Five works for cello and piano by leading Japanese composers of the 20th century. Yoshihiro Kanno (b.1953) opens with A Cluster of Stars II (1982, rev.1997), in which a repeated pattern sustains the whole work 'as if it is a signal from outer space', with the piano expressing spaciousness and the cello floating within it. Hirohisa Shono's Z-Paraphrase (1987) was commissioned by the Nomura Academic and Art Foundation. Tōru Takemitsu (1930–1996) contributes Orion (1984), his only work for cello and piano, a characteristic interweaving of sound and silence. Makoto Moroi's Ordre Op.18 (1958) reflects the intellectual avant-gardism that made a sensation in Japan in the 1950s. The album closes with Kozaburo Hirai's tender paraphrase on Sakura, Sakura (1953), an evocation of cherry blossoms. The performers are cellist Torleif Thedéen and pianist Noriko Ogawa.