There is much to be moved by on this disc, not just for sentimental reasons. With proceeds going towards ''Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS'', it features five works by American composers all diagnosed as HIV Positive, three of whom have already died of AIDS, two while the disc was being prepared. Tim Page, Executive Producer for the Catalyst label of BMG, makes clear in his notes just how deeply involved he has been in the project. Plainly this is not music to be approached in a spirit of academic rigour, yet even so I urge anyone who is put off by the sloppy title to ignore it. As Page says, ''This is youthful music, because its composers had no time to write anything else, no leisure for mature reflection'', but I wish he had paid it the compliment of giving more detailed notes, instead of just generalizations. The opening item, Tango Bittersweet by Fred Hersch (b. 1955) and the one composer here still active, is what provided the idea for the title. Hersch himself plays the piano for a piece with outer sections like Faure's Elegie in tango-time, and with a central section in which the cello is completely submerged by the heavy piano writing, not just a question of recording balance.
The most substantial work here, and the one I have found most enjoyable, is the Piano Concerto of Kevin Oldham (b. 1960), masterfully performed here by Ian Hobson with the Kansas City Symphony, who under William McGlaughlin also gave the premiere in 1992 with the dying composer as soloist. Oldham was a Juilliard-trained pianist who turned to composition when he discovered he was HIV Positive. This concerto, by far the biggest work he completed, is unashamedly eclectic. With blatant Rachmaninov imitations in the substantial first movement and outright Gershwin echoes in the finale, it might easily be dismissed as Hollywood film music translated, but the emotional intensity of the first movement, the poignancy of the lyrical second movement (akin to that of the Ireland Piano Concerto) and the energy of the finale silence any doubts. Even without reference to the tragedy behind its composition it is a red-blooded, undeniably effective piece of a kind that I wish composers would dare to write more often. I am glad to see that Ian Hobson is giving the British premiere of the central Andante (arranged for solo piano in his Wigmore Hall recital on July 8th).
Two of the other works are variations for organ with obbligato solo instruments. Calvin Hampton's with cor anglais (Thomas Stacy of the New York Philharmonic the fine soloist) and Chris DeBlasio's with guitar, a surprising combination ingeniously worked out. The most deft writing on the disc comes in the three brief movements of Lee Gannon's Triad-O-Rama for wind octet. In its colour and energy this is the opposite of tragic music, even if the central ''Gymnopedie'' brings a hint of melancholy. Excellent, deeply committed performances throughout.'