Excerpts from the Liner Notes (by Howard L. Richards)

Romance for Violin and Orchestra
In 1955 my composition teacher for my Master Degree in Music Composition, Ernst van Dohnanyi, asked me to include a piece for orchestra for my Composition Thesis. Since professor Dohnanyi was very interested in form and structure, I followed the typical first movement form, Sonata Allegro, with its exposition, development and recapitulation form including other connecting passages. However, because of its romantic and often passionate qualities, I decided to name it Romance for Violin and Orchestra rather than perhaps Movement For Violin and Orchestra.

Fiesta for Piano and Orchestra
At one time I became quite interested in Spanish melodies and rhythms. I had originally written Fiesta for Piano and Orchestra for soprano and piano along with my own words. As I enjoyed playing this piece on the piano, I finally orchestrated it with very little change from the original work other than the addition of the orchestra itself and a few added piano difficulties.

Rumba Tumbao for Piano and Orchestra
In keeping with my interest in the Spanish idiom, I kept playing the basic themes for Rumba Tumbao on the piano and orchestrated it at the same time as Fiesta.

Baishu and O’Ume Suite
I left my job as a recording director with RCA to write a Japanese opera. I had become quite fascinated by Lady Murasaki’s novel The Tale of Genji, the greatest classic of Japanese literature sometimes called the world’s first real novel and written in the eleventh century. I wanted something with the great finesse of that Japanese court, but I wanted to place the story later when Japan had divided into warring feudal states, where each still was similar to the older court of Japan. For many reasons that opera was never completely finished, so I converted it into an eleven movement suite. You have here five of those eleven...

A Frenchman in New York Part I (New York City Panorama and Walking Theme)
Of course, the title is a take off on Gershwin’s An American in Paris. This is part one of an eight part, sixteen minute composition. It offers solos for the trumpet and several woodwind instruments in a jazzy, bluesy happy-go-lucky style.

Give Me The Splendid Silent Sun
Based on a poem by Walt Whitman, and sung here by a forty voice chorus, the poem tells of the desire for the simplicity of the rural life. It begins with the world awakening. You will hear a bird’s song and then other animal sounds come in. Finally, the chorus in canon sings Give Me The Splendid Silent Sun. Thereafter each line of the poem becomes a separate melodic section with a few separated by a short orchestral interlude.