Kaoru Koyama, born in 1955, is a lecturer in the Faculty of Music at Tokyo University of the Arts and reasonably well-known internationally as a composer. His 1994 Violin Concerto is a meditiation in large, long musical gestures. The first time I heard it, I wanted to describe it as "brooding," but listening again has convinced me that it is an affirmative work to which one must listen on its own terms, which is to say by allowing it to enter your mind without attempting to analyze or "understand" it.

Aaron Rabushka, who kindly sent me this CD, is a composer of Russo-Polish Jewish descent, originally from St. Louis, but now living in Fort Worth, Texas. He was born as recently as 1958 and composed the sophisticated Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet and chamber orchestra, op. 20 as long ago as 1977. So extraordinary did the concerto seem for a 19-year-old that I took the liberty of doubting the date on the CD cover. However, Mr. Rabushka assures me that he was indeed 19 when he wrote it. Furthermore, he had already written four symphonies! He says that he is presently reviewing them and considering writing a fifth.

If you're wondering what he's been doing for the last 24 years, he hasn't stopped composing, but he has been pursuing what appears to be an interesting career outside of music. Visit his website if you want some of the details.

When a composer sends me a recording of his music I can be pretty sure that he'll read my review. This sometimes gives me pause. For example, I want to tell you that this concerto is an exceptionally sunny work, though its sunniness may be lost on listeners whose tolerance for "modern" music is limited.

Now suppose Mr. Rabushka were to write back to me that actually he intended the music to depict the atmosphere in Texas's death row. Wouldn't I feel silly then? A little, I'm sure, but not as much as you might think. After all, what are critics for if not to explain to composers what their music is all about?

Actually, reading the notes that come with the CD, I don't think I have anything to worry about.

The concerto is remarkable for the warmth and generosity of its melodic content, even though not everyone will be comfortable with the contrapuntal density of much of the writing. The solo clarinet part sounds natural, sometimes even inevitable and the orchestration is effective.

Tsippi Fleischer is an Israeli musician born in 1946. Her 1995 Salt Crystals is a spare and intriguing piece of ten minutes duration. Like all things salty, it creates a thirst, in this case a thirst to hear more of the composer's music. Indeed some of it, including Oratorio 1492-1992, is available on Vienna Modern Masters and I will certainly review any of it that I can get my hands on.

Salt Crystals is a study in texture, rhythm and an attractive if not terribly splashy palette of timbres. Such melody as it contains is incidental. It's definitely worth repeated hearings.

Born in 1930, Nancy Van de Vate is the oldster among this group, though you wouldn't guess it from the vigour and good-natured appeal of the suite from her 1996 opera Nemo. You remember Nemo, don't you, from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea? Well the composer describes the opera as an original sequel to the Jules Verne novel.

If the suite is any indication, the opera must be a real pleasure to see and hear. But don't hold your breath waiting for either to come to a stage near you. The CD will have to do for most of us.

Incidentally, Ms. Van de Vate is Vice-President and Artistic Director of Vienna Modern Masters. She from New Jersey, has studied in New York State, Mississippi and Florida and now lives in Vienna, Austria. Vienna Modern Masters is actually an American company with offices in Wilmington, Delaware and in Vienna.