World premiere recordings!

Vanguard Classics is proud to announce the release the second volume in its ambitious survey of Michael Hersch's works for strings. Volume I of the Vanguard series, which featured Hersch's early Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 for Unaccompanied Cello, was released to great acclaim in 2009. The current disc comprises his works for violin, featuring violinist Miranda Cuckson, who has emerged over the past decade as among the foremost new music advocates of her generation.

The present title, Vanguard’s fifth recording of Hersch’s works, represents a rare honor for a composer not yet 40.  His first disc of chamber music was released in 2003, with performances by the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, alongside performances of Hersch’s piano works with the composer at the keyboard.  His second disc for the label, on which Hersch performed his own Milosz Fragments in addition to works by Josquin des Pres, Wolfgang Rihm, and Morton Feldman, was selected by both The Washington Post and Newsday as among the most important recordings of 2004-5.  In 2007, Vanguard released a two-CD boxed set of the composer's landmark work, The Vanishing Pavilions, again with the composer at the piano.

the wreckage of flowers also showcases the talents of two remarkable young champions of contemporary music: violinist Miranda Cuckson, who has quickly established a reputation as a "triple threat" solo repertoire interpreter, chamber music player and pedagogue, and pianist Blair McMillen, of whom NPR's John Hammel says "brilliant is too light a term to describe his myriad attributes."