Composer: Jānis Ķepītis
Performer: Nora Lūse, Jānis Ķepītis
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata Classics
Catalogue: TOCC0726
Release: 2024
Size: 599 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Snowflakes
01. I. A Little Cloud
02. II. Flakes Fall
03. III. Vortex
04. IV. The Story of the Flake
05. V. Christmas Tree Dream
06. VI. Waltz
07. VII. Thaw
08. VIII. And Spring Again
Portraits
09. I. Andulis
10. II. Elvīra
11. III. Nanny
12. IV. Vija
13. V. Biruta
14. VI. Niko
Mood-Paintings
15. I. Evening Song
16. II. Anxiety
17. III. Sadness
18. IV. Delight
19. V. Frolic
20. VI. Laugh
21. VII. Solace
Mood-Paintings “In the Meadows”
22. I. A Ray of Sunshine
23. II. Butterfly and Boy
24. III. Youthful Delight
25. IV. The Black Cloud
26. V. After Rain
Impressions of an Evening
27. I. Moderato
28. II. Andante tranquillo
29. III. In Movimento
Līgo Night
30. III. St John’s Fire
The Latvian composer Jānis Ķepītis (1908–89) has a fairly low profile even in his home country, never mind beyond its borders. His output was nonetheless substantial, with no fewer than six symphonies to his name, ten concertos, a number of large-scale choral-orchestral pieces, countless songs and choruses and a voluminous body of chamber music – almost all of it unknown. Ķepītis was himself a gifted pianist, and his hundred or so compositions for piano show a predilection for the miniature. The works here, most of them discovered among his manuscripts, inhabit a world downstream from Skryabin and Rachmaninov, with a gentle hint of Debussy, an occasional wisp of Latvian folk-music, and, here and there, just a hint of jazz.