The musical language of the New York-based Arnold Rosner (1945–2013) clothes the modal harmony and rhythm of pre-Baroque polyphony in rich Romantic colours, producing a style that is instantly recognisable and immediately appealing. These four chamber works embrace a wide range of emotions, from tragic nobility to buoyant good humour, with Rosner’s use of modality adding a hint of the Orient. All these pieces are receiving their first recordings, and many of the performers were personally acquainted with the composer.

A former member of the New World String Quartet, Curtis Macomber has performed across the United States, playing in hundreds of premieres, commissions and first recordings of solo violin and chamber works by major composers. The cellist Maxine Neuman, on the faculty at the New York School for Strings and Hoff-Barthelson Music School, was a friend of Arnold Rosner for almost 50 years and gave the first performance of his Cello Sonata No.1. The bassoonist David Richmond, a member of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra in Florida, has performed with orchestras throughout New England and now spends increasing time in Nairobi, introducing young Kenyans to the bassoon. Margaret Kampmeier, who teaches at Princeton University and the Manhattan School of Music, performs regularly with the Orchestra of St Luke’s, the New York Philharmonic, American Composers’ Orchestra and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Carson Cooman is a pianist and organist, and is also a composer whose catalogue numbers more than a thousand works. Arnold Rosner chose him to be the curator of his musical archive.