HENRI TOMASI (1901-1971): Divertimento Corsica, Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra, Concerto for Bassoon and Chamber Orchestra, Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra.

Description: This quartet of works dates from the narrow period of 1952-57 and shares the not uncommon to Tomasi inspiration of Corsican popular music (his father was a famous performer of such). The clarinet concerto has a Corsican Tarantella theme in its scherzo; the oboe concerto begins with a nod to a Corsican funeral ceremony (the work is really a 17-minute tone poem telling of young women who leave a Day of Atonement procession and spend the night dancing an ancient Celtic satanic ritual dance and are turned to stone at daylight). The Divertimento, in which the soloists of the "Trio d'anches" are protagonists, is the most overtly Corsican of the three but everything here will appeal to collectors of this fine conductor and composer who is finally having something other than his trumpet concerto recorded! Trio d'anches Hamburg, German Strings; Olivier Tardy.