A Welcome Insight Orchestral music by Charles Camilleri, reviewed by PATRIC STANDFORD Divine Art    ddv24126

Maltese composers are few and among those very much alive and working now, Charles Camilleri (born in 1931) is the best known outside that country, largely because his early musical studies were in Australia, and his career as a composer and conductor was consolidated by long periods spent in Canada and England. In spite of that, his musical allegiances have always been rooted in the country of his birth, its folklore, its traditional music and a great respect for its past composers.

The Overture Classique on this CD is a lively reworking of the overture to the opera Michelange by 18th century Maltese composer Niccolo Isouard who had a significant influence on the development of French music in his time.

There is a short Intermezzo from one of Camilleri's operas, Il-Weghda, and Four Legends, a suite of short pieces based on old Maltese historical figures and events. The CD also features some of his best known lighter pieces: the Knights of Malta Suite from a ballet inspired by Maltese manuscripts discovered in Oxford.

Also, vividly colourful pieces like the Village Fest from the Malta Suite.

Camilleri has written three large scale piano concertos, and an earlier excursion into the form produced a Concertino: 'Summer Nights in Malta' for two pianos and orchestra, in the final movement of which is a poignant episode that leads back to the coda.

This well produced and performed CD provides a welcome insight into the range of Camilleri's compositional work.

Record Box is Music & Vision's regular series of shorter CD reviews