A gift not only for music lovers, Cascade of Roses: A Piano Bouquet matches piano works (many previously unrecorded) about roses to printed poetry and...

A gift not only for music lovers, Cascade of Roses: A Piano Bouquet matches piano works (many previously unrecorded) about roses to printed poetry and images of corresponding roses. This also marks the debut recording of pianist Janice Weber with Dorian Sono Luminus.

Pianist Janice Weber plays a repertoire of “rose” pieces by composers well known, vaguely known, and unknown as well as pieces recently resurrected from anonymity. These twenty-one takes on the rose are as individual as the composer, but all prevail affection for the “sweetest flower.” Examples of this are shown by how composer Eduard Poldini (1869-1957) portrays an image of blossoms nodding in the prairie wind in Beauty of the Prairies, and how “The English Gershwin” Billy Mayerl (1902-1959) enjoyed gardening, which inspired the winsome Evening Primrose (1945).

Janice Weber is a summa cum laude graduate of the Eastman School of Music. She enjoys an international career distinguished by its wide-ranging exploration of the piano literature. She has performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and throughout China. A member of the piano faculty at Boston Conservatory, she has participated in summer festivals at Tanglewood, Newport, Bard, and Husum. Her third novel, Frost the Fiddler, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and has been optioned for film. Miss Weber also produced the tones for Ivory, the bestselling virtual piano software. Her garden contains one Pierrine rose bush.

Packaged in a hardcover book, the liner notes for Cascade of Roses portray paintings by P.J. Redouté (complete with scientific classification) and poetic works by Romantic poets such as John Keats and Richard Lovelace. Cascade of Roses: A Piano Bouquet is a beautiful collection of poetic songs depicting the fragile, fragrant rose, and is sure to not only be a favorite of classical music fans but a great gift item, being an alternative to a traditional bouquet which wilts over time.