal language which imparts a mysterious archaic air to the melodic structure of the material. The quartet is more tonal than the trios, contrasting a gentle berceuse for a slow movement with lively, amply virtuosic string writing in the outer movements. The song cycle sets love poetry by the composer's wife (who is also the violinist in the ensembles on the disc, for which all the works here were written) in a style which recalls Ravel or Duparc, overlain with a neo-impressionistic haze. Jenny Spanoghe, Eric Baeten (violins), Daniel Rubenstein (viola), Herwig Coryn (cello), Paul Hermsen (piano - trios), Nina Kompare (soprano), Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden (piano - Quand la lune).