SIMON LAKS (1901-1983): Cello Sonata, Suite polonaise for Violin and Piano, 3 pièces de concert for Violin and Piano, Ballade "Hommage à Chopin" for Piano.

Description: First recordings of everything but the cello sonata. Incisive, witty, ironic, sometimes playfully virtusosic, these works from the 1930s have a little bit of Szymanowski, a little bit of Ravel, some Polish folk music (all three movements of the Suite polonaise are adapted from original folk songs), a smidgen of jazz with deceptively soulful slow movements. The only piece from after the war is the 1949 piano Hommage, a bravura work of 12 and a half minutes which won the prize at that year's Warsaw Chopin Competition. Judith Ingolfsson (violin), Leonid Gorokhov (cello), Vladmir Stoupel (piano).