Gerard Schurmann, composer

Alyssa Park, violin

Mikhail Korzhev, piano

Neatly played craftsmanship

Now in his late 80s, the Anglo-Dutch composer Gerard Schurmann has lived in the US for the last 30 years.In that time his music has been heard less and less frequently in Britain, where he had previously had a successful career composing both for films and the concert hall, after studying with Alan Rawsthorne. It's 10 years since Chandos released a disc of Schurmann's Violin Concerto and Concerto for Orchestra, both finely worked pieces, vividly scored. This Toccata collection of works for violin and piano and piano alone, neatly played by Alyssa Park and Mikhail Korzhev, is a reminder of the craftsmanship that characterises Schurmann's music, and of his slightly brittle Stravinskyan style. Both the solo piano cycles, the theme and variations of Leotaurus and Contrasts, come from the mid-1970s, before Schurmann's move across the Atlantic, while the Duo, the biggest, most impressive score here, was the first thing he composed after he settled in Los Angeles, and Autumn Leaves dates from 2007.

Andrew Clements The Guardian

A beguiling hour for almost any listener

While only tonal in a highly attenuated sense, Schurmann’s musical language never leaves listeners without clearly identifiable musical processes upon which to fasten their attention, and music so involving tends to pass very quickly — Schurmann’s certainly does. In Park’s and Korzhev’s poetic yet strong-minded performances, captured in clear recorded sound, the music reveals a great deal of fancy despite its rigor, and its shifting moods should provide a beguiling hour for almost any listener.

Robert Maxham Fanfare