The Night Shall Break
Violinist, Hanna Hurwitz, is a musician who champions the very latest contemporary classical works – she is a member of Chicago’s cutting-edge Grossman Ensemble and Ensemble Dal Niente after all – but she is equally at home among solo and chamber works from past eras. For this album, she goes back one hundred years into neglected jewels of the repertoire from that time, bringing her fresh perspective to current ears. She writes, “I wanted to highlight my orientation toward collaboration through …
Infinity Avenue
Robert Carl is no stranger to space. Standing on the shoulders of such visionaries as Charles Ives, Carl’s early compositions ranged far and wide through musical history, the “ultramoderns,” and beyond. Recently, however, his works have forged a new direction: a personal take on the ever-expanding spiral structures of the overtone series. Infinity Avenue offers six of these monumental sound experiences, taut in their simplicity yet expansive in consciousness. A state of being “close to nature” i…
Cello Unlocked
It is often said that the cello seems like an extension of the human body; the intimate, resonant pairing melds the two into a larger instrument. It is said too that the cello ‘sings’ when played well. In this album, however, it becomes an even larger whole and enters the realm of speech and language, melody and narrative. In the hands (and vocal cords) of Bryan Hayslett, the cello-human bond takes on new dimensions. Cello Unlocked is a foray into the synthesis of language and melody, blurring t…
Outermost Melodies
Double CD of percussion works by Jürg Frey, featuring definitive recordings of works composed between 1994 and 2022. Performed by Ian Antonio, with members of Talujon percussion ensemble on one track. Comes with a pdf of the cover artwork, plus jpegs of the photos used on the cover, and an interview with Ian Antonio about the music
Nieuw Amsterdam New York
If music grows out of a sense of place, then it follows that related places might have related musics. That idea is the springboard for this album that nods at 400 years of links between two vibrant cities. When the Dutch founded Nieuw Amsterdam in the 17th century, they provided the impetus for the growth of a city that shared many values of its model. The multitude of languages, ethnicities and nationalities, as well as an atmosphere of religious tolerance, made for an astounding uniqueness of…
Where Songs Go at Night
During the Covid doldrums of 2020, the wind faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, like so many of us, experienced acute loneliness and isolation. As musicians accustomed to the musical and social connections that come from the intimate art of chamber music, they longed to channel their creative loss into something meaningful. Bandwidth – a mission as much as a group – emerged to champion chamber repertoire for wind instruments, foster connections between faculty, and provide a mode…
Ice Door
To the bemusement of the rest of us, mathematicians often describe certain equations, processes, and proofs as “elegant,” “beautiful,” or even “sensuous.” Artworks based on algorithms, conversely, might seem less predisposed to such descriptions. But what if those complex calculations actually produced perceptibly emotional qualities? Take, for example, the work of Spanish composer-mathematician Juan J.G. Escudero. His cult classic, Shapes of Inner Timespaces (Neuma 134, 2021), evoked such respo…
River of January
The journey of River of January began in early 1969, when as a freshly arrived 14-year-old from Los Angeles, standing by the ocean in Rio de Janeiro [transl., River of January], Rick Baitz heard a crescendo of rhythmic chanting, followed by a parade of women sashaying down the sidewalk, joyfully singing and swaying to the beat of their own samba. He didn’t know at the time that one day he would write a piece honoring the name of that city, but In 1991 he was commissioned by The Juilliard School …
Plucked & Struck
Plucked & Struck is a collection of works for Celtic (lever) harp and small percussion. Many feature the Orff xylophone, a miniature didactic instrument developed by the German composer Carl Orff in the 1920s as part of his early childhood music education system. This album might be the first to explore the classical compositional potential of this particular combo. The music is deeply rooted in New York City. All three performers—and most of the composers—are from “the world’s borough” of Queen…
After The Requiem
Original 1991 LP edition Stepping into the territory of Gavin Bryars is like coming home, so familiar are the morphemes with which he composes his musical language. One of the most significant recordings in the Bryars catalogue, this disc offers a fine condensation of his spirited and nostalgic sensibilities.
After the Requiem dates from 1990 and follows his Cadman Requiem of the previous year. After completing the latter, which was written for the Hilliard Ensemble in memory of Bryars’s friend…
Theory Of Becoming
The ECM New Series debut of Evgueni Galperine is one of the most strikingly original and evocative albums of the year. A composer of Russian and Ukrainian heritage, living in Paris since 1990, Galperine is working with sound, texture and dynamics in new and powerfully expressive ways. As he explains, the sound world of Theory of Becoming represents an “augmented reality of acoustic instruments, created from recordings made with real and virtual instruments. The numerous transformations the inst…
Archipels
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-fifth release »Saunders, Boucourechliev, Clarke, Riehm: Archipels« featuring world premiere recordings by Nicolas Hodges (piano). The album combines new works for piano by Rebecca Saunders, James Clarke and Rolf Riehm with three different interpretations of André Boucourechliev’s open form composition Archipel 5d from 1970. In addition to the recordings produced by the SWR, it also contains a 48-page bilingual booklet (EN, DE) with articles by Ni…
Gérard Grisey: Dérives
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-fourth release »Gérard Grisey: Dérives« featuring recordings by the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Katrien Baerts (soprano), Kora Pavelić (mezzo-soprano), Sylvain Cambreling and Emilio Pomàrico (conductors). The album includes Gérard Grisey’s key works Dérives (1973-1974) and L’icône paradoxale (1992-1994) as well as the world premiere recording of Mégalithes (1969). In addition to the recordings produced by the WDR, it also contains a 64-page trilingual…
Eonta
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-third release »Iannis Xenakis: Eonta« featuring recordings by Ensemble Schwerpunkt, Lorenzo Soulès (piano), Edicson Ruiz (double bass), Dirk Rothbrust (percussion) und Peter Rundel (conductor). The album includes Iannis Xenakis’s music for brass from four decades, from Eonta (1963-1964) to Linaia-Agon (1972), Khal Perr (1983) and Mnamas Xapin Witoldowi Lutosławskiemu (1994), amongst others. In addition to the recordings produced by the WDR, it al…
Brigitta Muntendorf: Trilogie
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-second release »Brigitta Muntendorf: Trilogie« featuring world premiere recordings by the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo. The album includes both the Trilogie für zwei Flügel, produced by the WDR, and the respective films of Theater des Nachhalls, a concert installation for multichannel video and audio. In addition to the recordings and the films, the set also contains a 52-page bilingual booklet (EN, DE) with articles by Dirk Wieschollek and an interv…
Hugues Dufourt, ensemble recherche, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Ensemble Nikel, Remix Ensemble, Yaron Deutsch, Nicolas Hodges
Hugues Dufourt: Surgir bastille musique presents its twenty-seventh release »Hugues Dufourt: Surgir« featuring world premiere recordings by ensemble recherche, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Nikel, Remix Ensemble, Yaron Deutsch (electric guitar) and Nicolas Hodges (piano). Produced by the WDR, the recordings comprise Dufourt’s complete Tiepolo cycle (2004-2016), selected works for orchestra and piano (1980-2012) as well as all compositions for and with electric guitar (1986-2022). Additionally, the box set includes a…
Helmut Lachenmann: Mes Adieux
Tip! bastille musique presents its twenty-ninth release »Helmut Lachenmann: Mes Adieux« featuring Trio Catch, trio recherche, Karolina Öhman (cello), WDR Sinfonieorchester and Lin Liao (conductor). With Notturno (1966-1968), Allegro sostenuto (1986-1988) and the world premiere recording of Mes Adieux – Streichtrio Nr. 2 (2021-2022), the album brings together three outstanding works by Lachenmann from three different creative periods. The WDR recordings are complemented by a 48-page bilingual boo…
Borowski, Holz, Keller: Klangrede
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its fourth release »Borowski, Holz, Keller: Klangrede« featuring world premiere recordings by the Zafraan Ensemble and Titus Engel (conductor). Produced by the SWR at the Hans-Rosbaud-Studio, the recordings comprise two works each by Johannes Boris Borowski, Eres Holz and Stefan Keller. The set also contains a 56-page bilingual booklet (EN, DE) with articles by Clemens Hund-Göschel, Eckhard Weber and an interview with the Zafraan Ensemble, as well as four c…
Luciano Berio: Chemins
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its eleventh release »Luciano Berio: Chemins« featuring the WDR Symphony Orchestra and soloists Andreas Mildner, Christophe Desjardins, Andreas Langenbuch, Maarten Dekkers, Pablo Márquez, Martin Griebl and Lutz Koppetsch, and conductors Peter Eötvös, Emilio Pomàrico, Mariano Chiacchiarini, Manuel Nawri, Bas Wiegers, Jean-Michaël Lavoie and Brad Lubman. In addition to the recordings produced by the WDR, this first complete box set of Berio’s Chemins includes…
Pierre Boulez: Constellation-Miroir
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its sixteenth release »Pierre Boulez: Constellation-Miroir«, the first complete recording of Boulez’s piano works featuring Michael Wendeberg and Nicolas Hodges. Recorded at the Pierre Boulez Saal in co-production with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, the box set also includes world premiere recordings of movements from the First and Third Sonata and two versions of Chapitre II from Structures II (all works performed by Wendeberg, joined by Hodges for Structures I &…