: A Patchwork of Shadows - Ian Munro

Munro is one of only two or three major pianists working in Australia today. He is passionate about the music of his composer peers and this programme is one of the most carefully-chosen on CD. One can glean the dimensions of Munro's musical interests here.

"[the Sculthorpe pieces]…both are sombre, slow-unfolding, incantatory mood pieces in Sculthorpe's "primitive" dissonant/modal language that are meant to evoke the dignity and mystery of the harsh Australian landscape. Listeners tuned to Sculthorpe's muse will surely find much that is beautiful here, as I did – especially in the delicate Night Pieces. Smalley's 10-minute-long Variations on a Theme of Chopin is beautiful too – in ways that could hardly be more different. This is a wildly extrovert and sophisticated creation that subjects Chopin's Mazurka in B-flat minor to a gauntlet of virtuoso dislocation and prismatic refractions through which the tune manages to retain is identity and indeed over which it at last triumphs, Liszt would be proud." - American Record Guide, 1995