The London Sinfonietta launches its own CD label with a set of recordings made at the Knussen 50th-birthday concert two years ago.
All of these celebratory pieces are short, ranging from the minute-long Very Sharp Trumpet Sonata and Olly on the Shore by Louis Andriessen and Hans Werner Henze respectively, to the relatively substantial four minutes of Colin Matthews' Flourish with Fanfares and Magnus Lindberg's Bubo Bubo.
All of them are dazzingly well played by the Sinfonietta and pianists Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hind, and with a roster of composers headed by Elliott Carter but also including Detlev Glanert, George Benjamin, Julian Anderson, almost every one of these 13 pieces is a gem.
