180-AS-CSOPORT
'Group 180' ('180-as Csoport' in Hungarian) was a Hungarian ensemble dedicated to the performance of new music, active from 1978 until 1990. The group achieved recognition for their performances and recordings of contemporary music in the minimal style. Group 180's membership included several young Hungarian composers (among them László Melis and Tibor Szemz?), whose works formed an important part of the ensemble's repertoire. This brought the group prominence as one of the preeminent European n…
New Music For Piano(s)
Compositions by Xenakis/Takahashi/Earle Brown performed by Yuji Takahashi, on Mainstream. Hérma for piano solo (1960-61) by Xenakis dedicated to Yuji Takahashi; Fantasy for Pianist (1963-64) by Reynolds; Metatheses (1968) by Yuji Takahashi dedicated to Gunther Schuller; Corroboree (for three pianos) (1963-64) by Earle Brown commissioned by and dedicated to Aloys, Alfons and Bernhardt Kontarsky Only one copy available.
Music in Twelve Parts
Ultra rare original UK first pressing on Caroline, cover design by Sol Lewitt - "All of my works which predate 1976 fall within the highly reductive style known as minimalism. I feel that minimalism can be traced to a fairly specific timeframe, from 1965 through 1975, and nearly all my compositions during this period may be placed in this general category. All such categories are arbitrary, however, and can be misleading. For example, although Music in 12 Parts would most likely be classified as…
Rothko Chapel / For Frank O'Hara
Two famous compositions from Morton Feldman.: Rothko chapel, [sound recording] for chorus, viola, and percussion and For Frank O'Hara, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion. Both pieces consists of mostly only slightly overlapping tones. Only one copy available.
Viola In My Life / False Relationships
False Relationships and the Extended Ending" alternates between exact proportions and "free time" in the vertical style (slowly changing chords, common-tone suspensions etc. in works such as "Atlantis" (1958) and "The Swallows of Salangan" ) which came after the counterpoint style of the early 50's graph pieces. "The Viola in My Life" (composed especially for Karen Phillips) was the next development adding melody-like gestures. Ethereal, heartfelt. Only one copy available.
Solo Music
Recordings of Contrary Motion and Two Pages by Philip Glass during February and March 1975 in New York City. Performed by Philip Glass (electric organ) and Michael Riesman (acoustic piano on Two Pages). Only one copy available.
Atlas Eclipticalis With Winter Music
Featured compositions: "Atlas Eclipticalis' (1961, for chamber ensemble); "Winter Music" (1957, for 3 pianos); "Atlas Eclipitcalis" (1961, for orchestra); "Winter Music" (1957, for 20 pianos). Cage's relationship with the Cornish Institute in Seattle dates back to the 1930s, when he taught there and performed as accompanist for many dance pieces. Cornish was also the scene of several of his musical discoveries and innovations. Cage's celebrated return to the Cornish Institute in 1983 led to thes…
Sonatas And Interludes / A Book Of Music
Sonatas And Interludes' for prepared piano (1946-48) performed by Joshua Pierce. 'A Book Of Music' for two prepared pianos (1944) performed by Joshua Pierce (left channel) and Maro Ajemian (right channel). Only one copy available.
Etudes Australes For Piano
Etudes Australes is a set of etudes for piano solo by John Cage, composed in 1974–5 for Grete Sultan. It comprises 32 aleatoric pieces written using star charts as source material. The etudes, conceived as duets for two independent hands, are extremely difficult to play. They were followed by two more collections of similarly difficult works: Freeman Etudes for violin (1977–90) and Etudes Boreales (1978) for cello and/or piano. Only one copy available.
Electronic Music
First in a series of albums from the mid-late 1960s consisting of contemporary classical composers in the experimental/electronic field. It contains Fontana Mix by John Cage, Visage by Luciano Berio and Agony by Ilhan Mimaroglu.
Clavecin 2.000 (Harpsichord / Cembalo 2.000)
Original first pressing (silver cover, green label) of this legendary LP with works by Berio, Ligeti, Constant, Clementi, Miroglio, Donatoni "The listener is expected to play this recording at full volume and in total darkness." is suggested on the estensive liner notes on back cover. Excellent copyTracklisting:A1 Continuum Composed By - György LigetiA2 Profil Sonore Composed By - Graciane FinziA3 Insertions Composed By - Francis MiroglioA4 Intavolatura Composed By - …
Harlekin
Karlheinz Stockhausen's 'Harlekin' ('Harlequin') for clarinet; and 'Der Kleine Harlekin' ('The Little Harlequin') for clarinet (performed here by Suzanne Stephens). Only one copy available.
Persephassa
Persephassa is a piece for six percussionists composed by Iannis Xenakis in 1969. The piece was commissioned for the first-ever Shiraz Festival (organized by the Empress of Iran), held at the historic desert site of Persepolis. The title refers to the goddess Persephone, "the personification of telluric forces and of transmutations of life." Persephassa gains much of its effect from having the six percussionists distributed around the audience. The treatment of space as a musical parameter is on…
Pranam II for ensemble
It is scored for two flutes, violin, viola, cello, bass clarinet and electric organ. This is a really beautiful piece of tranquil music, full of touching sweetness.
Collection vol.1
The first in a series of recordings devoted to the music of Giacinto Scelsi, devised by Stradivarius in conjunction with the Isabella Scelsi Foundation. The series comprises new, original recordings made in 2005, marking the hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth.
Lohengrin
2008 release ** Lohengrin, Salvatore Sciarrino's "azione invisibile", is both a gloss on Wagner's opera and a sly debunking of it. It was conceived by its composer as an opera with action invisible, for one singer/actress who assumes all the charactersn Sciarrino's monodrama, based on one of Jules Laforgue's Moralités Légendaires, episodes from the story are viewed through the distinctly jaundiced eyes and ears of Elsa, the woman Lohengrin marries and then deserts. A single voice narrates and ta…
Vortex Temporum - Pèriodes
Gérard Grisey's cycle of compositions, Les Espaces Acoustiques, is considered one of his most significant works. Written between 1974 and 1985, it consists of six discrete pieces, for ensembles ranging in size from a solo viola with resonators to an orchestra of 84 players. In the cycle, the pieces progress from the smallest ensemble to the largest, and Périodes (1974), for seven players, is the second. The piece is a relatively early example of spectralism, a method of composition developed by …
Music in the shape of a square
On 30 June 1999, the ensemble Alter Ego performed a concert of works by Philip Glass at the Opera Paese Gallery in Rome, one of the most innovative musical venues in the city and where Alter Ego has played regularly since 1996. Glass himself was present at this performance which was a replica of his own famous debut concert at the New York Film-Makers Cinemateque in September 1968. Under the guidance of Pietro Fortuna, the artists of the Opera Paese Gallery faithfully reconstructed the geometric…
Esplorazione del Bianco
Sciarrino's work is avant-garde, and he is known for his use of isolated sonorities, extended playing techniques, frequent silences, and ironic or confrontational quotation of previous music (for instance, American pop music) or stories (such as in Lohengrin). His works include a large body of chamber music, including many pieces for wind instruments, five piano sonatas, and several operas or theatrical works: Da gelo a gelo, Infinito nero, Macbeth, Perseo ed Andromeda, Lohengrin, and Luci mie t…
Chants de la Mi-mort
Alberto Savinio was a very particular figure of poet, writer, musician, painter of primarily surreal subjects. His dramatic poem, "Les Chants de la Mi-Mort", played in Paris in 1914, seems to prefigure the mannequins that appear in so many of De Chirico's works: "voiceless men, without eyes or faces".