Igor Zhukov - Jānis Ivanovs: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Symphony No. 14, 20 (2013)

’It’s a welcome touch that this beautifully designed disc and case incorporates details from the paintings “Blue Lakes”, “Latgale Symphony” and “White Birches Beyond the Daugava River” by Diana Ive, the granddaughter of Janis Ivanovs. The booklet essay is by composer Imants Zemzaris and you could hardly ask for a more wide-ranging and thorough-going account in the space of twenty pages of this fifty-page booklet. Zemzaris goes into rewarding detail about Ivanovs’ music from start to end as well as filling in the blanks around these three works. All in all, this volume in its documentation, book-design, music, performance and recording could hardly be bettered as an emissary for this prolific and undervalued symphonist.’ -- Rob Barnett