★Edition Wandelweiser

2007 release ** ein liederbuch13 songs – to be played in free order, all or in small groups, or just a single song.the tromba marina sings – and dances.it sings – and moves in varying tempi:andante sostenuto, allegro ma non troppo, adagio, allegretto moto, comodo, adagissimo,allegretto quasi andantino, molto moderato, largo… dreisätzig the tromba marina can be so many things.a kettledrum, a bass drum, percussion: timpano;a small trumpet, a piccolo trumpet - with melody and accompaniment: clarino…

2006 release ** "'ein(e) ausführende(r) seiten 218 - 226' is Manfred Werder's composition from 2002, realized by Antoine Beuger's electronic sound and released by Edition Wandelweiser in 2006. The 72-minute piece consists of a very quiet single electronic sound from Beuger, and short silences alternately appearing between electronic sounds. Beuger's minimal electronic sound, which evokes in me a chirr of a small cricket on a quiet autumn night, contains an absolute purity that seems to reject an…

2006 release ** this cd is not conceived just to be listened to.supplemented with a simple "score", it may induce a "performance at home".you are invited to experience with your ears, eyes, body and mind, the space of your everyday life, your home, "colored" a little bit differently, alone or in the presence of one or more close persons.the cd consists of a one hour sequence of sounds, three times interrupted by substantial silences. the "score" contains 7 suggestions for simple activities.adjus…

2006 release ** I like that which is the extremely refined sound of a note made by an instrument. I find the sound of a note to be a very extraordinary, elusive and indefinable experience. I like the sound of one note next to another, or at the same time as another. The decisions to be made, from all the myriad array of sounds of notes, from all the potential possibilites of how to present and experience these sounds, is what draws me into the process which results in the making of a piece. I wr…

Field recordings, electronic sound. Field recordings made in greater Los Angeles from December, 2004 to August, 2006. Each recording is an unedited ten-minute take from a single location. Sine tones and mixing completed in Michael Pisaro's home studio in Santa Clarita, California. Each ten-minute piece is followed by two minutes of silence. Recordings were mastered with home stereo playback in mind. In general, it is best to set the volume control on your system to a normal level (that is,…

This compact disc contains recordings of pieces from the 2005 project On Foot, onwhich Craig Shepard walked 250 miles in 31 days across Switzerland. Every day, he composed a new piece, wrote it down, and performed it outdoors in a public space such as a bridge, public square, intersection, or mountain-top. The pieces are intended to frame the everyday sounds of the place in which they are heard. The performances on this CD were recorded in the work spaces of the performers.Careful listening will…

2005 release ** “select a sound of one or three tones within the range of an octavedistribute the pitches between the keyboards (use each pitch only once)select 3 – 31 stops from principals, flutes and reeds and distribute them evenly between the keyboards (do not use mixtures)play the pitches and hold the keys down (e.g. with lead weights)push the stop very slowly until you hear a change – then stop the movement, listen for a while and pull  another register in the same way  for a long time, on…

2005 release ** music that allows sounds to sound:to die away, completely, into silence sounds thought from their end:not moving forward, but drawing back. this creates space, expanse, a delicate serenity:silence - and what it shelters - becomes audible. this is singing with the ears:barely more than silence. a singing which not only makes,but becomes space: a space for worlds. phrases are also sounds:unfolded, laid out as a path. sound paths that come into being first when followed,invariably t…

2005 release ** this piece uses 17 tones in whole-numbered proportions to a virtual fundamental of G'' (25Hz).the piece is a kind of analysis of the overtone region from the fifth to seventh partials and the corresponding regions one and two octaves above (10th to 14th, 20th to 28th partials).the tones are played and recorded during the first three parts and played back as samples at specific times.as many as 28 tones may sound simultaneously.the flute sounds are amplified, which allows us to he…

“The room I entered was a dream of this room.”   “It wasn't the hole in the landscape that gladdened us, it was the invitation to the weather to drop in anytime.”   John Ashbery (both quotations from: Your Name Here 2000)       “...all the hard dry studied Rules that ever was prescribed, will not enable any Person to form an Air any more than the bare Knowledge of the four and twenty Letters, and strict Grammatical Rules will qualify a Scholar for composing a Piece of Poetry, or properly adjust…

2005 release ** The works on this CD represent three different series of compositions, which I have been working on simultaneously in the last few years. Structurally, their individual parts resemble each other: all instruments play (rather) long sounds, each one followed by a pause.55 similar events plus two drummers drumming (1999) consists of two layers of events. On the one hand, seven instruments are organized ‘isophonically’ and with regular durations. Their sounds, each comprising the sam…

Material can be anonymous. Consider, for example, the middle voices in medieval hymn books: unadorned, not artful, a simple handiwork, a leisurely alternation of single notes. It might be a scale, or, beyond music, the stones of a wall, not artfully stacked, but simply and properly, the formal idea being nothing other than that of a wall.   When I was working on the String Quartet (1988), I encountered the painting of Agnes Martin. I saw clear-cut forms, not overgrown with rhetoric and figuratio…

2004 release ** Few composers have the self-control seen here to allow the silence that surrounds all we do to be so present, to bring to the forefront that which is covered by all of our daily activities, only present when we let ourselves realize the stillness at the base of all action, all sound. The regular presence of notes in calme étendue (oboe) provides for the listener a feeling similar to that of a light on top of a lighthouse as it regularly turns in the night – a feeling of grounding…

2004 release ** dazwischen for organ (2000)a very low tonea very high airy soundonce in a while a tone in between, a noise in betweenorgan sounds, organ noisesroom noise, ambient noise...once in a while a sound in between:between music and non-musicimmer anders for organ (2002)the organ: a wind instrumentair flow – throughout the roomsometimes almost imperceptibly softmore noise than sound, almost just the air flowingdifferent coloured air streamsdifferent coloured silences between

2004 release ** "Another joint production by Edition Wandelweiser and Radio Bremen testifies to the originality of the Japanese composer Makiko Nishikaze. Her idiosyncratic diptych pianopera l & II (2002), with its unpredictably alternating sound structures, follows no discernible logic, yet its musical structure never seems arbitrary, so that the music, despite the great aesthetic distance, certainly seems related to Luigi Archetti's CD discussed at the beginning. It is the varied penetration i…

“sounds brushed into existence as in oriental calligraphy" (Cage)   the sounds in one9 are single tones and chords, up to six part harmonies.   how do sounds come into existence, how do they gain focus, how do they resolve, how do they merge into one another, how can one quietly and attentively, in all modesty, follow  their unfolding?   these are the questions that guided edwin alexander buchholz in his interpretation of the piece.   over the years he played one9 time and again - for himself an…

Stefan Thut 'Aussen raum' (2008). Manfred Werder '2008(3)' (2008). A field recording near a river divided in two parts.

two . too (for erwin-josef speckmann)   two: two, who are at one with anotherzwei, die sich einig sind   too: two, who are at one with another (twice)zwei, die sich einig sind (zweimal)   text: “as the full moon rises / the swan sings / in sleep / on the lake of the mind” (kenneth rexroth)indes der vollmond steigt / singt der schwan / im schlaf / auf des geistes see

"Exercise 15" was made out of and invites transformations or transcriptions. It's for piano or ad hoc instrumental arrangement. Its material is from a 1920s song "Union Maid" (as I found it in Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer's collection "Songs of Work and Protest") by Woodie Guthrie using an earlier popular song tune.  The tempo of the music is not specified. Sometimes it's played rather fast, as the original tune probably was, sometimes at a deliberate, 'prosaic' tempo. Here it's in a slow motio…

Seven (1988), 15 similar events (2002)   Let’s assume, that art music as a field of creative cognitive activity is interrelated with the scientific paradigm and that its structure, therefore, at least partially reflects the contemporary way of looking at the world. The essential paradigmatic elements of the early 21st century would then entail all kinds of demands on music. Having lost certainties, for example, the issue of probabilities should be broached. Fields of possibilities should be desi…