Fossilium Catalogus i Animalia 98

Paul Neubauer American violist Paul Neubauer has pursued an active career as an orchestral musician, concerto soloist, educator, and music editor. He studied with Paul Doktor, Alan de Veritch, and William Primrose, and earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in music at the Juilliard School. Following graduation, Neubauer became the youngest principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 21, and held the position for six years. He has performed in concert with major orchestras around the world, and given premieres of viola concertos by Joan Tower, Krzystof Penderecki, and Tobias Picker, as well as the revised version of Béla Bartók's Viola Concerto. Neubauer received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1989, and became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has also served as artistic director of the Mostly Music series and as music director of the OK Mozart Festival. As a viola teacher, Neubauer has been a faculty member of the Juilliard School and Mannes College, and The New School of Music, and his students have included Richard O’Neill, Scott Lee, Gilad Karni, and Che-Yen Chen. Neubauer has edited publications for Boosey & Hawkes, International Music Company, and Universal Edition.

Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of Portugal’s greatest composers of the 20th century, whose artistic credo was the binding together of the folk music of his native country with modern techniques to create an alternative and original national identity. With its constantly shifting tonal context the Divertimento perfectly captures Lopes-Graça’s inimitable style, which is further enriched in the concisely constructed Sinfonieta by his admiration for Haydn. The moving, even tragic Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses are based on traditional ballads while the challenging Quatro Invenções, in the composer’s words, explore "essentially atonal dramatic expressionism".

Béla Bartók wrote the 44 Duos for two violins in 1931. The original commission, by the German violinist and pedagogue Erich Doflein, was for an arrangement of Bartók’s piano collection ‘For Children’. Bartók decided instead to offer Doflein a brand new work.