Erik Lotichius was born in 1929 and studied piano and composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory. A thorough knowledge of the music of J.S. Bach, and his attendance at the 1948 European premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra by Bartók given by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, shaped his early language.

After numerous attempts to compose in a similar style to Bartók, he produced his First Symphony in 1956. Unhappy with his compositions, and not attracted by the avant-garde, he turned to jazz and popular music, and the emergence of the New York minimalist school of Glass, Adams and Reich provided inspiration for the next phase of his compositional output. This CD programmes the dance-inspired Symfonietta, the jazz-infused Second Piano Concerto and the Four Songs set to the strikingly simple, moving and beautiful poems by native Americans.