Recordings

Released in celebration of longtime USC professor Ellis Kohs’ 80th birthday, this CD’s variations on modernism offer an inviting portrait of the composer, despite decidedly low-fi sound. A healthy sense of gentle irony comes through Kohs’ “Stars and Stripes Forever,” from “Amerika,” an opera based on the Franz Kafka novel. Emotionally affecting 12-tone writing schemes are woven into the fabric of the Passcaglia for Organ and Strings, written for E. Power Biggs in 1946. The Paganinis’ 1953 recording of A Short Concert for String Quartet shows off its vibrant and nervous charm, while the folk-ish but sophisticated Sonatina for Violin and Piano, played with verve by Sims and Fitz-Gerald, carries echoes of Stravinsky and the “Les Six” school. Through the smudged sonic window of this collection, Kohs’ emerges as a composer who embraced many aesthetic notions, all the while projecting a singular musicality.

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