This program of musical portraits by Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec encompasses a song cycle, a cantata and a solo piano work. Vita Brevis is a beautiful cycle of five songs that chart a birth-to-death journey, whereas Characteristics enshrines tributes from the composer to seven musical friends, three pianists, two composers, a violinist and a countertenor, in the form of pithy piano commentaries. Moravec’s tribute to Benjamin Franklin, Useful Knowledge, is a soliloquy cum fantasy that celebrates Franklin’s pioneering rationality with music of dextrous imagination. ~From the Naxos website. For more information…