★Mode
String quartet N°2
Dvd audio edition. In the 1970s Morton Feldman took up the study and collecting of antique Turkish rugs, a highly evolved and exquisite folk art. The rugs are intricately patterned, symmetrical in basic design but with constant variation and displacement in the detailed execution of that design; strikingly and subtly colored, including fine variegations of principal colors resulting from the dyeing process. Analogies are clear to Feldman's music as it takes up large-scale patterning, partly work…
Transición II. Phonophonie
This disc collects two early, forward looking works by Argentine born Mauricio Kagel, now living in Germany. Both works are constructed in such a way so that no two performances can ever be alike. Transición II was an early exploration of what "live electronics" are now being used to achieve. The score is in individual pages which can be placed in any order by the performers. It works on three levels. LIVE: The pianist performs on the keyboard while a percussionist performs inside the pian…
Extreme Guitar Project
During May and June 2002, Italian guitarist Marco Cappelli spent time in New York City. While there, Cappelli became involved with the NYC avant-garde scene - internationally known as Downtown Music - in which composers / improvisers coming from avant-garde jazz, experimental rock, as well as from academic music, created a common musical language. These experiences and influences inspired Cappelli to a new idea and concept: to make a "musical photograph" of the Downtown musical scene thro…
Works 1939 - 2000
We were saddened to learn of the passing of Lou Harrison as this disc just entered production. It is perhaps fitting that it provides an overview of Harrison's work, from 2 movements of a mass composed in 1939 to 3 vocal arias composed in 2000. Mass to St. Anthony was begun when Hitler invaded Poland; a mass for voices and percussion expressing both outrage and hope. Harrison completed the Gregorian-like chant for the entire 5 movements of the work, but only finished the percussion accomp…
Freeman Etudes, Books One and Two
John Cage's Freeman Etudes are the modern equivalent of Paganini's virtuoso solo violin etudes. Each etude is completely notated down to the smallest detail, and the composer states "...are as intentionally as difficult as I can make them...So I think that this music, which is almost impossible, gives an instance of the practicality of the impossible." The detail and complexity of these etudes give them a unique and unusual spot in Cage's oeuvre.
These first two books (there are 8 etudes p…
The Piano Works 7 - Chess Serenade
A major discovery and first recording of an important Cage piece from 1944. In 1944, John Cage was invited to participate in “The Imagery of Chess” exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. The artists included Calder, Noguchi, Motherwell, Breton, Duchamp, Ernst, Man Ray, Tanning and other leading surrealists.Cage contributed a painting entitled “Chess Pieces”. It was purchased at the show and went into a private collection. For decades it was deemed lost and was (almost) forgotten…
The Piano Works 2 - Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano
The Sonatas and Interludes enjoy a well deserved reputation as a masterwork and as a repertoire piece. But this is not a masterwork in the sense of other keyboard masterworks: Bach's Goldbergs, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Ives' Concord Sonata.
John Cage's masterwork is quite different -- a big piece with a quiet voice. The prepared piano operates entirely by muting: by attaching objects to the strings of the piano. Cage alters their sounds in various ways, turning the piano into a percussio…
Freeman Etudes, Books Three And Four
This CD presents the first recording of the second half of John Cage's Freeman Etudes for violin. Those familiar with the previously-released volume of this work will already know what to expect: the bewildering complexity of the Etudes and the astonishing virtuosity of Irvine Arditti's performance.
Convinced that the later, more complex etudes were unplayable, Cage abandoned work on the Freeman Etudes in 1980, after completing the first sixteen and beginning the eighteenth Etude. It wasn't…
Atlas Eclipticalis With Winter Music
Originally released as a 4LP set back in the early days of Mode Records, the first two discs of this 3CD set document the two live performances of John Cage's 1961 orchestral work Atlas Eclipticalis played simultaneously with 1957's Winter Music (in a version for three pianos) recorded at Seattle's Cornish Institute on December 11th 1983. Disc three presents what the label rather grandly describes as an "all-star" recording of all 86 instrumental parts of Atlas Eclipticalis, (the first of its ki…
One11 And 103
A performance for camera person and light, One11 is a film without subject. There is light but no persons, no things, no ideas about repetition and variation? Chance operations where used with respect to the shots, in black and white. The light environment was designed and programmed by John Cage and Andrew Culver, as was the editing of the film.The orchestral work 103 musically accompanies One11. Like the film, 103 is 90-minutes long, divided into seventeen parts - its density varies from solos…
44 Harmonies from Apartment House 1776
Cage's "44 Harmonies" were originally written to form part of the sprawling bicentennial commission "Apartment House 1776", and take as their starting point late 18th century anthems and hymn tunes by William Billings, Jacob French, Andrew Law, James Lyon and the wonderfully-named Supply Belcher. Cage's compositional - or rather decompositional - method was to remove certain tones and extend others, and as James Pritchett points out in the (excellent as always for Mode) liners, he was delighted …
From Zero
Four films on JOHN CAGE by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver. Mode celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2004 with the release of a major film on John Cage by renowned Dutch director Frank Scheffer in collaboration with Cage's long-time associate Andrew Culver. The group of films, entitled From Zero, are:* 19 QUESTIONS: Cage answers 19 questions on a variety of subjects, using chance operations to determine the duration of his colorful and often witty answers. A unique opportunity to view the Cagean…
Ensemble Music Vol.2
Recorded after performances at New York's prestigious 92nd Street Y in 1996 with the participation of the composer, Ensemble Music 2 is the follow up to the initial, critically acclaimed and best selling volume of Iannis Xenakis' Ensemble Works on Mode. This disc contains the first recording of Xenakis' memorial work A la Mémoire de Witold Lutoslawski, to the great Polish composer. A literal monument in sound, comprised of massive blocks of brass arranged as a dirge-like fanfare. Composed in 199…
Ensemble Music Vol.1
Iannis Xenakis' oeuvre is unique in modern music--it is music of great visceral power, energy and sheer sound. Music from another world. Music that grabs the listener, riveting his attention. Conductor Charles Zachary Bornstein is a Xenakis specialist. Bornstein learned that of the 700 to 800 performances of Xenakis' music worldwide each year, only a handful were in America. He formed New York's ST-X Ensemble (named after Xenakis' series of ST- compositions from the 1960s) in 1994 to fill the vo…
The Orchestral Works 2
"The first recording of his 32-minute grand cantata 'La Nascita del Verb.' Steeped in chromaticism, with hints of Scriabin and a sea of percussion, 'Nascita' boasts a vast double fugue (one of the most imposing in the history of music) and a forty-seven voice canon in twelve keys. This work, 'truly written in blood,' left Scelsi 'in a deplorable state, afterwards he stopped composing for several years. One of Giacinto Scelsi's infamous pieces are the 'Quattro Pezzi (su una nota sola).' Ear piece…
Music For High Winds
"Ixor" (1956, for clarinet), "Suite" (1953, for flute + clarinet), "Pwyll" (1954, for flute), "Tre Pezzi" (1954, for Eb clarinet), "Rucke di Guck (1957, for Piccolo + oboe), "Preghiera per un' ombra (1954, for clarinet), "Ko-Lho" (1966, for flute + clarinet), "Three Latin Prayers" (1970, for Eb and A clarinet). "This recording presents pieces for woodwind instruments played solo or in duo. The majority date from the 50's, when Scelsi abandoned his classical and 12-tone training to undertake a re…
Advance of the Fungi
Advance of the Fungi - (chamber works 1960-66) - Time on Time in Miracles for soprano, 2 horns, 2 trombones, piano, cello & percussion; Mod 3 for flute, percussion & contrabass; Holy Ghost Vacuum or America Faints for electric organ; Advance of the Fungi for male choir, 3 clarinets, 3 trombones, 2 horns, & 1 percussion; Two Worlds for soprano, flute, oboe, piano, percussion, violin, viola, cello & contrabass; Bestiary 1: Eingang for soprano, piano & 5 percussionists.