Ligeti Edition
Terrific nine-CD box (digipack CD sleeves!) at a fantastic price! The heart of Ligeti's output, and the basis for the consensus that places him among the 20th Century's most important composers, is the series of masterworks written during his middle period, which lasted from roughly 1957 (after his escape from Hungary) to 1977 (marked by the completion of his opera Le Grand Macabre). The "sound surface" compositions from the period, including Atmosphères, the Requiem, Lux Aeterna and much of the…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 2
3-CD Set. Recorded between 1960 and 1973, the original eighteen LPs that comprise Earle Brown's legendary Contemporary Sound Series have been highly sought after in the secondary market since 1978 when they were discontinued. These rare and historically important recordings of international avant-garde music have been carefully digitized and remastered by the Earle Brown Music Foundation. Volume two includes music by Nono (Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica), Bruno Maderna (Serenata No. 2), Luciano Ber…
Melodies & Harmonies
Cage is by no means a synonym for obligingness. All the more astonished we listen to the melodious and harmonious objects Annelie Gahl and Klaus Lang present on this album. Lang, the trained organist and internationally renowned composer, performs these pieces on a Fender Rhodes for the first time. Gahl, known as a versatile interpreter of both Old and New Music, plays the violin exactly as requested by Cage, without vibrato and with minimum weight on the bow. The musical material dates …
cage.frey.vriezen.feldman.ayres.johnson manion
Pianist and composer Dante Boon often programs his recitals as webs. He likes to put compositions of great diversity in style and technique side by side. However, myriad connections can always be found between pairs of pieces, and these give the whole a subtle coherence. This is also how his first CD is organized, presenting pieces by seven composers spanning almost a century of music. But the most important unifying element of this disc is Dante's own musical personality and approach to the pia…
The Death of Don Juan
CD debut of this 1985 post-minimal landmark by Elodie Lauten, featuring performances by Arthur Russell and Peter Zummo. Lauten has been active in the downtown New York classical and punk scenes since moving from France in the 1970s. The Death of Don Juan is a breakthrough for its bold, lyrical minimalism in concert with a dramatic sensibility that is deeply faithful to the modern existential emotional experience. Originally self-produced and released as a small LP edition on her own label, it ha…
Atrees / Nomos Alpha
The works on these two discs were all written in the 1950s & 60s, at a time when Xenakis was at his most productive. It has to be said that, to the casual listener, this is not easy listening. However, to the more adventurous collector and to those prepared to explore new musical avenues, this set of the music of Xenakis will prove a rare and valuable opportunity. Featured works: Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima, Nomos Alpha, ST/4, Akrata.
Tre Canti Popolari + Due Componimenti Impetuosi
2CD collection which re-releases two previous Sub Rosa CDs Tre Canti Popolari (SR 051CD, 1992) and Due Componimenti Impetuosi (SR 063CD, 1995), now remastered and with a new design. This is the vocal and piano music of visionary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988). Performed by: Marianne Pousseur, Lucy Grauman, Vincent Bouchot, Paul Gerimon, Georg Alexander Van Dam, Jean-Paul Dessy, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, and Johan Bossers. Scelsi will always be known as an atypical composer. Throug…
The orchestral works 1
'Hymnos' (1963) for organ & 2 orchestras. 'Hurqualia' (1960) for large orchestra. 'Konx-Om-Pax' (1968) for large orchestra & chorus. The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic & Concert Choir. Juan Pablo Izquierdo, conductor. 'Canti del Capricorno' for voices & instruments. Pauline Vaillancourt, soprano. Douglas Ahlstedt, tenor. Volume 2 in Mode's scelsi Edition presents three of his rarely heard and recorded orchestral works, vividly captured in outstanding sound. Hymnos' large orchestra is divided antip…
Trio
The expansive length of Morton Feldman’s Trio (1 hr., 45 min., 22 sec.) requires a new approach to listening, which takes scale, the physical experience of sound, and novel uses of musical memory into consideration. With his delicate manipulation of musical materials, Feldman blurs the listener’s sense of time as their musical memory struggles to distinguish between past and present sounds - listeners are free to lose themselves in the beauty of each musical moment. Aki Takahashi and Rohan…
In Corpore Vili
Just arrived, this is the newest edition RZ release focused on a radical electronic (+ Ensemble) music by Clara Maida "During the first years of my compositional research, my goal was to mark out, in my music, the flux of the psychic energy at work in the unconscious and its underlying structure. At the time, I was going through an analytical process favouring access to this unconscious activity, and my readings in the field of psychoanalysis were helping me in the effort to elaborate a musical …
(Old school) James Tenney
The internationally acclaimed “hilarious releases” [vital weekly] of zeitkratzer records will continue with the new series [old school]. The first two CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009] and James Tenney [zkr0010] are now released together. The collaboration of zeitkratzer with William Bennett /Whitehouse [zkr0007], recorded live in 2009 in Marseille/France and Den Haag/Netherlands, will follow this summer. Later in 2010, the [old school] series will continue with two more release…
(Old school) John Cage
John Cage’s compositions have been part of zeitkratzer’s repertoire since the very first day. The pieces presented here justify zeitkratzer’s reputation as sound specialists. Avant-garde composer Cage is played in a conservative, precise and sensual way, apart from all philosophical ambitions, and hopefully as seductive as a Schubert quintet! The “Wire Magazine” acclaimed: zeitkratzer convinced us that Cage‘s music can still live with all its complexities, stripped of the debris of its ic…
Orchestral Works
“Orchestral Works” collects the best of the production of this Sicilian composer with eight pieces on 3 CDs: the box - entirely dedicated to Sciarrino - is the result of the collaboration between this musician and Rai Trade. "He searches for exeptional situations that throw the listeners back upon themselves. These can be deliberately designed to lead right to the edge of madness, but also to relaxed medidation. Just as silence counteracts the noise of everyday life, slowness is also a count…
12 Madrigali
Salvatore Sciarrino, in league with the Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, embarks on the investigation of a new ecology of sound, through a form of polyphony reduced to chamber-music scale. The lyrics selected by the Italian composer are based on six haikus by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashô (1644–1694). A comprehensive explanatory text on the production is contributed by Max Nyffeler. The world premiere of the work was recorded at the 2008 Salzburg Festival and is now made available on CD for the fi…
Music For Keyboard Instruments
This is the first recording of Xenakis‘ music for keyboard instruments realised by computer – unplayable by human hands! Realized by computer. 'Herma' for piano (1961); 'Mists' for piano (1981); 'Khoaï' for harpsichord (1976); 'Evryali' for piano (1973); 'Naama' for harpsichord (1984). Daniel Grossmann, MIDI programming. "This is the first recording of Xenakis' music for keyboard instruments realized by computer -- unplayable by human hands! The desire to hear a composition exactly as Xenak…
Kraanerg
Apart from a large orchestra, Kraanerg, composed in 1968/69, requires audio feeds of recorded parts played by the orchestra and of the results of the manipulation of electro-acoustical phenomena. “I do not work with basic building blocks. I start afresh every time,“ Xenakis once said. This statement may help explain the extremely independent sonic universe created afresh in his compositions again and again. In the same vein, he rejects any attempt to foist semantic patterns onto the music of Kra…
Orchestral works and chamber music
ESSENTIAL RELEASE: The impulsive and electrifying Ata (1987) was referred to as "a kind of shifting of the senses" by the composer. The task of sketching N’Shima (1975) was actually assigned to a computer, whereas Metastaseis (1953-54) is devoted to architecture; the composition was derived from the bases of calculation used for the pavilion for the Brussels World's Fair of 1958 and is famous in particular for its glissandos and thickening clusters. Ioolkos, written for Donaueschingen in 1996, a…
Musica Viva 06
"Musica Viva 06" is another excellent release from the German Col Legno label, which specializes in the avant-garde. This disc includes three live performances -- the original 1981 recording of "Ais," featuring the incredible baritone voice of Spyros Sakkas, a new recording of "Troorkh," a trombone concerto, from 2000, and (drumroll please...) the world premiere of "Anastenaria," also from 2000, with the inimitable Xenakis champion Charles Bornstein conducting. As it turns out, "Metastas…
Psappha; Rebonds A & B; Okho pour trois djembés
This amazing CD contains some of the great works for solo percussion by the authorities in the field of contemporary music. The performances and recording quality are both superb! Clearly all care and effort went into the recording and text however, the dual layered dvd /cd is in PAL format, and will require said player or a media transfer to see the studio footage and interview with Xenikas. Considering we spend much time searching for the "right music" to add to our collection, this disc…
Les Espaces Acoustiques
Gérard Grisey’s Les espaces acoustiques is a groundbreaking work which defies assumptions about what music “ought” to be. Not for nothing did the composer describe it as “a great laboratory”, exploring the way we listen.The “Acoustic Spaces” cycle, begun in 1974 and completed in 1985, consists of six instrumental works that may be played consecutively, since each acoustic space extends the previous one. The unity of the whole is based on the formal similarity of the pieces and on the two acousti…