Christian Wolff
Wolff was born in Nice in France, moving to the United States in 1941 and become an American citizen in 1946. He studied classics at Harvard University and upon graduating took up a teaching post there which he kept until 1970 when he began to teach classics and music at Dartmouth College. While at Harvard, Wolff associated himself with the composer John Cage and the group around him (Earle Brown, Morton Feldman). His early work includes a lot of silence. Later pieces often give a degree of freedom to the performers, and some works, such as Changing the System (1973), have an explicitly political element.
Wolff was born in Nice in France, moving to the United States in 1941 and become an American citizen in 1946. He studied classics at Harvard University and upon graduating took up a teaching post there which he kept until 1970 when he began to teach classics and music at Dartmouth College. While at Harvard, Wolff associated himself with the composer John Cage and the group around him (Earle Brown, Morton Feldman). His early work includes a lot of silence. Later pieces often give a degree of freedom to the performers, and some works, such as Changing the System (1973), have an explicitly political element.
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks (LP)
Original 1972 LP of Christian Wolff's seminal chance compositions featuring David Tudor, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, etc. on Wergo’s legendary Studio Reihe Neuer Musik series. Complete with insert.
Long Piano
The melodic and, in the case of the solo piano music, timbral materials from which Christian Wolff's (b 1934) music is made are rarely unusual; these are ordinary, everyday things. However, Wolff's rhythmic invention is of great range and variety: complex polyrhythms, speech-like-rhythms, the music flowing at a freely fluctuating rate or proceeding in a plain, straightforward manner, silences. This mix of unusual and ordinary results in a music unlike any other. And, in a piece of such length as…
An Anthology
Essential and visually stunning 1963 anthology edited by Young and Maciunas featuring most of the artist who would be take part in Fluxus. Very rare second edition published in 1970 of this important book.
The Possibility of A New Work for Electric Guitar
Other Minds is proud to present The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar, a new limited-edition 12” 45 RPM vinyl disc of music by Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff, performed by Wolff and Wendy Eisenberg. Side A features two performances of Morton Feldman’s The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar, written for Wolff (who professes to be “not really a guitar player”) in 1966 as an experiment on the instrument. On his way to perform The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Gui…
Sveglia
In May 2022, at the age of 88, Christian Wolff performed once again at AngelicA, nine years after the monographic concerts the festival had dedicated to him in 2013 (documented on the cd album Angelica Music, IDA 030). Among the greatest and most singular living composers (in 1950, at a very young age, he was already a member of the legendary New York School along with Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and John Cage), for the opening of the thirty-second edition of the festival he presented a world-ex…
A Complete Anthology Of Solo And Duo Violin Pieces
Black Truffle is pleased to announce its second release from New York violin duo String Noise (Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris), following on from their self-titled double-disc collection of compositions by Alvin Lucier (BT061). Here they present A Complete Anthology of Solo and Duo Violin Pieces by legendary American experimental composer Christian Wolff. The youngest and in some ways most radical of the composers of the New York School (alongside Earle Brown, John Cage, and Morton Feldman…
Trio IX / Exercises
The American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934) is the last living representative of the New York School (Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc.). Wolff was not even an adult when he studied with Grete Sultan and John Cage. Wolff’s music was much more politically motivated than that of Feldman and Cage, which is evident on this new Wergo album by Trio Accanto. The album features first recordings made in close collaboration with Wolff in the studios of Deutschlandfunk Cologne/Germany. Wolff's great “Trio IX …
I Like To Think Of Harriet Tubman
*2022 stock* 'A true Leninist would argue that art in a smoothly running socialist state would become redundant and disappear, though while waiting for such a perfect society to come about, we have an idea of what socialist literature, painting, sculpture and cinema are like. But what does socialist music sound like? Luigi Nono? Eisler? Robert Wyatt? The Ex? Well, all four. and you may add Christian Wolff to the list. Like fellow experimental composers Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, Wolf…
3 String Quartets
Starting with his music of the 1960s and early 1970s, with works such as For 1, 2 or 3 People (1964), the Prose Collection (1968–71), and Changing the System (1974), Christian Wolff (b. 1934) quietly re-invented chamber music. He created music in which the activities of the performers— timing, cueing, assembling and selecting materials—were foregrounded. Although to some extent these activities were always a part of classical music, Wolff opened them up for creative decision-making by the musici…
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks
With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.Werdo's unique “Studio Reihe” series continues with Christian Wolff: The works by Wolff recorded on this CD by the legendary pianists David Tudor and Frederic Rzewski and their …
Look She Said (Complete Works For Bass)
** 2021 Stock ** “The double-bass – the paradox of its large size and basically quiet sound, and its low registral grounding – has long attracted me. I’ve also been fortunate in knowing outstanding double-bass players.” – Christian Wolff This disc collects all of Wolff’s large body of works for the bass, including a piece for solo electric bass guitar. Two of the works were written specifically for Robert Black, who prepared these pieces with Wolff. The composer attended all of the recordings se…
Cues: Writings & Conversations
544 page English/German Edition. In 2002 Christian Wolff was a guest composer at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and during the course of the festival he was interviewed by Christopher Fox and by James Gardner. Fox's interview took place before an audience in the Lawrence Batley Theatre on 25 November; Gardner's interview was recorded in private in the George Hotel, Huddersfield on 27 November, and edited excerpts from that recording were subsequently used in a programme produced by…
Desert Plants
**Essential reading!** Walter Zimmermann interviews Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, John Cage, Philip Corner, Jim Burton, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, David Rosenboom, Richard Teitelbaum, Larry Austin, James Tenney, J. B. Floyd (about Conlon Nancarrow), La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Charles Morrow, Garrett List, John Mc Guire and Ben Johnston (about Harry Partch).
20 Years Of Experimental Music
**Edition of 300 copies** Nantes trio Formanex celebrates 20 years of activism in experimental music with a 10 CD edition full of amazing collaborations with ONsemble (contemporary music group from Nantes and Saint-Nazaire) and composers they have worked with. The box set includes early works by Formanex’s own Julien Ottavi, unique compositions created by Keith Rowe, pieces by Kasper T. Toeplitz, Ralf Wehowsky, Seth Cluett, Michael Pisaro, Radu Malfatti, as well as other giants of contemporary m…
Preludes, Variations, Studies and Incidental Music
These two discs reveal Christian Wolff as a composer fully exploring, in different ways, the continuum between music which is highly fragmented, embracing extended silences [composed or indeterminate], to that which is more progressive and seemingly driven, albeit taking in disarming and unconventional routes. As a body of repertoire, these works are remarkable for their freshness of musical thought and energy (John Cage considered Wolff to be the most 'musical' of the experimental composers).Ch…
Two Orchestra Pieces
This recording is the first ever devoted to the orchestral music of Christian Wolff (b. 1934) and thus documents a little-known aspect of his wide-ranging work. John, David (1998) introduces in its second part a prominent role for solo percussionist, playing a wide range of pitched and non-pitched instruments, including marimba, glockenspiel, a variety of drums, wood and metal instruments and other sources, the exact choice left to the performer. Rhapsody (2009), in contrast, uses instruments of…
Where Are We Going, Today
Christian Wolff, piano, objects, charango, flute. Antoine Beuger, voice, whistles, EWR recordings (1995) of Christian Wolff’s “Stones”.Antoine Beuger started composing music in 1990 and has released on his own label, Edition Wandelweiser Records, as well as Erstwhile Records. Beuger’s work is best exemplified by two releases, his first, Calme Étendue (Spinoza) and A Young Person’s Guide to Antoine Beuger. Calme Étendue (Spinoza) is an album that attempts to take the 17th century philosopher Spin…
Tilbury Pieces
At 65-years old in 1999, Christian Wolff is enjoying a renewed interest in his work, with many performances of his music worldwide. The works on this disc, volume 3 of Mode's Christian Wolff Edition, belong to his minimalist, and open-form, styles. The Tilbury pieces (1969-70) are named for the pianist John Tilbury, whom Wolff had recently met at that time. Snowdrop (1970), from the same period, was named for the snowdrops among the earliest Spring flowers found in the Vermont countryside w…
Uncertain Outcomes
Two concerts of experimental improvisation from Eddie Prevost and Christian Wolff, two giants of conceptual improvisation and composition, recorded at Ikletick in London in 2015 and at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire in 2016; with superb pacing and brilliant execution, these dialogs between keyboard and percussive instruments explore unique sound worlds with depth, inquisitiveness, and a sense of wonder.
Berlin Exercises
Christian Wolff on Berlin Exercises: "'Exercise' indicates relatively shorter pieces in which the process of work, of practicing and of trying things out within specified limits, in short a kind of discipline in process, are being attempted. I regard them as both exercises in composing and for performers, especially as the performers function as members of an ensemble." Your first encounter with the music of Christian Wolff leaves you with the impression you’ve just heard (or played, or re…