In Memory Of James Tenney
2015 release ** "The tromba marina is a huge single-stringed instrument, played with a bow. For "in memory of james tenney", in four parts, Möller and Maldfeld each wrestle with one such beast, using instruments from the 17th and early 18th centuries. And f it's grain you want, step right up--this thing, especially Part I, sounds like the bow is severely serrated, close to being able to saw wood. A huge rumble that encloses myriad tones high to low. Think of an Eliane Radigue cello piece with yo…
Voiceless Mass
Big Tip! Listening is the foundation of Raven Chacon’s (b. 1977) wide-ranging artistic practice. “I am a listener,” he simply declares, but the attention he gives to sound is complex and vast, encompassing far more than what is immediately audible. From his earliest works, Chacon has been dedicated to amplifying the unheard, calling attention to what is absent or unknown. Although Chacon classifies the compositions on this recording as chamber music, all three of these works “zigzag” through his…
Orbits • Western Springs • Hieroglyphics 3
1999 release ** "In 1950 Henry Brant began to write spatial music of a particular kind in which the planned positioning of the performers throughout the hall, as well as on stage, is an essential factor in the composing scheme. This procedure, which limits and defines the contrasted music assigned to each performing group, takes as its point of departure the ideas of Charles Ives. Brant's principal works since 1950 are all spatial; his catalogue now comprises nearly 100 such works, each for a di…
The Henry Brant Collection, Vol. 2
2004 release ** Let no-one say that Henry Brant, America’s senior experimental composer, doesn’t have a sense of humor. If Charles Ives had been into Monty Python it would not have reached the heights of epic grandeur and inspired lunacy heard on this second volume of Henry Brant works. Here are three concertos: a triple concerto for Oberlin College’s zaniest, a violin concerto for Daniel Kobialka (violin wizard of the San Francisco Symphony), and a double bass concerto for Lewis Paer (who has r…
Savage Altars
2006 release ** "Savage Altars alternates rather abruptly between spooky and harrowing sections of rhythmic choral chanting and drop-dead gorgeous interlocking scalar passages that almost seem to float in suspended bliss. Its structure is somewhat episodic: one section begins and ends, followed by the next section, and so forth, which creates the feel of an unfolding procession or ritual (and does so more effectively in its concise 20 minutes than John Taverner's bloated The Veil Of The Temple d…
Luciano Berio, Salvatore Sciarrino, Luca Francesconi, Ludovico Einaudi, Armando Gentilucci, Giorgio Federico Ghedini
Ricorrenze1990 release ** Luciano Berio: Ricorrenze Salvatore Sciarrino: Quintettino #2 Luca Francesconi: Attesa Ludovico Einaudi: Ai margini dell' aria Armando Gentilucci: Cile 1973 Giorgio Federico Ghedini: Quintetto #1 "The collection here draws together pieces from the "hard" wing of post-World War II composers. The Arnold Quintet plays all this music with flair, wit, and understanding. Berio is probably the best-known name on the disc, and I enjoyed his Ricorrenze ("Recurrence") more than the other p…
Memoires D'Oubli - Stream - Portrait de Genevieve Asse - Empreintes Nocturnes
1993 release (RARE) ** "This disc, which brings together recent works with two pieces from 1981, allows for a very interesting journey. It is here with Bernard Noël, a relentless questioner of our language, that these Mémoires d’oubli open. With a philharmonic orchestra at its best, which is not always the case when playing contemporary music, the singer Helen Merrill and Bernard Noël himself bring to life a text that goes from simple phonemes to a beautiful poem on the theme of the face. Instru…
Episodes And Collisions: Chamber Music And Songs
2008 release ** "The composer Jørgen Plaetner (1930-2002) is well known as one of Scandinavia's electronic music pioneers. His electronic works from the 1960s remain among the most original of their kind. However, Plaetner also has a more traditional side and wrote a large number of acoustic works.One of the big chamber works from Plaetner's late period is the trio Episodes and Collisions. It was written in 1996 for LINensemble with its combination of clarinet, cello and piano. Jørgen Plaetner h…
Live 2
1990 release **
Early Piano Music
2002 release ** "This CD mainly consists of very early pieces by Arthur Vincent Lourié, heavily under the spell of Scriabin & Romanticism."
Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone
For her new and most radical album "Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone", Martina Bertoni used the electronic instrument at EMS Stockholm to create four pieces that are massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming—almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.
Luigi Nono w/ Ludwig van Beethoven, First Visit
The relationship between Ludwig van Beethoven’s "op. 132 string quartet" and Luigi Nono’s "Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima" spans 155 years while sharing several conceptual dimensions – among them, their respective composers’ intense idealism in the pursuit of art as a transformational, unifying experience; their utopian visions of political and social justice; and the struggle to translate a profound personal expression into a consequential public reality. - Art Lange
Obras Electroacústicas 1969-1981
Eduardo Polonio (1941–2024) was one of the foundational figures in the emergence and development of electroacoustic music in Spain. The anthology "Eduardo Polonio: Obra electroacústica 1969–1981" revives his legacy with a selection of essential pieces from his early electroacoustic period. The album includes eight compositions created between 1969 and 1981, spanning from Polonio's early experiments at the Alea Electronic Music Laboratory in Madrid to his later work at the Phonos Laboratory in Ba…
The Rest Is Silence – Music Of Our Time
*2025 stock* "Stefan Winter, head of the Winter & Winter boutique label, has a different attitude to popularising classical music. Rather than relying on the familiarity of old favourites, he believes that contemporary classical music is more accessible than its ascetic, atonal reputation suggests, and can find an audience outside its assumed intellectual elite. Hence this compilation of excerpts from the label's catalogue…" - The Independent"Winter & Winter is something of a special case when i…
Chorbuch, Les Inventions d'Adolphe Sax
*2025 stock* This Winter & Winter cd of 'Chorbuch' and 'Les Inventions d' Adolphe Sax', recorded in December 2007, was Mauricio Kagel’s last recording, delayed due to unexpected death in the year 2008. The centrepiece of the album, 'Les Inventions d' Adolphe Sax' was commissioned by the Nederlands Kamerkoor, who invited the acclaimed Raschèr Quartet to participate. As a premiere recording and with Kagel’s artistic participation a masterpiece was created. The Nederlands Kamerkoor and Mauricio Kag…
Kantrimiusik
*2025 stock* “There is freshness, there is (self) irony, there is a desire - and for once let's say it without shame - to have fun with music. [...] Nature triumphs in all its aspects: noises and sounds of birds, pouring rain, thunder, animal cries, alternating on the lines of a fiddle violin.” - Corriere di Bologna
The Mauricio Kagel Edition
"It's fascinating, and a wonderful reminder of how fresh and unique Kagel's place in the history of music in the last half-century is." - The Guardian
Die Stücke der Windrose
2025 stock "Kagel's witty intelligence objectifies the ordinary to create important art." - The Wire
Schwarzes Madrigal
*2025 stock* "In composing a piano trio, I fulfilled a long-fostered desire. This is a genre which, like the string quartet tradition, can slightly intimidate any composer. I too waited patiently but anxiously to make my own contribution. The pre-history of the piece is closely tied to my Music Epic about the devil, La Trahison orale (Oral Betrayal), which I wrote in 1981-83. When conceiving this work, I had already decided to compose character pieces, relatively short numbers with a particular …