Three Piano Miniatures

The "Three Piano Miniatures" of Lajos Delej (1923-1945) were a birthday gift from Delej to his sister Livia Delej Lengyel on the occasion of her 25th birthday, March 14, 1940. The music is technically simple, classical in its phrasing and form, and was written when the composer was about fifteen years old. These piano miniatures are virtually all that survive of Delej's musical output, and his only surviving manuscript. A concert programme from June 1942 indicates a Violoncello Sonata in three movements; five songs on poems by Heinrich Heine; and a String Quartet in three movements. Delej perished in 1945 at the Buchenwald concentration camp.