Indebted 2

Apparently a staple in Russia, the music of Taneyev exists on the fringes of the repertoire in the West, something that should be rectified–and will be if this superb CD made by a starry cast of performers gets the attention it deserves. He’s a Romantic composer, but hardly of the heart-on-sleeve variety, since he was a master of counterpoint and firmly encased his Romantic impulses in a well-fitted classical jacket. Sometimes he makes you think of a more modern, pungent Brahms with a Russian accent.

Originally forming as Pilate in the early 2000s, the Toronto-based rock quartet Pilot Speed changed their name to such in mid-2006 to avoid possible lawsuits as their music spread internationally from their native Canada, especially due to the "litigious nature of the United States" (as taken from a message on the band's website). Pilate were born in 2000 after vocalist and New Zealand native Todd Clark left the music program at the University of Western Ontario where he'd been studying and placed an ad online for potential bandmates. Bassist Ruby Bumrah, a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, answered the call, bringing with him fellow alums Chris Greenough (guitar) and Bill Keeley (drums). Citing influences like Crowded House, Radiohead, and U2 for Pilate's especially sweeping brand of melodic rock – not so dissimilar to acts like Keane, Coldplay, and Snow Patrol – they released the six-song EP For All That's Given, Wasted in the summer of 2001. It quickly sold out its initial pressing and established the guys as players in the Canadian music scene.

At dawn when everyone is fast asleep and everything is still innumerable corpuscles come from faraway stars in the cosmos or from the sun. When they enter the magnetosphere of the earth, the strange music like birds' twittering begins. Astronomers call it "Dawn Chorus". But it lasts only for a brief moment, and fades out, as the sun rises. As the sound recorded at the Radio Observatory in Hiraiso, Ibaragi Pref., was excellent and audible in the original form, it was used at the beginning of this album without any modifications. This is Tomita's ninth album after two and a half years of silence. Based on popular pieces of Baroque and masterpieces of Villa-Lobos, a great Brazilian composer, this album was made from materials including waves from various stars in the cosmos like light curves supplied with kind cooperation of NASA, Tokyo Astronomical Observatory…

Owain Arwel Hughes conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a tribute to his father Arwel Hughes, the Welsh composer and radio broadcaster. A student of Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst among others, Hughes early on began to work for the BBC and had limited opportunity to compose. This CD brings together most of his oeuvre for orchestra, from Anatiomaros (1943) to the 'legend' Owain Glyndwr (1979).