Quando Stanno Morendo
Works of art are often triggered by private events. Sarà dolce tacere (1960), for example, was written on the occasion of the 40th birthday of Bruno Maderna, Nono's (former) teacher and close friend; and also in 1960 Nono wrote Ha venido for his daughter's first birthday. Djamila Boupachà (1962), ¿Dónde estás, hermano? (1982) and Quando stanno morendo (1982), on the other hand, are clearly expressions attributable to the politically involved, the committed cosmopolitan Nono.
Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell\' op. 41 di Arnold Schoenb
"All my works always start out from a human incentive: an event, an experience, a text in our lives leads to my instinct and my conscience and wants me to bear witness, as a musician and as a man." This is how Nono, in 1960, described his motivation as a composer, the incentive inducing him to speak up through his music. His opus 1, the Canonic variations on the series of op. 41 by Arnold Schönberg, is based on the twelve-tone series used in Schönberg's composition; it actually takes effect in t…
Canti Del Capricorno
Original copy, the title of Scelsi's song cycle possibly refers to the fact that the sign of the Capricorn corresponds with an area of the Earth stretching from India to South America and includes, most significantly, the Amazon. The Amazon, as Scelsi noted, is a place where a pre-historic human culture survives. Scelsi's Songs (19) of the Capricorn, reduce the concept of "song" to poetically loaded vocal utterances imaginatively recalling the conditions of music and language in humankind's dist…
Natura renovatur
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-88) has featured prominently in my music writing life for a decade and a half, ever since I wrote Discovering Scelsi on my first computer for Piano Journal (Oct. 1986), one of the first UK articles about this fascinating and elusive composer.There are particular reasons why the Scelsi CD in the latest, indispensable batch from Kairos prompted a trawl of my files. Scelsi applauded my analysis of his piano music and we had a cordial correspondence, after which I met him tw…
Complete Works for Flûte and Clarinet
The Complete Works for Flute and Clarinet: In both original works and transcriptions, the Ebony Duo explores Scelsi’s use of special sound colors and his coloring of sound. Transcriptions especially prepared by the clarinetist (and pianist) Michael Raster provide the basis for some of the works on the present album. Yet Scelsi’s original intentions incurred no damage as a result of this recrafting. To the contrary! “The formidable technical demands that playing on two strings with in part opposi…
Suite N° 10 \"Ka\" / Suite N° 9 \"Ttai\"
Scelsi's works usually originated as transcribed improvisations; therefore they are never based on superficialities of form or compositional technique but always directly reveal the core of their message. Pianist Marianne Schroeder reports that Scelsi recommended daily improvisational practice as a method for discovering one's own creativity; and on his Suite No. 9 "Ttai" the composer is said to have commented: "Play it whenever you're sad. And when you're in high spirits." In Ttai, which links …
Quattro illustrazioni / Suite N° 8 \"Bot-Ba\" / Cinque incantesi
Crazy about the sound: the composer as a medium fHis bizarre way of composing earned Giacinto Scelsi not only fame and respect; he was also mockingly accused of dilettantism. Scelsi regarded himself not as a composer in the traditional sense, i.e. one to combine form, rhythm, pitch and sound in an intelligent way and note the result down on paper, but as a tool. His music was created during periods of meditative contemplation recorded by him on tape, to be noted down only afterwards. Eastern rel…
Consciously
This compilation is a sort of 1970's alternative social history in song. An eclectic mixture of previously unreleased songs, with widely differing styles, performed by a diverse grouping of musicians. This all combines into a unique experience. Musicians: Cornelius Cardew; Pete Devenport, Vicky Silva, Laurie Baker, Hugh Shrapenl, Chris Thompson, Keith Rowe, John Marcangelo, Evan Parker, Pip Pyle, Dave Smith, Hamilton DeGale, John Tilbury, Alec Hill, Huw Warren, Nick Connors, Geoff Pearce, Robert…
Steve Reich: Tehillim The Desert Music
Two Reich masterpieces, definitively recorded, featuring a crystalline, high-energy Tehillim with the ONLY RECORDING of the newly revised version of The Desert Music. A must for Reich fans. For freshness and focus, the new recording of Tehillim surpasses the 1981 recording by Mr. Reich & his own ensemble.
Hommage Au Sauvage - A Portrait
This portrait of renowned composer Henri Pousseur arrives just days after his death at the hands of bronchial pneumonia, aged 79. The documentary goes some way towards conveying Pousseur's warmth and openness as well as giving some impression of the breadth of his career and its accomplishments. The film documents Pousseur taking one last trip to Basel's Fondation Paul Sacher, to which he's donated his full archive of sound materials, research and memos. In addition to spending time during the j…
A Nonesuch Retrospective
Philip Glass is one of America's best-known living composers, with a career that spans more than four decades and includes chamber music, symphonies, operas, concerti, film scores, and music for dance. On September 30, Nonesuch Records, which has had a relationship with the composer for more than 20 years, releases Glass Box—a 10-disc retrospective of compositions from his groundbreaking career. Excerpts from Glass’s largest and best-known works, like his operas Einstein on the Beach and Satyagr…
Patterns In A Chromatic Field
Performed by: Charles Curtis (cellos), Aleck Karis (piano); recorded 2003. The definitive recording of one of Morton Feldman's most important and challenging pieces, played at the composer's marked tempos, and taking all the notated repeats. Fitting neatly onto one CD, this is Feldman at his most extreme. A dramatic display of virtuosity performed with passion and precision by two of the leading exponents of new music in the world. Out of Feldman's enormous oeuvre, Patterns in a Chromatic Field …
The Illuminated
The music of Xela is not easily described. The alias of Type Records main-man John Twells, he has over the last decade moved through a dense fog of musical styles from abstract electronics to rusty soundscapes. In recent years his output has allied itself with darker realms, taking a liberal dose of influence from Norway's darker exponents, but retaining a deep and measured experimental focus. "The Illuminated" was originally released on cassette, a format very fitting to the gloomy, waterlogged…
La Bocca, I Piedi, Il Suono
Col legno and Sciarrino have gone all out for this “world premiere recording.” The four soloists have been expertly mixed with other promenading saxophonists recorded on separate occasions, but most importantly, the package includes standard CD audio on one disc and three DVD audio formats (PCM linear 24-bit / 96 kHz, PCM linear 24-bit / 192 kHz, and AC3) on another.
Aspern Suite
The ARTS series which joins contemporary music and art offers a new outstanding achievement with the recording of Salvatore Sciarrino's Aspern Suite for soprano and instrumental ensemble illustrated by the front cover of the French painter Daniel Buren. Aspern Suite is a fascinating work or better a musical exercise over traditional texts and over the famous librettos of Lorenzo Da Ponte for Mozart's operas. Susanna Rigacci gives the voice for this difficult work, whilst the soloists of Contempo…
Nocturnes
Arguably Italy's leading contemporary composer, Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947) is represented here by seven works for piano, all of which are performed by Nicolas Hodges. The title of the disc – Nocturnes: Complete Piano Works, 1994-2001 – is perhaps a little deceptive: Sciarrino's Fifth Piano Sonata, not complete but recorded here in the guise of two of its five possible endings, opens and closes the album, and the fragmentary Polveri laterali (Lateral dust-particles), at only a minute-and-a-hal…
Orchestral Works & Chamber Music
He was truly one of the greatest. A collage portrait of Luigi Nono, from Due espressioni, premiered at Donaueschingen in 1953, to Post-Prae-Ludium (1987).
Como una ola; Epitaffio No. 1; Epitaffio No. 3
Luigi Nono began Como una ola de fuerza y luz (Like a wave of strength and light) as a piece for piano and orchestra in 1971, at the instigation of Maurizio Pollini. While the composition was in progress, Nono learned of the death of a young Chilean revolutionary and recast the work in his memory, with added parts for soprano soloist and tape. The resulting half hour work is clearly a lament, encompassing various expressions of grief, from stunned sorrow to anguish to the fiercest rage. As a kin…
Sankt-Bach-Passion
Mauricio Kagel (December 24, 1931 – September 18, 2008) was a German-Argentine composer who was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance. Many of his pieces give specific theatrical instructions to the performers, such as to adopt certain facial expressions while playing, to make their stage entrances in a particular way, to physically interact with other performers and so on. His work comparable to the Theatre of the Absurd.
Orchestral Works
Mauricio Kagel by himself: the composer, theater maker, filmmaker, virtuoso, writer of radio plays and, on the whole, all-round talent conducts his own works.