The title of this disc is misleading. Beth Mehocic (1953-2022) composed a good deal more than the six works collated here. This is merely a one-off compilation of the works of hers in Navona’s catalogue, available otherwise on five other discs or as a Ravello download. The very different recording circumstances of each piece have resulted in very different sonic perspectives, work by work, requiring some readjustment of volume.

Mehocic’s website biography styles her as ‘composer, poet, visual artist, film-maker and author’ and she served on the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for 36 years, latterly as Professor of Dance and the department’s Composer-in-Residence. Three of the compositions here were written to be danced to: Left of Winter (2014) marked Mehocic’s appointment to the latter role, while the ear-catching septet Piece by Piece for New York’s Eric Hawkins Dance Company accompanied an abstract, experimental scenario. Somewhere between D and C# is scored for cello solo, and while sounding like a purely musical study was conceived for choreographer Cathy Allen. (Mehocic’s poem connected with the music is reproduced in the booklet.) The track credits are in error, suggesting that it is performed by the Trio Casals: only that ensemble’s cellist, Ovidiu Marinescu, is involved and he turns in a fine account.

The Piano Concerto is a very early piece, composed in 1974 when Mehocic was just 21 but revised and rescored in 2016. More conservative in style and overtly romantic in manner than her later music, it is a minor work, nicely played by Charlene Farrugia with the here-uncredited Croatian Chamber Orchestra under Miran Vaupotic´. The Tango Concerto (2018) was composed as a thank-you for Farrugia to play with her accordionist husband, Franko Božac, and they provide a vigorous interpretation. The Altius Quartet’s committed performance of Picasso’s Flight for string quartet has been reviewed in these pages before (10/19^US). Sadly, while working on this review, I received the news that Mehocic had died unexpectedly on January 2.