ALEXANDER GOEHR (b.1932): Symmetry Disorders Reach, Op. 73.

Description: This suite of small pieces falls into two sections; the first consists of elegant and often playful examples of frequently encountered Baroque forms, but harmonically cast in Goehr's post-second-Viennese chromatic language. Never aggressively atonal - actually, never aggressive in any sense, there is a genteel intellectual restraint in evidence throughout - the pieces inhabit a similar ambiguous harmonic world to Scriabin's late miniatures. Rhythmically supple and agile, the works have a nonchalant quality that somehow belies their tightly organized structure. The second part consists of elaborations of fragments of actual Baroque and Classical models, transmuted into Goehr's vocabulary and sounding as original and as characteristic of the composer as the first part. Huw Watkins (piano). 2007 release.