As with her earlier NMC anthology (10/99)‚ these 25 pieces were all commissioned by Thalia Myers and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in a search for contemporary music of quality that is playable by amateur or student pianists. They should also‚ I imagine‚ sound sufficiently interesting for such a pianist to want to go to the trouble of learning them. Most of the composers here achieve that (but I’d hate to play Rodney Sharman’s tango with its muddy harmonies) and most of those also provide pieces that non­pianists will enjoy listening to. Aulis Sallinen’s impressively big‚ dark ‘miniature’ could easily bear repetition; so could Gerald Barry’s characteristic‚ jesting finger­exercise (and Kevin Volans’s for the wrist). Karen Tanaka‚ Faidros Kavallaris and Toek Numan provide charming lyricism‚ Lyell Cresswell (a toccata at the bottom end of the keyboard) and Poul Ruders (ditto‚ at the top) disguise technical demands with attractive sound. Julia Wolfe (very strikingly) and Sohrab Uduman (ingeniously) manage a clear‚ developing structure in under two minutes each. And most of these‚ heard on disc‚ might just tempt a non­pianist (or a lapsed one) into acquiring the music and giving it a try. Model performances (not impossibly virtuoso‚ but what the aspirant pianist should aim for)‚ well recorded.