FINNISSY: This Church. Richard Jackson (bar), Jane Mooney (mezzo), Tony Potter, Larry Yates (narrs), Philip Adams (org), IXION, Choir of Saint Mary de Haura Church and guests, The Saint Mary de Haura Handbell Ringers c. Michael Finnissy. Metier MSV CD92069.

Denis ApIvor, who died at the age of 88 on 27 May 2004, was one of the most versatile composers of his generation. Just over a month before his death, though gravely ill, he attended a New Music Brighton concert at Brighton Unitarian Church featuring the world première of his Second and Third String Quartets, given by the Kingfisher Quartet. His presence lent a special significance to the event and the image of the ailing composer, his wheelchair stationed directly at the feet of the players, experiencing the first readings of his own works is one that resonates in the memory.

JOHN McCABE: Concerto for Piano and Wind Quintet; Musica Notturna; Fauvel's Rondeaux; Postcards for wind quintet. The Fibonacci Sequence. Dutton CDLX 7125.

‘Old City New Image’. McCABE: String Trio; String Quartet No. 2. DAVID ELLIS: Trio for violin, viola and cello; String Quartet No. 1. Camerata Ensemble. Campion Cameo 2027.

McCABE: Piano Concerto No. 2; Concertante Variations on a theme of Nicholas Maw; Six-Minute Symphony; Sonata on a Motet. Tamami Honma (pno), St Christopher Chamber Orchestra c. Donatas Katkus. Dutton CDLX 7133.

‘Tenebrae’. McCABE: Variations; Intermezzi; Sostenuto (Study No. 2); Capriccio (Study No. 1); Aubade (Study No. 4); Tenebrae; Scrunch (Study No. 8); Evening Harmonies (Study No. 7). Tamami Honma (pno). Metier MSV CD92071.

Last year I was offered for review a recording of a live song recital promoted jointly by the British Music Information Centre and the English Poetry and Song Society. Its attractions included a cameo appearance by tenor Ian Partridge and an important first recording of Ivor Gurney's Lights Out cycle, in the order proposed by Richard Carder. After hearing the disc, however, I thought it kinder to several of the other performers not to publish an opinion. What a pity, it seemed, that the organizers had failed to draw upon those strikingly fresh and technically secure voices that have recently emerged from our music colleges.

An ancient tale is told by an Old Man in a tower. He experiences the story both in his dreams and as his present hopes and fears. L'Upupa appears, a mysterious hoopoe who is the sum of the Old Man's joys. Impetuously he grabs hold of her but she struggles free and manages to fly away. Left behind are a golden feather and a bleeding finger. The Old Man sends his three sons in search of the bird, knowing that neither the eldest, Gharib (‘the Untrustworthy’), nor the second son, Adschib (‘the Fanciful’), can succeed. It is Kasim (‘the Sharer’) – the youngest – who will fulfil the quest, for he is virtuous and wholly without guile. The ensuing developments in this Syrian legend may be quickly enumerated here: tasks are set, songs are sung, and potentates take and release captives, for in sending his sons on such a mission, the father has knowingly endangered their lives. Kasim returns not only with the bird, but also with an angelic Demon who has safeguarded him on his journeys, and Badi'at, a beautiful Jewish maiden. To great astonishment the old man sets free l'Upupa. And although a wedding is announced, Kasim will not stay to marry Badi'at, setting off instead to seek one of the famous red apples of Manda in order to redeem his pledge against the Demon's protection. The end is marked by the beginning, and a quest starts anew.

Both for the quality of the repertoire and the influence of the composers, the ‘New Jewish School in Music’, the subject of a two-day conference on 10–11 May 2004 at the University of Potsdam, Germany, represents a significant aesthetic movement in the history of 20th-century music. To apply the term ‘school’ to a varied group which lasted from 1908 till 1938, and spread from St. Petersburg, through Russia, to Berlin and Vienna, as in the conference title (it is also that of a new book by Dr Jascha Nemtsov, conference organizer), begs the question of the extent to which there was a unanimity of aesthetic purpose and style. Yet while this is still open to debate, what emerged from the conference was a common agenda and a sense that it was certainly ‘new’ and young, since all the composers were keenly interested in contemporary, avant-garde music. Though diverse in idioms, they all shared a profound involvement with the revival of a folk culture and its assimilation into art music.

De-coding Skin: piano works by FELDMAN, XENAKIS, FINNISSY, NEWLAND, WILSON, WHITTY. Philip Howard (pno). The Divine Art 25021.

The title of James MacMillan's Symphony No. 3, Silence, could easily mislead. An avowedly religious work from a devotedly Catholic composer, the symphony does not stand back in contemplative reverence before God. On the contrary, in choosing as his inspiration Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel of the same name, MacMillan has drawn upon a text that admirably meets and mirrors the fundamentals of his own musical personality. Endo's novel deals with Western attempts to convert the inhabitants of 17th-century Japan to Catholicism and their bloody failure. The agents of the Lord are defeated by the violent resistance of the Japanese and the inhospitable terrain. Struggle, hope, grace, martyrdom, defeat. MacMillan's devotees will recognize his trademarks in a dramatic new piece, albeit one whose narrative is rather more oblique than Isabel Gowdie or Veni, Veni Emmanuel.

At its best, Judith Weirs's music makes use of very simple and clear musical ideas with great wit to great effect. This quality is most apparent in pieces which have some dramatic, or at least extra-musical aspect, often connected with some type of folklore or folk music. When the music becomes more abstract, it can also be less lively and less appealing. The Composer Portrait concert which was presented as a preface to the UK première at the Proms on 7 August of her orchestral piece The Welcome Arrival of Rain contained examples of both of these sides of the composer's work. Distance and Enchantment, for piano quartet, is based on Northern Irish and Scottish folk songs, worked into a beautiful and compelling instrumental texture. Sketches from a Bagpiper's Album evokes the sound of the bagpipes and the instrumental and compositional techniques associated with its repertory. Next to these works, Music for 247 Strings, for violin and piano, has much less profile and less personality. Even though it strikingly employs a texture which is a favorite of Weir's, distinctly different contrapuntal lines presented in rhythmic unison, it just doesn't seem to be about much of anything.

JAMES WOOD: Crying Bird, Echoing Star. GORDON McPHERSON: Explore Yourself. EDWARD DUDLEY HUGHES: The Sibyl of Cumae. ROWLAND SUTHERLAND: Timeless Odyssey. ROLF HIND: The Horse Sacrifice. The New Music Players: Rowland Sutherland (fls), Fiona Cross (cls), Mieko Kanno (vln), Michael Atkinson (vlc), Richard Casey (pno), Tim Palmer (perc,), Louise Mott (mezzo); Paul Sherman (db), c. Patrick Bailey and Roger Montgomery. London Independent Records LIR003

SKALKOTTAS: Piano Trio; Eight Variations on a Greek Folk Tune for piano trio. Works for cello and piano – Largo; Bolero; Serenata; Sonatina; Tender Melody. Maria Kitsopoulos (vlc), Maria Asteriadou (pno), Georgios Demertzis (vln). BIS CD-1224.

Until the world première of Joe Duddell's Ruby on 25 July, I had yet to hear a percussion concerto which didn't trip itself up. I thought it was in the nature of the beast: the orchestra develops some material, which is then passed to the percussion, at which point all development perforce stops. Duddell (b. 1972) solved the problem by turning it on its head, and limiting the orchestral material to what the solo percussionist could handle; the downside is that he necessarily limits the expressive scope of the orchestra. Ruby – the title is simply a rhyming-slang working label that stuck: it's the final part of a trilogy of works written for the percussionist Colin Currie – opens with a vibraphone pattern that suggests a lyrical music-box and soon shows a stylistic affinity with American minimalism, which alternates with slabs of good-natured energy. The slow movement begins with tremolo marimba chords over string lines that drift aimlessly and agreeably, with a more active central section spurred by brief brass figures which trigger rising scalic patterns in the vibraphone. The initial material returns with soft-centred strings above hypnotic vibraphone figuration and is sung to a close by the rapturous sound of bowed vibraphone chords. The finale likewise deals in cheerfully mesmeric vibraphone patterns over a wash of strings and stuttering comment from horns and trumpets; the soloist then offers an improvised toccata on drum-kit backed by forceful rhythms from a near-tutti orchestra. The vibraphone resumes its jolly prattle until, seemingly having run out of things to say, the music just stops dead. Currie, supported by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the functional Marin Alsop, played it with obvious commitment, and from memory – no small achievement in such motoric music.