In 1977 Ivo Bláha (*1936) wrote his Sinfonia „Per archi“, where the symphony orchestra was reduced to just the string section. His latest orchestral composition, Air Therapy – Treatment by Breath for wind and percussion, is the very reverse of that: the strings are absent in the orchestra while the other instruments – woodwinds, brass and percussion – remain on the podium. Those works, separated by thirty years, do not differ only in their instrumentation but above all in spirit of the music. While in the earlier work the music is more abstract and revolves around specific color and magical sound of the strings, Air Therapy presents an altogether different kind of music. It is based on the wind instruments, whose sound is light, simple, with a distinctive charm in the lyrical, comic, mysterious and dramatic passages. The composer believes that wind instruments are able to stimulate and bring harmony to the human psyche, and thought them ideal for setting this composition apart from current trend for somber music that not infrequently recalls an arrow pointing downwards. Air Therapy is then an attempt to turn that arrow upwards, at least a little. http://youtu.be/EoW6UWzLov0