Kurosawa's epic movie Ran produced some of the greatest fusion of music and drama of the twentieth century. - Mark Obama Ndesandjo

The Untimely Ones is a compilation of Romantic piano works, including several by the composer Frederick Chopin. A great improviser, Chopin would create dreamy intrigues of the spirit with his accomplice the piano. Listeners in adjacent rooms would stop their conversations and children would look up from play to hear his marvelous music. Afterwards, manuscript paper before him, he would try to capture these splendid ideas. As elusive as these thoughts were, in spite of his ranting and raving, in spite of the hair that he pulled at in frustration, a work would at last be born for the ages!

Mark's own compositions are also reproduced here as he created them, in spontaneous performances in his New Jersey Studio, over ten years ago. Incidentally, Hal refers to the baleful computer in Peter Kubrick's 2001. Untimely Ones and Kurosawa are inspired by the German Poet Friedrich Nietzsche and the Japanese film director Kurosawa, respectively. The two pieces by J.S. Bach and Rachmaninoff are not very well known but etch deep patterns in one's soul.

William Blake was a great English painter who produced some remarkable works, often mystical and prophetic in nature. On a visit to the Tate gallery Mark saw some of his works. A set of prints described the scenes from The Divine Comedy, the great workof the Rennaissance poet Dante. Inspired in turn, he set the images to music in compositions for the piano! Enjoy!

In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in the dark wood where the true way was wholly lost. - Dante Alighieri