Nothing special here. Jakov Gotovac and Marko Tajcevic, Croation composers whose lives spanned roughly the same period (1895-1984), wrote music in a wan, Romantic nationalist style that so many other composers (pick a name, any name) have done better. Tajcevic's Seven Balkan Dances make a marginally better impression than Gotovac's pieces, being simpler in structure and a touch more piquant harmonically. The best of Gotovac is the first piece on the disc, Symphonic Kolo, which also has a certain unpretentious tunefulness. The two symphonic poems, The Ploughers and Guslar the Fiddler, aren't terribly long (13 and 11 minutes respectively) but seem interminably drab and lacking in direction. The other two dance-based pieces offer more of the same stuff we heard in the Symphonic Kolo, only they take longer to do it. Moshe Atzmon's performances are just fine, as is CPO's sound, but surely he and the NDR Hanover orchestra have more interesting music to discover than these stunningly unoriginal pieces.

--David Hurwitz