Sylvano Bussotti, Nicolaus A. Huber

Original 1st pressing on German Deutsche Grammophon Avant Garde series, that are by far the most scarce and hard to find, released in a really very small quantity and most never re-released on any format. It features an amazing work by Sylvano Bussotti and Nicolaus A.Huber: "Cinque Frammenti All'Italia" was composed in 1967/68. As opposed to the "cosmic" music, accomplished by the accumulation of musical happenings or mathematical treatment of masses, which becomes more and more common from Stockhausen to Xenakis, the music of Bussotti is only accessible virtually or example, the vocal sextet, a mixed choir and 24 mixed voices.Thus Bussotti confirms his inclination towards abstraction and his preoccupation with the written mode of expression, the possibilities of which are inexhaustible. Is that to suggest that Bussotti's work is perfect but impossible to perform? Quite the reverse is true. For all, to the very last detail is filled with the breath of life, with an intimate and pathetic pulsation, which could be compared to the music of a state of mind. This, the composer achieves by using his own highly individualistic handwriting combining a peculiarly expressive graphic style with the most precise, elaborate post-Webern notation. Encroached on from many sides, the exponent must exert himself here to the utmost, employing his virtuosity, his imagination and his sensitivity in a kind of loving dialogue with the score. Very few are equal to the task, for it requires more than mere aptitude.
"Versuch Uber Sprache"(=attempt on language) of Nicolaus A. Huber is one of the most extreme "musical"(noise would fit better) pieces ever written. In its' very first performance in Hanover, Germany as part of the "new work" series of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, singers and instrumentalist performed before an audience which, at the exceedingly long whistling noise, covered their ears or fled running from the concert hall!!! Later with the help of Josef Anton Riedl, a fifth component of musicians was added to the piece by reacting to what they hear and it was presented as a part of Riedl's "Aktionen" in the Rauthausplatz, Bonn. At the beggining of the piece, pure phonetic material is presented, second part has loud rumbling and crackling through a loudspeaker, caused by a screwdriver making contact with an amplification point, third part has the "Holderlin" text transposed so high by electronic means that speech becomes a whirring band of sound, together with the noise or breathing, fourth part has the singers read the words silently to themselves and mark the beats with percussion instruments in place of the consonants and vowels of the text. Huber studied composition with Luigi Nono and Gunther Bialas. He participated in the electronics team of Josef-Anton Riedl and studied also with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Sylvano Bussoti's "Cinque Frammenti All'Italia" lies on the other side of the record. More text sound experiments accompanied by tubular bells and a comic orchestra. Part of the work was later performed in Bordeaux by the Living Theatre. Like most of the records in the 4th avant-garde box this is a freaked-out experimental conceptual record broken music style