Red Note Ensemble

The Cellist of Sarajevo

Delphian

ANYONE with a belief in a possibility of "abstract" or "pure music" needs to listen to this album's transition from the aching lament of the title piece – composed by David Wilde to celebrate the famous act of musical defiance by Vedran Smailovic in the face of the bloodshed in his hometown in 1992 – to the spiky opening of Wilde's String Quartet No1, which is his response to the larger picture of the lasting geopolitical effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. There could scarce be a more appropriate composer for the carefully-named chamber group Red Note to be championing than the Nadia Boulanger-trained Wilde, who already has a catalogue of recordings of Liszt and Chopin as a pianist on this Edinburgh label. Wilde's music is always eloquent, from the opening Suite "Cry, Bosnia-Herzegovina" – which ends with the cello solo – to the much more personal Piano Trio on the second disc. Although explicitly of the composer's chamber music, this set is also very much a showcase for Red Note founder Robert Irvine who takes ownership of the title piece despite the fact that it has also been recorded by classical superstar Yo-Yo Ma.

Keith Bruce