Pianist Diana Zandberga performs works by composer Dace Aperane.

At times, it seems to me, that nature, poetry, memories and moods reflect a very special inner music. My compositional process is rooted in this inner music’s perception and development. I am deeply grateful to Diana Zandberga for inviting me to compose many of my solo works for her concert programs and for her outstanding solo piano arrangements of my compositions for two pianos and other ensembles. Her nuanced, passionate and virtuosic interpretations have been a wonderful source of inspiration to me, as well as her great dedication to this album of my piano music Sounds and Echoes. Dace Aperane

Review:

Aperane’s lambent and idyllic music is eloquent and silver-tongued. It belongs among the works of that broad school of composers which includes Lionel Sainsbury, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Blezard, Philip Gates, Donostia and Mompou. After a placid and centred Satie-like Sarabande, which feels not at all archaic, a few of the later tracks include a more ‘advanced’ approach as in Cimbalom (tr. 7). That piece involves plucking the internal strings of the piano to catch some of the quality of the Hungarian instrument used so memorably in Kodaly’s Hary Janos. Otherwise many of these pieces are of such resilient delicacy as to suggest a secret garden within a secret garden: the grounds of some walled palace within the miniature world of Ravel’s Ma M re l’Oye. --Rob Barnett, Musicweb International