★Another Timbre
O Zomer!
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.O Zomer! (2007) by Apartment House, Philip the Wanderer (2012) by Philip Thomas (piano) & Clemens Merkel (whistling). For Mira (2012) by Mira Benjamin (violin). Duet for Cello and Orchestra (2015) by Charles Curtis (cello), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducor Ilan Volkov.Two ensemble works and two solo pieces by Christian Wolff’s favourite contemporary composer, who is blazing a very personal trail th…
Just So
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.Just So (2008/18). 5 Warblework (2011). About Bach (2015). Leaving (2011) by Quatuor Bozzini with Clemens Merkel & Alissa Cheung (violins), Stephanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello).Another disc of extraordinary music by Cassandra Miller, this one containing four string quartets superbly played by Quatuor Bozzini.
Two2 (2CD)
Landmark recording of John Cage's late work for two pianos, played by Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas. Uniquely for Cage's number pieces, Two2 doesn't use time brackets, so duration is open and left to the musicians' 'inner clock'. Previous recordings have lasted between 35 and 74 minutes, but this new version stretches across two CDs and lasts 128 minutes, revealing new depths and sonorities in the music. "A major achievement.”Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
Es Schwindelt Mir, Es Brennt Mein Eingeweide
Hot on the heels of his wonderful piece on the Early to Late CD released earlier this year, a new hour-long work for an ensemble of six musicians by Swedish composer Magnus Granberg. The piece borrows material from a song by Schubert, but transforms it into Granberg's typically taut and focused soundworld: "The expressiveness of the song has been subdued or silenced, and has become something which takes place somewhere beneath the surface of the music.
Tse
Beautiful and thoughtful music by the trio comprised of Cyril Bondi (indian harmonium, pitch pipes), Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba, pitch pipes), Christoph Schiller (spinet). Improvised, but on the basis of a pre-agreed sequence of pitches, allowing the musicians to explore melody in a way that is rare within improvisation. "Five pieces by a new trio, who improvise but on a pre-agreed sequence of pitches, allowing a much greater use and exploration of pitch and melody than is usual in impro…
H
Cristián Alvear & Taku Sugimoto (guitars). Recorded live in concert at Ftarri, Tokyo, November 2017. This piece was originally composed for ‘Songs’, a duo project with Minami Saeki, a female singer who I have been working with recently, when we had a tour in Europe last October. The piece, ‘h’, was actually completed in an airplane flying from Denmark to Finland where we were to have some concerts. We simply needed a new song (or more) which would be different from what we had played on the tour…
Early To Late
Performed by Ensemble Grizzana, Jürg Frey (clarinet), Magnus Granberg (celesta, harmonica & stones), Angharad Davies & Mira Benjamin (violins), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Dominic Lash (double bass), John Lely (electronics, harmonica & stones), Richard Craig (flute & electronics), Philip Thomas (piano), Simon Allen (dulcimer & glass harp), Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (zither & electronics).
Chamber and Field Works 2015 - 2017
Performed by The Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble - a Tokyo-based group for new music with Wakana Ikeda, flute & harmonica, Yoko Ikeda, violin & viola, Masahiko Okura, clarinets, Taku Sugimoto, guitar & mandolin, Aya Naito, bassoon & voice, Hikaru Yamada, electronics - and by Taku Sugimoto (guitar)
Do Nothing
Electroacoustic and minimal studio composition for guitar and percussion performed by Clara de Asis. Six beautiful solo pieces developed over the course of 2017. “It’s the way I work now. To me, one of the differences between improvisation and composition is how I think about and experience time. Meaning the time within the piece itself, but also the time of my life in which I develop the piece, and how I live through that time. I believe that, as with any other activity, music is very mu…
Winter Music (1957)
John Cage’s 1957 composition in a visceral realisation for four pianos, played by John Tilbury, Philip Thomas, Mark Knoop and Catherine Laws.
“Chance procedures were used to assign each of the pianists five of the twenty pages of the score. The pianists agreed an overall duration of 40 minutes and prepared their parts independently. At the recording there was no rehearsal and the piece was played once only.” Winter Music was written in 1957 at a time when Cage was exploring different ways …
13 & 27
’13 & 27’ Two subtle works for the unique Swiss-based collective of 30/40 experimental musicians, co-ordinated and composed by d’incise and Cyril Bondi. “We started with the desire to invite as many musicians as possible to experiment with pieces and a very different approach that comes with a large ensemble….And from this moment onwards we had to deal with its potential and its limits.”
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Interview with Cyril Bondi
Tell us about th…
Untiled
a new untitled work for piano and organ by the highly-acclaimed Chicago-based composer-performer Olivia Block.“This suite was created over a span of several years. I developed techniques inside piano through rehearsals and performances, sketched the basic ideas out – the motives, physical materials etc, leaving a lot of room for improvisation between the composed bits.”
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Interview with Olivia Block
What is your musical background an…
Collection Gustave Roud
A double CD with five beautiful pieces that engage with the work of the extraordinary French-Swiss poet Gustave Roud. Performers include Dante Boon, Stefan Thut, Andrew McIntosh and Jürg Frey himself.
“I think my process of work is similar to Roud’s: roaming with my sketchbook, taking a movement here, adding some notes there, following an impression, writing a little melody or a rhythmic constellation, deepening a feeling, extending a pitch, waiting and letting it happen…”
Interview with …
Ockeghem Octets
Antoine Beuger's 'Ockeghem Octets' are one of a long series of pieces, each one written for one more musician than the previous piece in the series, starting with the ‘dedekind duos’ and ending with the ‘ihwe tunings for twenty’. "My idea then was to create a series of musical situations in which all players do the same: play very long, very soft tones. So it is not their being different from each other, that primarily shapes the musical situation, but their number, their “be…
Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello
“Another Timbre has been contributing excellent recordings to the rapidly expanding universe of what might still be called “Classical” music, and nowhere more convincingly than in the shimmering beautiful tapestries woven by Morton Feldman. The label’s double set of Feldman’s earlier piano works would be an excellent place to begin for anyone wishing to slide into familiarity with his work, as it’s wonderfully performed by John Tilbury and Philip Thomas. Pianist Mark Knoop, violinist Aisha Orazb…
Ressac
Artwork [Cover Image By] – Véra Molnar. Piano, Composed By [Composition] – Melaine Dalibert. Recorded By – Antoine Pinçon (tracks: 1), Melaine Dalibert (tracks: 2): En abyme (2014) Ressac (2015)
Spinet and Violin
Recorded At Christoph Schiller's Atelier, Basel. Painting by Andrew Lutz. Recorded By – Christoph Schiller, Morgan Evans-WeilerSpinet – Christoph Schiller, Violin – Morgan Evans-Weiler
Places and Pages
The place could be an empty room; a quiet street corner; a fountain or waterfall; a huge echoey space. The sounds: reverberant cracks, lush organ drone, quiet whoosh of distant traffic, tapping and banging, whistles and squeaks, accordion chords, low, rough gurgling, high-pitched whining, fast chirruping, guitar and clarinet notes, footsteps and voices, ringing like an old telephone, ringing like a fire alarm. The durations: from three seconds to around 12 minutes. The volume: mostly quie…
Harmony
The fifth CD in the Canadian Composers Series is also the debut appearance on Another Timbre by the Jack Quartet. It features chamber music for strings by the Berlin-based composer Marc Sabat, whose compositions explore the world of Just Intonation. But, as Nick Storring argues in the booklet accompanying the Canadian Composers Series of CDs, “to fixate upon this aspect of his music conceals at least half of what makes it so beguiling and beautiful. From an aural perspective, what is most salien…
During a Lifetime
The fourth disc in the Canadian Composers Series features the music of Chiyoko Szlavnics. The CD contains three works, two of which use sinewaves in conjuncton with acoustic instruments. The title track ‘During a Lifetime’ is written for sinewaves and saxophone quartet, an instrument on which Szlavnics herself used to perform. The final piece, ‘Reservoir’, is composed for sinewaves and an unusual instrumental octet, including two accordions, two flutes and two percussionists. The middle piece ‘F…