Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff’s works for violin and piano were written for specific performers, with their sound and musical character in mind during the composition of the works.

This disc collects all of Wolff’s works for violin and piano for the first time. The composer attended the recording sessions.

Duo for Violinist and Pianist (written for Kenji Kobayashi and David Tudor) is made of structural parts which are flexible, repeatable and whose sequences are determined by cues, a particular sound or length of silence, which, as the player reaches the end of structural part determines what should be played next. There is no fixed score relating the two instruments, so each performance will be different. Two contrasting performances are presented here, each recorded in one take.

Pebbles was written for Sabat/Clarke. This long work has 24 sections which can be thought of as a collection of poems in a cycle. Some of the material is drawn from folk songs and built around explicit, melodic lines.

These audiophile recordings were made in high resolution 24-bit sound.

The Canadian duo Sabat/Clarke are both active composers and performers of contemporary music. They have been playing together since 1996. Their recording of Feldman’s Complete Works for Violin & Piano (mode 82/83) received unanimous, enthusiastic acclaim.

Liner notes are by Christian Wolff. Composer supervised recordings.

Pebbles (1999) 35:51, written for Sabat/Clarke, first recording
Duo for Violinist and Pianist (1961), two live, unedited performances (17:19 and 5:55)

Marc Sabat, violin
Stephen Clarke, piano