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The Minimalists
A two-CD set, and the lineup consists of Steve Reich (City Life) Terry Riley (In C) Louis Andriessen (Worker's Union) Kyle Gann (Sunken City) John Adams (Short Ride in a Fast Machine) David Lang (Street) "Orkest de Volharding, Jussi Jaatinen. In the spring of 1972, composer Louis Andriessen and saxophonist Willem Breuker brought together musicians from improvised and from traditional music, at a historical and tumultuous concert in the Amsterdam Carré theatre.They became the Orkest de Volharding…
Epigram And Evolution: Complete Piano Works
These piano pieces were written at every turning point in Roger Reynolds’ creative life, marking his evolution. The music is driven by relentless attacks toward catharsis, but also bittersweet chords, and trembling, rolling, wandering or sweeping masses of sound. We feel as though we are being pushed around by forces beyond human imagination. This sense of being carried away by an uninterrupted undercurrent may be the image of the world we live in. The featured pianists are the legendary Yuji Ta…
Responses To Ives
“Responses to Ives” was conceived in 2003 by pianist Heather O’Donnell as a way to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of Charles Ives’s death (May 19, 2004). She approached composers spanning a generation, known to have strong affinities for Ives and asked them to write a “musical reflection” on the presence of Ives in their lives and work. The set was premiered at the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin in 2004 in the midst of a twelve hour extravaganza of Ives. In the months following repeat perform…
Complete String Quartets
Xenakis Edition Volume 10 - Complete String Quartets. On Surround Sound DVD only: The studio recording process was dynamically captured by a multiple camera shoot. Each quartet is given its own visual treatment. Filmed in High Definition Video, widescreen format. 48khz-24-bit high resolution 5.1 surround sound recording. 'Tetras' (1983). 'Tetora' (1990.) 'ST-4-1,080262' (1956-62). 'Ergma' (1994). The Jack Quartet: Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violins. John Pickford Richards, viola. Kevin…
33-127 for Electric Guitar and CD
From orchestral works to installations, Peter Ablinger's oeuvre explores the differences between reality and our perception of reality. In '33–127' for electric guitar and CD, Ablinger confronts the rational, human division of sound into musical scales with the complex acoustical reality of any given moment - its "noise." In each of the 95 pieces that make up 33–127, these two realities come face to face again and again. In each piece, a scale descends, with gentle and unpredictable irregulariti…
49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs
A complete video realization by Don Gillespie, Roberta Friedman and Gene Caprioglio. John Cage's artwork, "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs", appeared in the October 6, 1977 Rolling Stone magazine - a gala issue celebrating their move to New York. He constructed his "waltzes" through chance operations as a series of 49 multi-colored triangles superimposed on the Hagstrom map of New York City. Later, he published a score for "performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)" with the exact street l…
Electronic Works 2 - Hibiki Hana Ma; Polytope De Cluny
This volume collects two of Iannis Xenakis’ multi-channel works from the 1970s, along with a long-lost film soundtrack (on the DVD only). Restored from the best quality source materials. A new high-resolution transfer was created from the original analog master tape for Polytope De Cluny. Hibiki Hana Ma has been restored from the multi-track digital masters. (This is audio only on the DVD). Hibiki Hana Ma was created for the Expo 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan, where it was experienced by …
Electronic Works 2
"Featured pieces" "Polytope de Cluny" (1972, for 8-channel tape); "Hibiki hana ma" (1969-70, for 16-channel tape); "Fer Chaud" (1957, original film soundtrack). "Mode continues its Iannis Xenakis Edition with the second volume dedicated to his electronic works, again restored from the best quality source materials. New high-resolution transfers were made of 'Polytope de Cluny' from the original analog master tapes. 'Hibiki hana ma' has been restored from the existing digital masters. 'Hibiki han…
Musica Da Camera: Ensemble Dissonanzen
The selections of chamber music on this CD by Hans Werner Henze (b.1926) tend toward his lyrical side, and with an emphasis on compositions derived from his theater pieces. The CD's repertoire especially suits the Naples-based Ensemble Dissonanzen, featuring the talents of its guitarist, Marco Cappelli. The 'Sonatina for Flute and Piano' was written in 1947, its style owing something to both Fortner (Henze's teacher in Heidelberg at this time) and Hindemith. 'Boulevard Solitude,' composed in 195…
Piano Sonatas
Chris Newman is a contemporary composer, painter, author and performance artist living in Berlin. This is the first recording of Newman’s Piano Sonatas, a large and important aspect to his work. The renowned British piano virtuoso and composer Michael Finnissy performs the four sonatas here. Newman and Finnissy have been collaborators for over a quarter century, ensuring definitive performances. Composer supervised recordings. Liner notes by the composer and Michael Finnissy. From 1976-79, C…
Cage Performs Cage
Empty Words (1973-74) with Music for Piano (1952-56). John Cage, voice. Yvar Mikhashoff, piano. One7 (1991) for any way of producing sounds. John cage, voice. Mode celebrates its 200th release with a special installment in its John cage Edition - works performed by John cage himself, released for the first time. These recordings were made in Buffalo, New York in April 1991. cage and Mode Records were in Buffalo to work on the premiere of his Europera 5, which he wrote for Yvar Mikhashoff, a long…
Silenced Voices
The Barton Workshop & others. Frank Denyer & James Fulkerson, music directors. 'Woman, Viola and Crow' (2004) with Elisabeth Smalt, muted viola, voice, percussion sounds. 'Two Beacons' (2005) with Harma Everts, voice; Boris Visser, muted violin; Rozemarie Heggen, muted double-bass; Neil Sorrell, sarangi; Tobias Liebezeit & Juan Martinez Cortès, percussion; Jos Zwaanenburg, Melkorta Olafsdottir, Ayano Akubo, flutes; Joeri de Vente, horn; Yula Andrews, Ella Dangerfield, Catherine Guy, Lucinda Guy,…
Kraanerg
Kraanerg (1968) for 23 instruments and 4-channel tape. Callithumpian Consort. Stephen Drury, conductor. First recording with restored analog tape. Kraanerg is one of Xenakis' most popular - and infamous - works. A visceral and highly charged score for woodwinds, brass, and strings along with quadrophonic tape. The title, Kraanerg, is a composite of two Greek words: 'kraan', meaning to perfect, to accomplish; and erg, signifying energy. Commissioned for the gala opening of the National Arts Centr…
The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan
10 years in the making, 2 films by Evans Chan trace the artist's life, career and pianism. Strumming the strings of a grand piano like a harp and performing Beethoven on toy piano are among the surprising scenes in Evans Chan's documentary, Sorceress of the New Piano (2004), which celebrates the trans-cultural career of Singapore-born, New York-based pianist Margaret Leng Tan, hailed by The New Yorker as 'the diva of avant-garde pianism.' Featured performers and critics include Joan LaBarbara, E…
The Number Pieces 5 - Two2
Laurel Karlik Sheehan gave the Canadian premiere of Two2 with Jack Behrens in 1990. Rob Haskins is a respected John Cage expert and scholar. Together they bring an authority and expertise to this performance of Two2. In most of the Number Pieces, all the performers have some freedom through Cage’s use of time brackets, flexible measures that show a range of possible starting and ending times. The time bracket system of notation used in these works allows a certain amount of flexibility in the p…
Number Pieces 4
The first recording of John Cage’s large scale composition for 3 recorder players. The Trio Dolce wrote Cage for permission to perform Solo with Obbligato Accompaniment on three alto recorders, one octave higher than the prescribed range. In a letter from March 1987 Cage replied: “Of course you may use the 3 alto recorders. I am glad that you are playing that piece.” They performed it on July 1988 with Cage in attendance. Cage’s enthusiastic reaction to this performance encouraged Trio Dolce t…
Melody, Ergodicity and Indeterminacy
Barton Workshop. James Fulkerson & Frank Denyer, directors. First Recordings. "James Tenney (1934-2006) was probably the first composer to develop an aesthetic for computer music, realizing that electronic music almost forced the composer to accept noise as music and to abandon the idea of absolute control over a composition. He came to accept Cage's passion for randomness, but from a different angle: computer music can be "unpredictable" (rather than "random"). This CD looks at how Tenney…
Whispers Out Of Time
Roger Reynolds’ (b.1939) music is a bit of a paradox: intimate in detail, while on a broader scale it is epic. It fits well with the music of his friends: Toru Takemitsu and Iannis Xenakis. The three works on this disc were composed over a four-year period (1987-1990). All are first recordings, and the first complete disc of Reynolds’ orchestral music. Symphony[Myths], dedicated to Takemitsu, is for large orchestra: woodwinds in fours, piano, harp and an extended percussion section. It is see…
Works with Guitar
Like his near contemporary Franco Donatoni, Aldo Clementi (b.1925) is an Italian composer who has had a very fruitful association with that most Italian of instruments, the guitar. Both Clementi and Donatoni shared similar paths in their compositional development: the early influences of major early 20th-century composers through the adoption and later rejection of serialism and the Darmstadt courses they both attended, culminating in their very individual mature styles. Clementi's recent pieces…
Complete Short Works for Prepared Piano
The complete short prepared piano works collected on 2-CDs. John Cage's works for prepared piano expose his earliest experimentations in finding new and exotic sounds.Brief and attractive, they are among his most accessible work. This release marks the first time all of his short works for prepared piano have been made available in one set. All the prepared piano works are included aside from the magnum opus, Sonatas and Interludes. Pianist Philipp Vandr´e has recorded Sonatas and Interludes for…