Before the premiere of his legendary WPA political musical The Cradle Will Rock, and his opera Regina (based upon Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes), Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) produced striking chamber music that deserves a wider audience. Yet these scores, by the only American to study composition with both Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger, remain unpublished and rarely played over the past 80 years. Other Minds is pleased to introduce these forgotten treasures, an unknown aspect of Blitzstein’s genius.

Other Minds deserves high praise and thanks for helping to fill in the picture of this much-neglected American composer.  Greg Stepanich, Palm Beach Artspaper
Read the complete review.

THE RARE EARLY WORKS:
SOLO PIANO WORKS, Sarah Cahill, piano

1.  Piano Sonata (1927), 6:59

Piano Percussion Music (1929), 11:55
2.  Toccata 2:30
3.  Air 4:49
4.  Rondino 4:31

5.  Scherzo, “Bourgeois at Play” (1930), 3:08

COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS, Del Sol String Quartet

Quartet for Strings, “Italian” (1930), 20:29
6.  Allegro 4:13
7.  Allegretto 5:12
8.  Presto possibile 1:47
9.  Lento 9:04

Serenade for String Quartet (1932), 16:36
10.  Largo 5:32
11.  Largo 5:16
12.  Largo 5:43

The Del Sol Quartet: Benjamin Kreith and Rick Shinozaki, violins; Charlton Lee, viola; Kathryn Bates, cello

Total Time: 59:28