Winter Songs (Four Seasons Cycle)

1. Brett Dean (*1961) - Winter Songs (1994/2000) for tenor and wind quintet, after poems of e.e. cummings WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
2. Erkki-Sven Tüür (*1959) - Architectonics I (1984)
3. Peteris Vasks (*1946) - Music for a Deceased Friend (1981)
4. Arvo Pärt (* 1935) - Quintettino op.13 (1964)
5. Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) - Quintet op.43 (1922)

BIS-CD-1332
Total playing time: 71:36
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"The poems chosen by the composer are late, dark and gnomic (even by cummings's standards) and the half-hour of music they inspire is emotionally charged and on a symphonic scale. The vocal line travels from a whisper to a scream, and Daniel Norman has its measure. Dean writes for the quintet as though it is an orchestra, drawing from the players an astonishing variety of texture and colour. I imagine most copies of this disc will be sold on the back of the increasingly fashionable music of Peteris Vasks and Erkki-Sven Tüür, or the early and not especially typical quintet by Pärt, or the famous Nielsen. All are played with the kind of style one might expect from members of the Berlin Philharmonic. It will be Dean's piece, however, that draws people back."
Andrew Ford - ABC's Limelight