Heim Duo & Christine Bock - Journeys: Chamber Music for Flute, Viola and Guitar (2009)

Robert Baksa is a composer of distinct personality. His music’s broad, passionate intensity shimmers with transparent textures and melodies that exploit the full beauty of an instrument’s sounds. One wants to hear it over and over. Baksa rejects experimentation, cliché and gimmickry. Critics have described his work as “resolutely and stubbornly tonal,” “embarrassingly attractive,” and “unconventionally conventional.” They acknowledge that he is a superb melodist, and that his works possess “impressive contrapuntal effectiveness.” Baksa honors traditional musical approaches, yet the music overflows those forms and vocabularies. His undeniably modern music is rewarding to perform and elicits enthusiastic audience response. The chamber works presented here are chamber music concertante in the very best sense. The guitar is prominent, participating fully in the important thematic material in substantive and sophisticated ways. The music requires the same dexterity and expressive palette from the guitar that it does from the flute and viola.