A new name appears in our collection of rarities: Richard Ro�ler, born in 1880 in Riga, the Latvian capital, trained at the Berlin Music Academy and later highly esteemed there as a professor of piano from 1918 to 1953, was one of those late-Romantic composers deeply influenced by Johannes Brahms. Unlike his Hungarian contemporary Bela Bartok, Ro�ler remained steadfastly loyal to the worldview of his great role model. When he realized, around 40, that aesthetic developments were passing him by, he limited his output to a few occasional pieces. This is all the more regrettable, as the two newly recorded works here reveal a significant and profound talent capable of creating distinctive characters using traditional musical means.
