Divertimento for Strings
- Dance
- Andante
- Sequences
Adagio for String Orchestra
Moments of Glad Grace (Oboe and Strings)

Whereas most of today's composers, strictly with the intention of standing out or being on the bleeding edge (so much so it makes your ears bleed), take the lazy way out and write either unintelligible music or, derivative and highly formulaic stuff (the use of AI is already creeping in) and then wonder why it's not garnering attention. I'm sure you've noticed that over the last few years, concert programs will feature a "new" work by cramming it in between music by Berlioz and Beethoven and thus force-feed it on the attending audience members.

Bucking this trend was best outlined in a previous review of this composer's Chamber Music when I wrote: Teacher, world-traveller, musician and composer Ronald Hannah (b. 1945), a Canadian now living in Austria, is of a time and place when institutions, board members, promoters and various so-called Music Societies, and "progressive" and "inclusive" Arts Councils, would have welcomed and even encouraged composers working on the avant-garde's bleeding edge, writing stuff as foreign and alien as possible to the concept of music, just so they could brand and promote it as "new music". A practice highly endemic within the Canadian music scene from the 1960s to the 1980s (with what seems like an even stronger resurgence these days). Fortunately it seems that Ronald Hannah was able to disregard this suicidal trend, and has been writing music just new enough to belong to its time, but anchored in traditional expression that still connects with the listener on an emotional, as well as a musical level.

Although short in duration (roughly 25 minutes), this new recording offers up music that more than makes up for this shortfall. Some of it, like the Sequences from the Divertimento for Strings is highly redolent of works for string orchestra by some of the best 20th century English composers, with added 21st century tweaks of course. And this same Divertimento's Andante movement, pulls me into its dark recesses each and every time I listen to it. On the other hand, the Adagio for String Orchestra much resembles some of Dmitri Shostakovich's more profoundly serene moments. Music that nudges tonal boundaries without ever turning into an atonal hodgepodge.

It's nice to know that there are still composers around that prevent the flame of music, in the true sense of that word, from burning out.