Ballades for Piano Trombone Viola Cello Sax Flute
The ballade was Frank Martin's specialty. The Swiss composer wrote six  of them throughout his long career, each featuring a different solo instrument  or group of solo instruments. They are all from about 10 to 15 minutes in  length, and like Samuel Barber's Essays for Orchestra, they pack a great deal of  concentrated, communicative music into a very small space. The work for viola,  wind, harp, harpsichord and percussion is a particularly colorful and evocative  work, but then all of them are marvelously written and all too rarely  encountered in the concert hall for the simple reason that they're too short.  These performances are terrific.--David Hurwitz