★Mode
33-127 for Electric Guitar and CD
From orchestral works to installations, Peter Ablinger's oeuvre explores the differences between reality and our perception of reality. In '33–127' for electric guitar and CD, Ablinger confronts the rational, human division of sound into musical scales with the complex acoustical reality of any given moment - its "noise." In each of the 95 pieces that make up 33–127, these two realities come face to face again and again. In each piece, a scale descends, with gentle and unpredictable irregulariti…
49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs
A complete video realization by Don Gillespie, Roberta Friedman and Gene Caprioglio. John Cage's artwork, "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs", appeared in the October 6, 1977 Rolling Stone magazine - a gala issue celebrating their move to New York. He constructed his "waltzes" through chance operations as a series of 49 multi-colored triangles superimposed on the Hagstrom map of New York City. Later, he published a score for "performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)" with the exact street l…
Works with Guitar
Like his near contemporary Franco Donatoni, Aldo Clementi (b.1925) is an Italian composer who has had a very fruitful association with that most Italian of instruments, the guitar. Both Clementi and Donatoni shared similar paths in their compositional development: the early influences of major early 20th-century composers through the adoption and later rejection of serialism and the Darmstadt courses they both attended, culminating in their very individual mature styles. Clementi's recent pieces…
Volume 1: Chansons Pour Le Corps
With recent releases on John Zorn's Tzadik label among others, Luc Ferrari is enjoying a well deserved renaissance. After studies with Messiaen and formative visits to Darmstadt in the '50s, Ferrari (born Paris, 1929), with Pierre Schaeffer, was one of the co-founders of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1959. In the sixties he worked with the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris and made the first French television documentaries on new music, between 1964-69, he ta…
Musica Da Camera: Ensemble Dissonanzen
The selections of chamber music on this CD by Hans Werner Henze (b.1926) tend toward his lyrical side, and with an emphasis on compositions derived from his theater pieces. The CD's repertoire especially suits the Naples-based Ensemble Dissonanzen, featuring the talents of its guitarist, Marco Cappelli. The 'Sonatina for Flute and Piano' was written in 1947, its style owing something to both Fortner (Henze's teacher in Heidelberg at this time) and Hindemith. 'Boulevard Solitude,' composed in 195…
Music for Merce Cunningham
2008 repress, featuring a 24-bit Hi-Definition remaster; originally released in 1991. Volume 4 in the Music of Cage series. The first audio document between John Cage & Merce Cunningham. It includes a 55-minute piece called "Five Stone Wind" performed by David Tudor (live electronics), Takehisa Kosugi (amplified violin, live electronics, bamboo flute) and Michael Pugliese (clay pots and tapes) as well as a 19-minute version of the classic "Cartridge Music" (same 3 performers, "using phonograph c…
Electronic Works 2
"Featured pieces" "Polytope de Cluny" (1972, for 8-channel tape); "Hibiki hana ma" (1969-70, for 16-channel tape); "Fer Chaud" (1957, original film soundtrack). "Mode continues its Iannis Xenakis Edition with the second volume dedicated to his electronic works, again restored from the best quality source materials. New high-resolution transfers were made of 'Polytope de Cluny' from the original analog master tapes. 'Hibiki hana ma' has been restored from the existing digital masters. 'Hibiki han…
The works of double bass
This disc contains the first complete recordings of Giacinto Scelsi's music for double bass. Volume 7 in Mode's acclaimed Scelsi Edition. Scelsi's infamous 'KO-THA I, II, Ill' -- for string instrument played lying on its back in a percussive manner -- is presented for the first time in an adaptation from the original for guitar by legendary bassist Fernando Grillo. Robert Black, internationally known as one of the leading bassists of our time, has also collaborated or performed with a diverse nu…
Kraanerg
Kraanerg (1968) for 23 instruments and 4-channel tape. Callithumpian Consort. Stephen Drury, conductor. First recording with restored analog tape. Kraanerg is one of Xenakis' most popular - and infamous - works. A visceral and highly charged score for woodwinds, brass, and strings along with quadrophonic tape. The title, Kraanerg, is a composite of two Greek words: 'kraan', meaning to perfect, to accomplish; and erg, signifying energy. Commissioned for the gala opening of the National Arts Centr…
The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan
10 years in the making, 2 films by Evans Chan trace the artist's life, career and pianism. Strumming the strings of a grand piano like a harp and performing Beethoven on toy piano are among the surprising scenes in Evans Chan's documentary, Sorceress of the New Piano (2004), which celebrates the trans-cultural career of Singapore-born, New York-based pianist Margaret Leng Tan, hailed by The New Yorker as 'the diva of avant-garde pianism.' Featured performers and critics include Joan LaBarbara, E…
Silenced Voices
The Barton Workshop & others. Frank Denyer & James Fulkerson, music directors. 'Woman, Viola and Crow' (2004) with Elisabeth Smalt, muted viola, voice, percussion sounds. 'Two Beacons' (2005) with Harma Everts, voice; Boris Visser, muted violin; Rozemarie Heggen, muted double-bass; Neil Sorrell, sarangi; Tobias Liebezeit & Juan Martinez Cortès, percussion; Jos Zwaanenburg, Melkorta Olafsdottir, Ayano Akubo, flutes; Joeri de Vente, horn; Yula Andrews, Ella Dangerfield, Catherine Guy, Lucinda Guy,…
Etudes Boreales • Ryoanji
Very scarce John Cage album released on Mode Records in the early eighties. "This two-record set collects some terrific performances in solo and duo contexts and is also quite a fine welcome mat into the Cage . By comparing different versions of "Etudes Boreales" -- first piano solo, then cello solo, then combined -- much can be gleaned about the way this composer thinks, a endlessly interesting subject in itself. The individual players are virtuosos not only in playing but thinking as well, com…
Centre Bridge: Electroacoustic Works
Much of Frances White's music is inspired by her love of nature, and her electronic works frequently include natural sound recorded near her home in central New Jersey. This is the first complete disc of White's electroacoustic works, both with or without instruments. This disc is titled Centre Bridge because it has inspired two of the works contained on it. But beyond this, it is because the role that the bridge has played in White's work is so characteristic of her music. Her music is about li…
Tracer - Chamber Works 1952-1999
Earle Brown first encountered the work of Alexander Calder in 1948, whose mobile sculptures Brown saw as a visual embodiment of the variable (impermanent) aesthetic that he was striving to create. This Calder aesthetic stayed with Brown throughout his several stylistic shifts. Whether he was writing twelve-tone serial music (Music for Violin, Cello, and Piano), conceptual graphic scores (Folio and Four Systems), composed material open form scores (String Quartet, New Piece and Tracer), or sponta…
The Marvelous Aphorisms of Gavin Bryars: The Eearly Years
Gavin Bryars' music, post 'The Sinking of the Titanic' and 'Jesus' Blood...', is well known and often performed today. Less known are the earlier works featured on this cd, created during the years 1969-71. At that time, Bryars became associated with Michael Nyman, John Tilbury and Brian Eno - marrying ideas from Cage, Fluxus, free improvisation and experimentalism. Some of the works recorded here appeared on Eno's avant-garde Obscure label in the mid-1970s. In 1, 2, 1-2-3-4, the musicians liste…
Sketch of Now
Tim Hodgkinson co-founded the politically and musically radical free-jazz/progressive rock group Henry Cow in 1968, which also featured guitarist Fred Frith. He regards his membership in this group, with the opportunity to work closely and collectively with other instrumentalists in developing new sound worlds, as the foundation of his musical education. In addition to composing, Hodgkinson continues to perform as an improviser (clarinets, saxes and keyboards) and considers the practice of impro…
Disseminate
Phill Niblock (born in Indiana, 1933) is a seminal figure in "drone" music who crosses the Downtown and Improv scenes. A characteristic of Niblock's drone style is its subtle, gradual alteration of pitch which leads one to lose a sense of "time" and draws one deeper and deeper into the sound itself. The remarkable thing is that Niblock achieves this effect by almost always using traditional acoustic instruments. Niblock is an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video and com…
Volume 2: Electronics Works
Multi-channel electronic works in Surround Sound. Morton Subotnick was a phenomenon in the late '60s, the first composer to write substantial works for synthesizer that had a wide audience. He has been mentor to generations of composers, and his influence is so pervasive that it would be impossible to trace completely - the electronica movement, for one, reveres him. This release brings together two of his classic analog electronic works which were previously only available on LP.
First recordings: 1950s
A remarkable discovery of over 75 minutes of Morton Feldman's music. This disc represents 13 unrecorded early works spanning 1950 to 1953, many previously unpublished. Highlights: his only works for magnetic tape, 'Intersection,' realized in 8-channels by Feldman with John Cage and Earle Brown. Considered lost, the work has been restored and presented here for the first time in 40 years. Also: his score for 2 cellos to Hans Namuth's film of Jackson Pollock, presented in its entirety including na…
Triadic Memories
Marilyn Nonken (piano) plays 'Triadic memories'. The place Triadic memories takes us is full of illusions, not only of function and direction but also of timelessness and stasis. Recorded from the pianist's perspective, it gives the listener the unique opportunity to hear all of the small nuances and overtones which can be lost in the concert hall. There is no indication of tempo. For this recording, Ms. Nonken chose a steady eighth-note pulse throughout that approximates the heart rate at rest.…