Monteverdi | Pianocloud
"The Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi garnered the interest of Gian Francesco Malipiero, who emphasized a second copy of the manuscript found in Naples in the rooms of the Conservatory Library, and showing a series of pages not included in the Venetian manuscript. Among these, a Prologue that constitutes, together with other fragments taken from the work, the main plot of monteverdi | pianocloud.
As is known, the Coronation was performed in Naples in 1651 and is ignored, given that Mon…
58'
58' was composed in 2010 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of d-zAkord. I wanted a very minimalist piece with few sound events and long silences. At that time we presented t'Drone(s)Scape', a sound/living installation lasting 3 hours. The public was invited to sit or lie down in the center of the sonic maelstrom for a multicast travel. It is in this context that 58' was imagined.
Although unconventional, the 58' score is extremely precise. The musicians follow a graphic score, with time p…
Seminal
A two-part composition that combines two antagonistic and complementary dimensions: a text of data read by the artist Orlan and a virtual orchestra composed of four singers (Loré Lixenberg, Joan La Barbara, Wills Morgan and Jacques Lizène) and 124 different instruments.
Antipodes
Frédéric Acquaviva's new album - a record sleeve with QR Code but no record, limited to 100 copies: a 69-minute opera for voice (with Joël Hubaut, author of the text, Dorothy Iannone and Loré Lixenberg), "dead electronics" and video.
Spiralis Aurea
Venturing into untapped realms of creative exploration, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, returns to Die Schachtel with “Spiralis Aurea”, a double LP of material that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind.
Lamentate
The acclaimed recording of Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate with which Onutė Gražinytė marked her recording debut is now released on vinyl in a limited and numbered 180g edition of 1,000 copies. It is supplemented with Gražinytė’s wonderful interpretation of Pärt’s piano works Pari intervallo and Für Anna Maria - Nachdenklich. “Onute Grazinyte and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under Modestas Pitrenas play Pärt’s music – especially the main work Lamentate – very expressively and communicativel…
Approdi 3, Avanguardie Musicali a Napoli - Volume III
**300 copies** Konsequenz has released a new anthology that offers another incredible window into the Napoli’s remarkable experimental endeavours, another essential artifact for any fan of Italian border and avant-garde musics.
Avant-garde and experimental musics are intrinsically connected to community, collectivism, support, and collaboration. Audiences and artists, stretching to every corner of the globe, continuously rely on each other to push into ever more ambitious realms. This spirit of …
Naturspil, Automatmusik, Syngeskål
New tape from Michael Mørkholt, made during his winter residency at Polychrome. "Naturspil, Automatmusik, Syngeskål". The pieces are performed on an acoustic singing bowl and a self-invented digital system, an electroacoustic composition principle for triads and rhythm in pure atmosphere. The principle is that the tonal relationships are mirrored in the rhythmic. A computer program with an amplitude-controlled trigger records a sound clip each time the singing bowl is struck. The sound clip is d…
Works for Flute
Toshio Hosokawa explains his special interest in the flute as follows: “For me the flute is the instrument which can most deeply realise my musical ideal. The flute can produce a sound by means of the breath, and can be a vehicle by which the breath transmits the sound’s life-power.“ When playing the flute, the breath flow is directed upon a sharp edge or notch. The resulting vibrations excite the air contained in the resonant cavity within the flute, which can be heard as …
The Expanded Body
This CD by Alessandro Perini combines electronic sound manipulation with the creation of electromechanical and electroacoustic instruments and a reflection on sound environment, tending toward the exploration of unusual compositional solution. In short, it is experimental music and as such, it deserves to be listened to and commented upon. A few words about the composer. Alessandro Perini is a young musician: he studied composition (with Luca Francesconi and Ivan Fedele among others), electroni…
L'Afrique Et L'Asie D'Après Tiepolo
Inspired by frescos by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted in the residence of Würzburg, again two so rich universes of intoxicating sonorities. Let us quote the composer: “Nothing is more inclined to suggest space than color, which becomes the true mean of the musician”. Difficult to imagine two pieces as dissimilar as this Africa and this Asia. Tiepolo's allegorical depictions of Africa and Asia inspired the French composer Hugues Dufourt (*1943) to write two of his most powerful ensemble works.…
Loops4ever
An astonishing album by Manuel Zurria with music by Alvin Lucier, William Basinski, John Duncan, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveiros, Giancinto Scelsi among others, 2CD in deluxe packaging with 12p booklet... Foremost in my mind was the idea of being able to manipulate some compositions for flute, that were not original or were “extremely free ” in their conception, personalizing them to the extreme with the use of multitrace or electronics. Only a work conceived in this way has led me to reflect on …
There's no knowing
**300 copies** Starting with an open dialogue seems like a good way to approach a collaboration. Almost a decade ago, that’s how Joana Gama (piano) and Luís Fernandes (electronics) started to work together, and both quickly understood that it was an ideal moment to develop and explore new paths in their music. “There’s no knowing” is their fifth album, 50 minute piece in which the two artists' have a dialogue while interacting with the void and silence around them. The origin of this work explai…
Sign Of The Times
Centered around the mesmerizing voice of Robert Ashley, presented here is early version (released on LP by Lovely Music in 1979) of "The Park" and "The Backyard", a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener. These two pieces were later to become the opening and closing segments of the seven part opera for television, Perfect Lives. Personnel: Robert Ashley - voice; "Blue" Gene Tyranny - keyboards; Kris - tablas.
Rana, Ritual And Revelations
Diverse works from the 80s & 90s by composer and harpist Anne Lebaron. Taking inspiration from amphibians, peyote ritual, bowerbirds, and Noh theater, and performed by a plurality of ensembles, some including Lebaron herself, in these compositions animal, technology, and ritual are collided into something like Southern cyborg shamanism. Lebaron was a student of Ligeti, first catching his attention with “Concerto For Active Frogs” in which the musicians, dressed in green plastic bags, perform a g…
Works for Cello and Piano
With their 2018–2019 Isang Yun Recording Project, ItalianCellist Luigi Piovano and Pianist Aldo Orvieto pay homageto the late Korean composer and the tragic course of his life. “The events that marked Isang Yun’s life emblematically show the miserable short-sightedness of the human being, unable to act authentically and with love towards others, in striving for a common good and reach a common spiritual elevation. When confronted with the exceptional musical depth and the dramatic power of Isang…
Musiche per il "Paradiso" di Dante
"Salvatore Sciarrino's Musiche per il "Paradiso" di Dante is divided in three movements:
Alfabeto OscuroThe alphabet mentioned in the title (as if speaking, it’s written at the top of the score) refers to the language of sounds that desperately tries to transfigure into words: the orchestra seems to want to talk,” writes Sciarrino. “The nature of the instruments would not allow it, yet they obsessively act, and we hear almost without understanding. Almost. In their lack of humanity, the machines…
Watercolors and Psychograms
"In the works of Martón Illés from the early 2000s, physically perceptible energy, gestural force, and visual conceptions of the sonic are already present. After 2010 the composer drew further implications from these for his work: since then, his musical thinking has no longer been based on fixed pitches, but rather on sounds – either as acoustic manifestations of imagined lines or as gestures modeled on the physical. The way he actually implements this by means of instruments is impressively de…
String Quartets
Defining the character of a composer’s music is always hazardous, especially if the composer is restless. But around Stefano Scodanibbio’s music we often return to the concept of wandering, which moreover reflects his life. This is testified by his writings, which tell us how travel, lack of stability, desire were factors to be found written or improvised in his works. An important and restless philosopher introducing the volume that collects those writings (Not enough for me, Quodlibet, 2019) g…
Painted Lights
Painted Lights, a new album of compositions by Kui Dong is now available on Kairos Music. The record, which features performances by Juliet Petrus, Deirdre Brenner, Third Coast Percussion, Arditti Quartet, Koehne Quartett, Volti, Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir, Robert Geary, and Raphael Schlüsselberg, comprises four pieces of chamber and choral music written by Dong between 2009 and 2017. California Shoreline (2017) for soprano, string quartet and prepared piano opens the album, followed by …