We live in an age where record companies seem hell-bent to record the complete works of absolutely everyone, worthy or not. Yet there are serious gaps. One musician who really deserves a revival has been pretty thoroughly ignored, and that is Swiss composer Frank Martin. His music is a highly eclectic and personal mix of neo-Baroque, Impressionism, and serial elements that emerge fresh, vital, alive, and highly accessible to almost all listeners. The Polyptique, inspired when the composer saw a painted series of small pictures in Siena, Italy, that depicted the Passion of Christ, is set for solo violin and strings. Like the artist's renderings, it depicts the last days of Jesus in a series of short movements. An exceptionally evocative work, it is authoritatively played by both soloist and string orchestra. The Etudes, written in 1955-56, take the word "study" seriously: each is devoted to some idiomatic aspect of string ensemble expression or technique, one being devoted to pizzicato, another to sostenuto playing, the last to a fugue, with "everyone and everything in its place." The pizzicato movement, which incorporates piquant jazz "slides", is absolutely breathtaking. The Sonata da Chiesa is a very spiritual piece, its sound achieved by an adroit mix of 12-tone and harmonic techniques. Conductor Hans Stadlmair brings out every lyric moment while keeping a taut rein on intricate rhythms. Once again, the solo and orchestral playing are exemplary, and the recorded sound is just short of perfect. Readers looking for a rewarding 20th--or 21st!--century adventure can scarcely go wrong with this CD.

--Rad Bennett