For those of you who might not know him, Karl Amadeus Hartmann was a 20th century German composer of great significance. Most of his output dates from the 1940s and 50s and is a form of protest against what he saw happening around him during the war years and after. His writing is dark, tense, multi-textured, using the full scope of the orchestra, never quite atonal but sometimes coming very close to it. The 6th Symphony for example will blow you away in it's intensity and power.

This recording is hard to find, but for those of you who love this kind of music, it is well worth the effort to track it down.

Jean-Yves Duperron