A disc of Songs and Variations for violin, violoncello and piano on motifs from the Book of Job. The music of Alexander Asteriades moves ?out of the cul-de-sac of atonality.? And so it is not without good reason that the composition of songs with piano accompaniment, very much in the tradition of the nineteenth century, accounts for a significant part of his oeuvre. As in the songs of his great models, Goethe, Eichendorff, and Mricke are encountered among the poets of his texts ? but he has also set Georg Trakl and Nikos Kazantzakis. Although Asteriades? songs are tonal, they pose supreme challenges to the interpreters; their grand leaps, extreme registers, and long melodic lines require a singer of superb skill and a pianist who supplies a finely felt and multifaceted accompaniment. Asteriades draws on Martin Buber?s translation of the Book of Job as his source of inspiration in this five-part work. Buber?s text endeavors to reproduce the verbal rhythm of the Hebrew original and as a result assumes a very unique musicality. It is from a little seed that the composer develops the musical material evoking the moods of this famous sapiential work in a finely crafted setting.