Adler reviews

Among modern composers, Samuel Adler’s catalogue of some 400 works may seem puny next to Villa-Lobos’s torrential downpour of 2000. Yet this veteran American’s output still deserves some award for size, as well as the volume of notes hurtling through movements typically marked ‘fast and with a happy spirit’ or ‘vigorous and very rhythmic’. Following the family’s escape from Nazi Germany, Adler’s continuing love of life stands as one of his most endearing traits.