Night Music for solo flute and small orchestra / Sette pezzi per orchestra / etc

Antal Doráti (1906-1988) is perhaps mainly remembered as one of the finest conductors of his times. When he described himself however, it was as a "composer who conducts". And even if the worklist by this student of Zoltán Kodály is quite short, Doráti's music has an integrity and confidence which gives credence to this declaration. A great admirer of both Haydn and Bartók, he integrated modern elements and tradition into something which has been described as "much more contemporary than it sounds". Doráti has left us works in a great number of genres: a Mass, song cycles, symphonies and chamber music. Sette Pezzi, his orchestral suite in seven movements from 1963, is a reworking of the 'choreographic poem' Magdalena, and in the orchestration very clearly shows the mastery of this Maestro. Night Music (1968) is no less imaginative in the way it treats the solo flute and the small orchestra - portraying in five movements the journey from dusk to dawn. The disc rounds off with a comparatively early piece, American Serenade (c. 1941). One of very few works composed during some twenty years during which Doráti dedicated himself to conducting. It is a tribute to the country which gave him shelter during the Second World War, and shows some influences from his friend Aaron Copland. BIS has previously released Doráti's two symphonies (BIS-CD-408) as well as his two "melodramas" (BIS-CD-578). On this disc the performers are well-known to BIS fans. Sharon Bezaly, who performs the virtuoso flute part in Night Music, has received high praise for releases such as From A to Z (BIS-CD-1159), for instance in BBC Music Magazine. ("Nothing seems to faze Bezaly, her technique as it were invisible behind the sheer musicianship of her playing, and the range of tone she produces from an instrument often condemned as monochromatic is breathtaking." July 2001). The same magazine gave its acclaim to the Aalborg SO (and BIS) for their recording of Vagn Holmboe's Four Symphonic Metamorphoses: "This is music touched by greatness - marvellously played and superlatively recorded, too."(December 1998)