RECORDINGS

This disc justly rebukes the classical music world for excluding works of accomplishment and appeal solely because of the pigmentation of the composers’ skin.

Chevaliers Meude-Monpas and Saint-Georges write graceful, lyrical and cheerful works in a gallant 18th century style. Their intention, as liner-notes writer Mark Clague cogently remarks, is to assert a rightful place within the prevailing social fabric. Joseph White, composing post-Paganini, offers greater technical challenges and far deeper expressivity. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor shows a masterly command of form put to the service of imaginative ends.

Violinist Rachel Barton, 23, is more than competent, but seems taxed by White’s virtuosic demands. Conductor Daniel Hege (formerly of the Young Musicians Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles) and his youthful band associated with the Chicago Youth Symphony occasionally sound ragged. They have all, however, helped blaze a path that others should quickly follow.

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Recordings are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).