Piano Works
Jan Philip Schulze has been playing Henze’s piano works “in his sleep,” as he says. Indeed he has worked with the composer intensively on every piece, yet during the recording sessions he was noticeably surprised, while listening back to recordings, …
12 Sonate Da Chiesa
There is little doubt that Helmschrott’s Sonate da chiesa only bear a fleeting resemblance to their namesakes from the 17th and 18th centuries, which, emerging from Northern Italy, quickly rose to great popularity in Baroque Europe. Among the resembl…
Metamorphose
“Once you focus your will and mind on a particular thought or sentiment, and screen out the external world, you’re being transported into a state of contemplation, which fully takes effect in solitude: relaxation in a unity of subjective and objectiv…
Cathédrale
Concert music for solo harp: The harp, whose ancestor belongs to the most ancient musical instruments, is usually associated with impressionistic sound. But Roman Haubenstock-Ramati - the most visionary inventor of sounds among contemporary composers…
Guitar Album
This enterprising programme of 20th century music, recorded in England by the distinguished Japanese guitarist Azusa Shimizu, contains first recordings of pieces by Højsgaard and Mamiya, as well as offering a rare opportunity to hear the sonata by An…
And: The feast is in full progress
The second cello concerto, entitled: Y: la fiesta está en pleno apogeo – And: The feast is in full progress (1993), is based on a poem by the Chuvash poet Gennadi Aigi. The vision of a raging mass of people awaiting the last Judgment is transformed i…
Orchestral Works & Chamber Music
Dmitri Shostakovich was to encourage the young Gubaidulina, for instance when he told her in his official function as the chairman of a board of examiners: "Keep on composing on your errant ways." Her intuition was based on her profound religious fai…
Songbook
If you'd like to hear what might remain, and might survive, of the popular common musical property, these two works by the Salzburg composer Clemens Gadenstätter will give you some essential clues. "Akkor(d/t)anz" is based on the character of Romanti…
Fama
Site-specific FAMA, “audio theatre piece for large ensemble, eight voices, actress, and sound structure,” requires the best performers for execution. Luckily, Furrer draws upon the talented Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Klangforum Wien. Also credi…
Complete Organ Works
Franck turned to writing organ music only in his thirties, prompted not least by his appointment as organist at the Parisian Basilica Ste-Clotilde in 1858, a post he held until his death. He had played the organ at smaller churches in Paris before; t…
Schubertlieder
Most of Franui's musicians are from East Tyrol. In fact, Franui is the name of a mountain pasture in the Villgraten valley, some 2,000 meters above sea level: a fertile breeding ground for creative flights of fancy, as is evidenced by these original …
Nothing Is Real
Each of the piano pieces assembled here is a gemstone in its own right; even so, it is their arrangement side by side that makes this album a unique experience. ...The outstanding pianist Marino Formenti begins his journey with Beat Furrer's Voiceles…
AURORA / THRENOS IV / PIRKEI TEHILLIM / MEMORARE
Titles often occur to Reinhard David Flender only after he has completed a composition. When listening to Aurora, for example, "a visual association is evoked. The piece starts with a long double bass tone. Then a high pitched tone played by oboe and…
Glaciers in Extinction
One can hardly imagine a more striking description of the anticipated disappearance of these ice giants: Glaciers in Extinction is a warning by sounds. Fabbriciani’s deep, grieving sounds tell not only of the catastrophe to come but of the unfathomab…
Experimentalstudio Freiburg 25 Jahre
This Three-CD box set celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the world’s most renowned studio for electronic music. Who didn’t experiment there and “make the seemingly solid boundaries of the doable tremble”? Stockhausen, Nono, Ferneyhough, Minci…
Mise en Scène
"I wrote Mise en Scène between July 1992 and May 1994. Apart from the four additional clarinets involved besides the soloist (two of them as 'doppelgangers' of the soloist) having to move around in the hall during the five movements of the compositio…
des Nichts, verlorene Schatten / l\'étendue des fins éclats, épa
Concentrated chamber music: Gerald Eckert captures the world of sounds in its manifold forms and shapes with meticulous care and maximum individuality.
Ode / Clarinet Quintet / Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra
Like Brahms in his later years, Edison Denisov, the European-oriented composer firmly rooted in Russian-Siberian soil, developed a certain partiality to the tonal qualities of the clarinet. Eduard Brunner, clarinet virtuoso and former soloist of the …
Hauptweg und Nebenwege
A miniature for every day, a movement for every month, a cycle for the whole year: Hauptweg und Nebenwege, a musical diary inspired by Paul Klee.
Hebdomadaire op. 62
52 pieces of the year for a pianist: in Hebdomadaire, Michael Denhoff carries on the noble tradition of cyclic piano music in his own inimitable way.