★Wergo

*2022 stock* Kurt Schwitters’ “Sonate in Urlauten” [Sonata in Primal Sounds] is the prototypical work at the border between speech and music. The concise title of the work alone forges a suggestive link between language material and the musical form of the sonata; the "Ursonate" almost proverbially stands for sound poetry. For Schwitters, who was actively involved in promoting his sound-poetical opus magnum, even as his own interpreter, it was difficult to imagine that his work could survive wit…

Ten works for trumpet by Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, Georg Friedrich Haas, Carl Ruggles, Agata Zubel, Martin Smolka and others, mostly first recordings, played by Marco Blaauw on trumpet, double-bell trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, with brass ensemble.

Portrait of Portuguese composer Luís Antunes Pena: works for double bass and drummers, organ, cello, thirty cymbals and electronics (2000-2012), with Edicson Ruiz, Drumming Grupo de Percussão, Dominik Susteck and Francesco Dillon. Released 2013.

Renato de Grandis's 48 Preludi per pianoforte (1998-2002), four books of twelve preludes, recorded complete by pianist Antonio Tarallo between February and June 2013.

Piano music by George Antheil, mostly written in Berlin in 1922-23, including the Airplane, Death of Machines and Jazz sonatas, many in first recordings, played by Guy Livingston with Philippe Keler and Stéphane Leach.

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Amour (1974/76), Der kleine Harlekin (1975) and Wochenkreis from Montag aus Licht (1986/88), played by clarinettist and basset horn player Michele Marelli with Antonio Pérez Abellán on synthesizer, recorded in March 2013.

John Cage's Solo for Piano, the piano part of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957/58), in a 70-minute realisation by Sabine Liebner, co-produced with Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Six string quartets by Toshio Hosokawa from 1980 to 2009, including Blossoming, Silent Flowers and the first recording of Kalligraphie, played by the Arditti Quartet, recorded in Baden-Baden in February 2012 with Südwestrundfunk.

Rolf Riehm's Hamamuth - Stadt der Engel for piano (2005) and Wer sind diese Kinder for piano, orchestra in three groups and electronics (2009), with Nicolas Hodges and the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg under Beat Furrer.

First complete recording of Hans Zender's Logos-Fragmente (Canto IX) for 32 voices and four orchestral groups, on early Christian and Gnostic texts, with the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg under Emilio Pomàrico.

Four CDs of the pianist Grete Sultan, recorded in New York 1969-2000: Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Schubert, Schumann, and twentieth-century works by Schoenberg, Copland, Weber, Wolpe, Hovhaness, Cage and Ichiyanagi.

Liza Lim's song cycle Tongue of the Invisible (2010-11) after Hafiz, for improvising pianist, baritone and 16 musicians, recorded live in Cologne by Uri Caine, Omar Ebrahim and Ensemble Musikfabrik under André de Ridder.

György Ligeti's organ works Volumina, Harmonies and Coulée, with Musica ricercata arranged for organ, plus Dominik Susteck's improvisations Sprachsignale, played by Susteck on the organ of the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, Cologne.

Four works by Sofia Gubaidulina for double bass: Sonata and Pantomime with piano, In Croce with bayan and the Preludes for solo bass, played by Daniele Roccato with Fabrizio Ottaviucci (piano) and Massimiliano Pitocco (bayan).

Soprano Claudia Böttcher and pianist Jovita Zähl perform Stockhausen's Tierkreis (soprano and piano version) and Klavierstück IX and Berio's Sequenza III and Quattro Canzoni popolari, recorded in Cologne in 2011-2012.

Frederic Rzewski’s work “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” is based on the Chilean protest song, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!,” written by Sergio Ortega a few months before Pinochet’s military coup in September of 1973.Frederic Rzewski came to Europe as a young man, lived in Cologne and Rome, and created a sensation as an avant-garde pianist with his premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Klavierstück X”. He worked with the leading composers of the time and was himself a composer.…

Wolfgang Rihm's 11th String Quartet (1998/2010), Interscriptum for string quartet and piano and Grave in memoriam Thomas Kakuska, played by the Minguet Quartett with pianist Markus Bellheim, a co-production with Deutschlandradio.

*2024 stock* “Don’t ask me what I mean, ask me what I’ve made.” - Alvin Lucier The American Alvin Lucier is one of the most significant composers of New Music in the twentieth century. Being one of the first representatives of live electronic music, he explored in his works the nature and the effect of sound phenomena such as resonances, echoes and interferences, with the boundaries between installation, performance, composition and science becoming blurred. In the present documentary film by Vi…

'I believe Jacob's Room is one of the most extraordinary examples of extended vocal techniques that I have ever heard. Touch is the child of the original Buchla electronic music triumvirate that included Silver Apples and Wild Bull. Its exploration of the sound and texture possibilities of electronic music is a variation on the two previous compositions. Jacob's Room is a vehicle for Subotnick's wife, Joan LaBarbara to demonstrate why she is universally considered the master of extended vocal te…

All eighteen of György Ligeti's Études pour piano in three books (from 1985), played by Thomas Hell in a recording by Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Late and previously unknown works for player piano by Conlon Nancarrow, including Study No. 48 for two superimposed rolls and For Ligeti, recorded on the composer's own instruments; a co-production of WDR and the Paul Sacher Stiftung.

Six chamber works (2005-2008) by Benjamin Schweitzer, including Abgesang from the chamber opera Dafne and Anfänge/Netze after Calvino, played by the Dresden ensemble courage under Titus Engel, recorded in Berlin in December 2011.

Piano music by Morton Feldman from 1950 to 1977, from the Intermissions and Nature Pieces to Last Pieces and Piano, played by Sabine Liebner on two CDs, a coproduction with Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Trombonist and tubist Mike Svoboda plays Scelsi's Mantram, Cage's Solo for Sliding Trombone in a version for eight trombones, Stockhausen's Signale zur Invasion and Nono's Post-prae-ludium per Donau with Holger Stenschke on live electronics.

The sixth and final volume in Wergo's acclaimed series of recordings, Earle Brown - A Life in Music completes the label's reissue of the eighteen LPs of Earle Brown's legendary Contemporary Sound Series, recorded between 1960 and 1973. The first disc in the set contains works by John Cage and Christian Wolff from the early 1960s. Disc two presents violinist Paul Zukofsky accompanied by pianist Gilbert Kalish in works by Crumb, Yun, Wuorinen and Cage. The final disc contains works by South Americ…

With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.Werdo's  unique “Studio Reihe” series continues with Christian Wolff:  The works by Wolff recorded on this CD by the legendary pianists David Tudor and Frederic Rzewski and their …

With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.The "Studio Reihe”now continues with a work by Arnold Schönberg:  The premiere of Schoenberg's first stage work "Erwartung (Monodram)" [Expectation (Monodrama)] Op. 17, composed i…

2022 Stock * With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time. The "Studio Reihe” starts with a CD with works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. His complex “pluralistic” style fuses past, present and future into a musical unit of the h…

In 2012, the Wergo label celebrates its 50th anniversary. For half a century, Wergo has been synonymous with contemporary music. The label's catalog reads like a virtual who's-who of modern music, both in terms of composers and performers. From the beginning, the intent of founder Werner Goldschmidt (from whom the label derives its name) was to provide listeners with a snapshot of current musical activity and innovation. Goldschmidt's label and mission, now managed by the publisher Schott, is ma…

In 1981/1982 the French composer Luc Ferrari produced the radio play “Jetzt – oder wahrscheinlich ist dies mein Alltag, in der Verwirrung der Orte und der Augenblicke” [“NOW – or Probably This Is My Everyday Life in the Confusion of Places and Moments”] with the Hessischer Rundfunk. Like other earlier radio plays of Ferrari, “JETZT” as “radio play on the radio play” is a special case between music, radiophonic art and narrative radio play. The dialogues between Luc Ferrari and his wife Brunhi…

Three works by Pēteris Vasks for violin and string orchestra (Vox Amoris, Tālā gaisma, Vientuļais eņģelis), played by Alina Pogostkina with Sinfonietta Rīga under Juha Kangas, recorded in Riga in June 2011.

The voice as instrument, the temple bell as orchestra, the piano as detonator. Vol. 3 of Earle Brown's Contemporary Sound Series traces three radical propositions about sound and its sources - each originating from a different continent, each redefining what was possible within its medium. The first disc belongs to Cathy Berberian. Originally issued on Time Records in 1962, it captures the American mezzo-soprano - then based in Milan and married to Luciano Berio - at the height of her extraordin…

Four collaborative works (1997-2011) by Australian sound artist Ros Bandt and German composer Johannes S. Sistermanns, including radio pieces for ABC and a simultaneous Melbourne-Frankfurt performance. Released 2012.

2025 stock Under the title of “studio reihe neuer musik”, WERGO released outstanding recordings in the 1960s, thus creating a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the label's early days. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, WERGO now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.“studio reihe” now continues with works by Karlheinz Stockhausen:On this CD, “Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger” [“Cycle for One Percussionist”] can…

2025 stock. A portrait of the early work of Peter Ruzicka, the German composer and conductor who later directed the Salzburg Festival and the Munich Biennale. The five pieces collected here range from a large orchestra to string quartet, percussion and tape, and share a music built on tension, fracture and sudden release. Metastrofe, subtitled "attempt at an outbreak" for 87 instrumentalists, is performed by the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Michael Gielen. ...fragment... is a set of fi…

2025 stock With “studio reihe neuer musik”, WERGO created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, WERGO now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time. “studio reihe” now continues with a work by Igor Stravinsky: Stravinsky's last ballet composition “Agon. Ballet for Twelve Dancers” was written over a period of three years (1954–1957). During…

2012 release ** "Michael Hirsch began to work as a composer in 1976, with occasional interruptions for theatre engagements. In addition to instrumental music and music theatre, the genre of musique concrète is an important part of his compositional oeuvre as is illustrated impressively by the works recorded on this CD. “La Didone abbandonata” is based on the opera seria text of the same name by Pietro Metastasio from 1724. For his version Hirsch reduced the number of the dramatis personae to the…

* 2022 Stock * With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time."Studio Reihe” now continues withnow continues with works by Herbert Eimert:  In view of recent events, especially in Japan, Herbert Eimert's piece “Epitaph für Aik…

With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.In "Und so weiter pour piano électrique et bande magnétique", the piano and tape sounds become interwoven in a complex dialogue. "Music Promenade. Mixage originale“ – created in t…

Works by Conlon Nancarrow for orchestra, ensemble and pianos, including Player Piano Studies in live transcriptions, plus Paul Usher's Nancarrow Concerto for pianola, with Ensemble Modern, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Rex Lawson, WDR production 2004-2005.