Meditations on Plainsong Melodies from the 12th Century Salsibury Chant for Easter Day. The work was commissioned by Raphael Wallfisch and Richard Markham. First performed in the Royal Exchange in Manchester in February 1982.

Suite pour violoncelle et piano. Par LAKS SIMON. Simon Laks (1901-1983), who moved from Warsaw to Paris in 1926 at the age of 25, belonged to the large group of composers from Central and Eastern European countries who went down in 20th-century music history as the „École de Paris“. Slavic temperament amalgamated in their music with French esprit, the folklore of their native countries combined with the stylistic elements of neoclassicism and jazz typical of the time. As a member of the „Association of Young Polish Musicians“, Laks quickly made his way into French musical life. However, his career was ended with the beginning of World War 2 due to the collaboration of the Vichy government with Nazi Germany. Internment in 1941 was followed by deportation to Auschwitz in 1942. Laks survived the Shoah as a member and later leader of a camp band in Birkenau, which he testified to in his moving book Music in Auschwitz. After the traumatic experiences, Laks did not return to regular compositional activity until the 1960s, producing an opera, songs, and chamber music works, some of which were awarded important composition prizes. At the peak of this optimistic creative phase, he composed incidental music for Peretz Hirschbein's famous Yiddish comedy Dem Schmids Techter (The Blacksmith's Daughters), which premiered in New York in 1918, for a new production of the play at the Théâtre de l’Entrepôt in Paris. Along with Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes and Shostakovich's cycle From Yiddish (Jewish) Folk Poetry, it is one of the most significant 20th-century explorations of art music with Jewish folklore – homage to a culture irreparably destroyed. From the original score, Holger Groschopp compiled two suites, for violoncello and piano and piano solo, that capture the essence of Lak‘s enchanting drama music. The premiere recording of the suites with Holger Groschopp and Adele Bitter was awarded the Opus Klassik 2023 in the category Editorial Achievement of the Year. . / Date parution : 2024-01-06/ Répertoire / Violoncelle et Piano

The Romanian Folk Dances undoubtedly rank amongst Bartok's most popular compositions. The earliest version is scored for Piano (1915) and was published by Universal Edition is 1918. The composer himself orchestrated this version in 1917. Several other chamber music arrangements (for example Zoltan Szekely's version for Violin and Piano) were not by Bartok although he authorised them. The musical material derives from Bartok's collections of folk music which date right back to 1904 when he wrote down a melody sung by a Hungarian peasant girl. In the course of extensive travels throughout Eastern Europe Bartokcompiled an enormous collection of folk tunes (by 1918 his collection comprised no fewer than 2700 Hungarian 3500 Romanian and 3000 Slovak dances and songs) which would in all probability have been lost had Bartok not written them down. As it was some of them found their way into his compositions. In 1908 Bartok jotted down tunes in Transylvania. They are the source of Romanian Folk Dances.