Even as the recording industry continued to consolidate last year, classical music was able to thrive by way of smaller, independent and self-produced labels. Several local composers and artists went this route, some to great effect.

Here's a critical look at several local CDs from 2005, beginning with an important release by Carnegie Mellon University's Reza Vali. Records are rated on a scale of one (poor) to five (excellent) stars.

VALI, 'CALIGRAPHIES: WORKS FOR STRING QUARTET.' CUARTETO LATINOAMERICANO. ALBANY.

Composer and CMU professor Reza Vali incorporates his native culture in "Caligraphies: Works for String Quartet."

What is the right way to hear the contemporary art music of another culture? This album by CMU composer Reza Vali raises the question with elan as he shifts to the soundscape of his native Iran. In differing degrees, Vali's String Quartet No. 2 (1992), "Caligraphies" (2000) and String Quartet No. 3 (2001) contained here incorporate Persian modes and evoke Iranian folk melody. The violin is brought into spectacular relief in the manner of the indigenous style.

The answer is, of course, complex and unknowable. One line of thinking views contemporary music as a universal language, where tones are tones. Another is that the listener must be rooted in the cultural context of composers to understand their art music. Yet another says we can't exist outside our own culture, so we are doomed to hear foreign music as different and atypical.

No single theory holds up in real life, or course. While most Westerners weren't raised with the quarter tones of the Dastgah modal system, I certainly think they can enjoy and even interpret Vali's emotionally charged works on their own. Especially with the vibrant performance by Cuarteto LatinoAmericano,

Vali himself wants that to happen. He is an American citizen, returning to Persian music from time spent on the outside. The swirling, ecstatic Persian qualities of these quartets are propelled by Western compositional techniques. In the second movement of the Third Quartet, the flip even happens: Vali deliberately makes an Iranian mode sound atonal.

		Sample "Calligraphies" Vali, "Caligraphy No. 3." Vali, "Caligraphies: Works for String Quartet." Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Albany.

In "Calligraphies" the meld is brilliant, captivating and joyous, with expressive aural filigree and bent notes taking center stage. However, these ruminations are placed within an architecture and given a pacing that seems European/American. Add to this that the string quartet is a Western genre and you have music skillfully dancing on the borders of the Occident and Orient.

I would argue that contemporary music itself has assisted Americans in understanding the music of other cultures. As much as the experimentation of the 20th century repelled some, its expanding of our concept of music helped us to hear music of other cultures. We don't close our ears to "different" music like we used to.

Ultimately, at least the knowledge that Vali's music sits on top of a tradition older even than Western tonality informs one's listening, even if you aren't extensively familiar with that music or culture. The aural images in my mind when listening to these quartets may not be those in Vali's when he composed them, but they are compelling, too.

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BALADA. 'NO-RES,' 'EBONY FANTASIES.' COMUNIDAD DE MADRID, ENCINAR. NAXOS

The howling of desperate wolves opens Leonardo Balada's "No-res," or "Nothing," a bleak cantata about death from 1974. Using text (by French writer Jean Paris) from several languages, tapes of animals, smashing glass and uprooted trees, the work's harrowing look at death would make a worthy Halloween counterpart to Handel's "Messiah."

		Sample "No-res" Balada's "No-res." Balada. "No-res," "Ebony Fantasies." Comunidad de Madrid, Encinar. Naxos.

Its impetus and immediacy stem from the death of the CMU composer's mother. First lamenting it, then protesting it, the chorus jabs and punches as much as sings, the narrator (Denis Rafter) speaks with awful hardness, and the orchestra (led by Jose Ramon Encinar) thrashes about -- all harrowing and even touching.

Not nearly so is Balada's modernist "Ebony Fantasies." Each of the four movements re-composes a spiritual, but none of them carry much compelling artistry for me. Whereas there is plenty of spirit in "No-Res" there is little soul in "Ebony Fantasies," something this music must have in any configuration.

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SARA BOTKIN, 'THE SPIRIT'S QUARTET.'

		Sample "Sara Botkin" Barber's "Adagio for Strings." Sara Botkin, "The Spirit's Quartet."

Pittsburgh native Botkin has an attractive and versatile voice, but at times here she goes overboard multi-tracking it. The soprano and pianist sings every track on this varied disc of classical, pop and religious songs. Sometimes, as with an arrangement of Barber's Adagio for Strings, it works; sometimes, as with "Shenandoah," it sounds stiff, even goofy in the lower register.

Nonetheless, the disc is a soothing and pleasant journey over repertoire from Handel to Andrea Bocelli ("Time to Say Goodbye" by Francesco Sartori). Harpist Anne-Marguerite Michaud and flutist Jennifer Conner accompany Botkin.

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'MASTERWORKS OF THE NEW ERA. KIEV PHILHARMONIC," WINSTIN. ERM MEDIA

		Sample "Morning Star Rising" Steve Kornicki's "Morning Star Rising." "Masterworks of the New Era." Kiev Philharmonic," Winstin. ERM Media.

No stars here. I am only evaluating one piece, Pittsburgh-based composer Steve Kornicki's "Morning Star Rising." His ambitious tone poem depicts the odd and recondite topic of the Mayan relationship to celestial mythology. And you thought Zarathustra was a tough subject matter.

With soft colors and atmospheric harmonies, it could be the score of a film on the subject, and it is stronger in its contemplative sections. However, the work as a whole is rather rhythmically vanilla, exacerbated by an effete performance by the Kiev Philharmonic under Robert Ian Winstin.