Esplorazione del Bianco
Sciarrino's work is avant-garde, and he is known for his use of isolated sonorities, extended playing techniques, frequent silences, and ironic or confrontational quotation of previous music (for instance, American pop music) or stories (such as in L…
Chants de la Mi-mort
Alberto Savinio was a very particular figure of poet, writer, musician, painter of primarily surreal subjects. His dramatic poem, "Les Chants de la Mi-Mort", played in Paris in 1914, seems to prefigure the mannequins that appear in so many of De Chir…
Concrete
Concrete follows from Robert Ashley's preoccupation in two previous operas with the kind of speech that has not been explored in opera -- in Dust (LCD 1006CD), the speech of the homeless; in Celestial Excursions (LCD 1007CD), the speech of people liv…
Da Cantare - Vocal Works 1951-1983
LAST FEW COPIES, long sold out: this important double CD box edition is the ultimate collection of the vocal compositions by one of the leading figures of Italian contemporary and aleatory music. The first piece -- 'Rot' -- is the complete version of…
L'oeuvre pour piano
A beautiful boxed edition with an outstanding version of Satie's piano music performed by Ciccolini, who is totally inside this music and makes the most of its contrasts of mood and atmosphere. Ciccolini's playing is pliant and graceful, and under hi…
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
The People United Will Never Be Defeated! by the left-wing composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski is a landmark in American piano literature. The work comprises 36 variations on a protest song of the same name by the Chilean composer Sergio Ortega. Al…
The Desert Music
The Desert Music is a work of music for voices and orchestra composed by Steve Reich based on texts by William Carlos Williams. It consists of five movements, and in both its tempi and arrangement of thematic material, the piece is in a characteristi…
Fratres / Festina Lente / Summa
Some of the simplest and most spiritually affecting music you'll ever come across. "‘Philosophy’? He has none,” Nora Part once told a Spike Magazine interviewer. “He learns everything from the old Church Fathers.” Arvo Part's wife just might be right…
Berliner Messe
With a number of modern classics already to his name, notably the Symphony No. 3 [Naxos 8.554591], Tabula Rasa [8.554591], Fratres and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten [8.553750], culminating in 1982 with his largest work thus far, the St John Pas…
A Portrait
Arvo Pärt: A Portrait. His Works, his Life. It contains 2 CDs with over 2½ hours of music, richly illustrated with rarely seen photographs, and a detailed essay by Nick Kimberley. The music of Arvo Pärt draws on traditions stretching back across the …
Ballet mecanique
Ballet Mécanique (1924) was a project by the American composer George Antheil and the filmaker/artist Fernand Léger. Although the film was intended to use Antheil's score as a soundtrack, the two parts were not brought together until the 1990s. As a …
Guitar music Vol.1
Often described as one of Europe's foremost living composers, Hans Werner Henze could perhaps more accurately be described as Europe's greatest living composer. Born in 1926, Henze's career spans sixty years, his style encompasses everything from neo…
Concerto pour violon
On the present recording, the opening Prelude - with its magnificently sustained arc of tension and not-quite release - is followed by the dance from Act Two, Scene 3 which, in more obviously rhythmic fashion, celebrates the inauguration of the city …
Forms 1-4
Four works by James Tenney, each paired with music by an American composer to whom the Tenney composition is dedicated. The four 'Forms' compositions share with their senior partners -- Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Stefan Wolpe, and Morton Feldman -- a …
String quartet (1979)
Morton Feldman’s String Quartet (1979) follows over a decade of compositional activity where the composer was constantly occupied with a new piece for orchestra. In the eleven years before the Quartet he produced fifteen orchestral works, beginning w…
Music For Keyboard 1935-1948 / The Early Years
This double-CD set combines two of the key titles of Columbia Records's
legendary "Music of Our Time" series curated by David Behrman. Jeanne
Kirstein's recording of Cage's early keyboard works remains a touchstone
of Cagean interpretation notwith…
Earle Brown: Selected Works 1952- 1965
This long-awaited reissue of the CRI recording of Earle Brown’s (1926–2002) music is the best overview of his seminal early works. “It is obviously a great pleasure for me that Cri is re-releasing its 1974 recording of my work, and an even greater pl…
George Antheil: Piano Concerto No. 2
The Piano Concerto No. 2 is an experiment in classical form. The work contains the same sudden juxtapositions and abrupt contrasts of mood as his futurist music. But the excesses of his recent Ballet mécanique are compensated for by an almost spare, …
Chamber And Gamelan Works
Lou Harrison believed fervently in music’s power to create cultural bridges. To this end he applied his prodigious skills and creative energies to creating syncretic works that link diverse musical languages. Faulted at times for his eclecticism, Har…