Symphony No. 2
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Symphony No. 2 by Artur Schnabel. Performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Paul Zukofsky, conductor. Recorded July 18-20, 1988, at All Saints Church, in Tooting, London, England.
Chorals / Cheap Imitation / Freeman Etudes I-VIII
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents John Cage: Chorals / Cheap Imitation / Freeman Etudes I-VIII performed by Paul Zukofsky, violin. The original recording of the Freeman Etudes was supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. The generous support of Betty Freeman is gratefully acknowledged. Recording Engineer (Chorals and Cheap Imitation): Paul Goodman. Recording Engineer (Freeman Etudes): Robert C. Ludwig. Editor: Joanna Nickrenz (Elite Recordings, Inc.…
Spring of Chosroes / Sonata for Violin and Piano
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Morton Feldman: Spring of Chosroes and Artur Schnabel: Sonata for Violin and Piano by Paul Zukofsky, violin; Ursula Oppens, piano. Recorded at the Library of Congress, May 11-12, 1979. Spring of Chosroes is published by Universal Edition, Ltd., and was commissioned by the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress which also assisted with this recording. The Schnabel Sonata for Violin and Piano is published by Boosey and Hawkes, Inc. Recording Engineers: John …
For John Cage
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Morton Feldman: For John Cage by Paul Zukofsky, violin; Marianne Schroeder, piano. This recording was supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.The generous support of Betty Freeman and Paul Sacher is gratefully acknowledged. For John Cage was recorded April 7, 1984 at Sonographic AG, Schlieren, Switzerland. Recording Engineer: W.A. Wettler; Montage: Elite Recordings, NYC; Publisher: Universal Edition, Ltd., London.
Wind and Light
Greek composer Anastassis Philippakopoulos has been a member of the Wandelweiser composers collective since 2003. He pursues his own compositional style to create a new kind of tonal music, deeply associated with his individuality and the surroundings of his life in Athens, a unique blend of stoic minimalism, the warm colors of modern romanticism, and the introspective depth of Zen.
"For many years I have concentrated my attention on modal monophonic melodies. In my pieces I want to bring a bala…
Night Blossoms
'Night Blossoms' is French composer/pianist Melaine Dalibert’s sixth solo album, consisting of new compositions from 2019-2021. Of the six pieces on this album, 'A Rebours', 'Windmill', 'Eolian Scape', and 'Sisters' were written around the same time as most of the pieces for his 2020 album 'Infinite Ascent'. While 'Infinite Ascent' featured his intuitive compositions in a pop style, 'Night Blossoms' features works further developed with his algorithmic approach, which has been his long-term purs…
Moult
At first I found it impossible to organise my thoughts about this disc. I listened in bed to Moult through headphones; it seemed an entirely different beast through speakers. The two pieces in the middle are quieter, and more consistent in their impacts with headphones or not. Listening to them for the fourth or fifth time under the duvet one really begins to perceive the extraordinary subtlety of Clara Iannotta’s schemes. They provide the kind of measured sensory stimulation which is exquisite …
Yeo-Neun
** Small repress, absolutely astounding! ** Anyone encountering the efforts of the cellist, Okkyung Lee, faces an unavoidable truth. She’s an unreckonable force. Few players in the contemporary landscape relinquish themselves so completely to the practice of free improvisation, adapt with such ease without sacrificing the distinctions of self, or exist in the moment so completely, not to mention her awe inspiring technical skill. Her latest LP, Yeo-Neun, issued by Shelter Press, stands as tower…
De-formation: Piano Variations
De-formation: Piano Variations, a work for solo piano. Composed and performed by Diamanda Galas in September 2019, the 21:19 minute piece is based on the expressionist poem Das Fieberspital (The Fever Hospital). Written by German poet Georg Heym in 1912, Das Fieberspital's depiction of warehoused patients of yellow fever presaged the treatment and hiding of infected and damaged soldiers later in WWI. De-formation depicts a march and delivery of maimed and infected soldiers to hospitals and indus…
Works for Flute
** In process of stocking ** Salvatore Sciarrino, speaking of his own art, refers to fascinating encounters and movements in Sicilian civilisation, recollections of cultures, layered one upon the other over the centuries in the land of Empedocles. His music is molten lava and basalt, music so taut and eminently dramatic, with incipient violence, yet the volcanic eruption perceived from a distance seems muffled. The music casts light, if not on absence, at least on the creation of a remote univer…
Works for Violin and for Viola
** In process of stocking ** Giacinto Scelsi (La Spezia, 1905 – Rome, 1988) is one of the most original Italian composers of the twentieth century. Musician and poet of aristocratic descent, Scelsi spent his childhood in his family’s castle, in Valva, where he received “un’educazione medievale” in which he recalls “scherma, scacchi, latino”, 1 and developed an early attraction towards improvisation on the piano. “De l’age de trois ans et demi, j’ai commencé à improvisers au piano. [...] je ne s…
Parametrical Counterpoint
** In process of stocking ** Kairos presents Parametrical Counterpoint by José Luis Hurtado. Composer José Luis Hurtado’s music has been performed across continents by ensembles and soloists such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, the Callithumpian Consort, CEPROMUSIC Ensemble, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Quatuor Molinari, Émile Girard -Charest, Lora Kmieliauskaite, Tony Arnold, Garth Knox, Claire Chase, Le Nouvel En…
Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
** In process of stocking ** “The mystery of incarnation is the most beautiful aspect of divinity – and it is the reason why I am a Christian. I do not consider the differences between Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic: a Christian is someone who understands that God has come.” This was taken from an interview with Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) where he talked about Christmas being the one festival in the Christian calendar most important to him. In his music about the incarnation of God, Messiaen…
Und Du... et al
** Und du… was composed in 1963, commissioned by the Austrian Broadcasting Co. It was supposed to be played “radiophonically,” i.e. on tape and with loudspeakers only, to reach and involve a group of listeners corresponding to the medium’s effective radius. My own involvement with the nuclear situation – the dangerousness of which against the background of Hiroshima was clear, but not nearly to the extent it is today among the broad public – prompted me to take the equally fundamental anxiety I …
Kurtág's Ghosts
** In process of stocking ** György Kurtág's and Marino Formenti's thinking about the course, state and future path of music history runs along similar lines. Formenti's 'Kurtág's Ghosts' enriches the experience from early polyphony to the present.
Perhaps György Kurtág will one day be remembered as one of the greatest composers of our time. Discovered late, the Hungarian has only been considered an essential representative of New Music since the 1980s. Only Luigi Nono, however, wrote such convi…
Confluence / Divergence
** In process of stocking ** Double meanings, allusions and strange mirrors appear throughout the music of the Finnish composer Sebastian Hilli. The titles of several of his pieces take the form of puns, such as Kohta (2013) for chamber ensemble (the Finnish word ‘kohta’ means both soon, and place, section or point); Delta (2012) for string quartet and percussion (referring to the Greek letter and the river feature); and Snap Music (2017 – 18) for orchestra, winner of the 2019 Teosto Prize (the …
Schreiben
** In process of stocking ** If music’s relationship with reality is to be more than just a theoretical presumption, it cannot be limited merely to work titles, comments, dedications or quotations, but must also extend to permeate all musical dimensions: material, structure, form and content. And from the very beginning, Helmut Lachenmann has propagated the idea of a work that is based on the integral cohesiveness of all levels. For Lachenmann, thinking here in the tradition of Theodor W. Adorno…
Kaleidoscope
** In process of stocking ** Kairos presents Kaleidoscope by Eunho Chang. Born 1983 in Daegu, Republic of Korea, Eunho Chang began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of seven. He studied composition at the Keimyung University, Fryderyk Chopin University of Music and obtained his PhD in musical composition at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music under the supervision of professor Marcin Błażewicz. He has been selected for various workshops and masterclasses, such as Impuls Acade…
Dr. Futurity
Kairos presents Dr. Futurity by Bernd Richard Deutsch. Dr. Futurity for 16 instruments is the last and most complex of three works that were written in immediate succession (the other two works are Mad Dog and the 2nd String Quartet) and— to conceptual, musical and dramaturgical similarities—could be united to form a triptych. The new piece is divided into three movements: I. ...trip – from Mars to here II. Chimaera III. Red Alert! Although the character of the score is often orchestral, several…
Orchestral works
José M. Sánchez-Verdú was no more than 35 years old when Spain, his homeland, awarded him its national prize. That is certainly the highest distinction he has received thus far, but is by no means the only one. Three years earlier the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation awarded him a composition prize and he has also received numerous other prizes in Spain, Germany, Japan and Latin America. His catalogue raisonné includes more than 120 works, he teaches composition at the Music University in Düss…