Patricia Michaelian (piano), Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony/Gerard SchwarzNaxos 8.572743 ***

Swiss-born composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), is famous for the expression of his Jewish heritage in works such as Schelomo, Baal Shem and the Sacred Service. Ten years after his emigration to the US in 1916, he celebrated his adopted country in the "epic rhapsody" America. But the musically illustrative Americana he chose (including The Old Folks at Home and Pop Goes the Weasel) seems ill-suited to the patriotic grandeur he persued. The neo-baroque Concerto Grosso of 1925, for piano and strings, skilfully and strikingly blends qualities of old and new. In these early 1990s Delos recordings, now reissued on Naxos, Gerard Schwarz rather downplays the concerto's bite but glories in the open-hearted, new citizen embrace of the explicitly programmatic rhapsody. url.ie/af6o