Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff, born in Nice in 1934 and raised in New York, is an American composer and the youngest member of the New York School around John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. From the early 1950s his scores left more and more to the players, with cues taken from what the others do, so that performers become co-composers. Burdocks (1971), for any number of musicians, is the best known example. A classicist by profession, he taught at Harvard and then at Dartmouth for decades. From the 1970s his political commitment entered the music through workers' songs and protest tunes, and his later pieces explore fragile tonal relationships with the same openness.
Christian Wolff, born in Nice in 1934 and raised in New York, is an American composer and the youngest member of the New York School around John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. From the early 1950s his scores left more and more to the players, with cues taken from what the others do, so that performers become co-composers. Burdocks (1971), for any number of musicians, is the best known example. A classicist by profession, he taught at Harvard and then at Dartmouth for decades. From the 1970s his political commitment entered the music through workers' songs and protest tunes, and his later pieces explore fragile tonal relationships with the same openness.
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks (LP)
1972 album on Wergo's great "Studio Reihe Neuer Musik" experimental music series with two avant-garde solo piano pieces from the 1950's plus the classic partly indeterminated instrumental composition from 1971 performed by an all-star group including…
John Cage / Christian Wolff (LP)
1970 re-issue on Mainstream of the 1963 split LP on Time Records experimental music series curated by Earl Brown, with Cage's 1960 wild noise/industrial (20 years in advance) electronic piece performed with David Tudor, backed with three compostions …
Sounday 15-6-78 (book)
Rare fully illustrated hommage to the composer published as the program for the 1978 première and recording of Sounday by KRO Radio in Holland, with texts by Pierre Boulez, Merce Cunningham, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, etc..
John Cage, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, George Crumb, Lejaren Hiller, Christian Wolff, Stefan Wolpe, Jacob Druckman, Leon Kirchner
The Avant Garde String Quartet In The U.S.A. (3LP box)Cage's beautiful and unusual 1950 string quartet in a monumental compilation released as a 3LP box set by Vox in 1973 with a who's who of the American avant-garde, including Crumb's and Kirchner's outstanding quartets with electric amplification and …
A Second Wind For Organ (LP)
Great 1967 album on Odyssey's "Music Of Our Time" avant-garde music series produced by David Behrman with three experimental works for organ performed by David Tudor, including Mumma's amazing ear-splitting Mesa.
Eight Lectures on Experimental Music (Book)
In this brilliant collection, path-breaking figures of American experimental music discuss the meaning of their work at the turn of the twenty-first century. Presented between 1989 and 2002 at Wesleyan University, these captivating lectures provide r…
Trios
Trios is a collaboration between five musicians, over time, and over space. It combines instrumental and electronic improvisation with non-real-time computer processing and editing. Chris Mann, Douglas Repetto, and Larry Polansky recorded several hou…
Air Maul - An Arnold Schönberg, 5860 Canyon-Cove, Hollywood, CA (2LP)
A strange 2LP compilation released by Murawski-Zimmermann Verlag in 1988 as a hommage to Arnold Schönberg, with piece for voices and intruments by Hans-Joachim Hespos, Howard Skempton, Dieter Schnebel, Christian Wolff, Michael Rumpf and Kurt Schwitte…
On Foot
2011 release **
"Shepard, in 2005, set himself the task of hiking 250 miles across Switzerland, composing a new piece each day (performing it as well, in some public setting). Six of these works are collected here, performed by various Wandelweiser-i…
Goodbye 20th Century
25th Anniversary Edition. Goodbye 20th Century is a double album of covers of Avant-garde recordings by Sonic Youth and collaborators. SYR4 features works by avant-garde classical composers such as John Cage, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich, and Christian Wolf…
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks (LP)
Original 1972 LP of Christian Wolff's seminal chance compositions featuring David Tudor, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, etc. on Wergo’s legendary Studio Reihe Neuer Musik series. Complete with insert.
Long Piano
The melodic and, in the case of the solo piano music, timbral materials from which Christian Wolff's (b 1934) music is made are rarely unusual; these are ordinary, everyday things. However, Wolff's rhythmic invention is of great range and variety: co…
An Anthology
Essential and visually stunning 1963 anthology edited by Young and Maciunas featuring most of the artist who would be take part in Fluxus. Very rare second edition published in 1970 of this important book.
The Possibility of A New Work for Electric Guitar
Other Minds is proud to present The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar, a new limited-edition 12” 45 RPM vinyl disc of music by Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff, performed by Wolff and Wendy Eisenberg. Side A features two performances of…
Sveglia
In May 2022, at the age of 88, Christian Wolff performed once again at AngelicA, nine years after the monographic concerts the festival had dedicated to him in 2013 (documented on the cd album Angelica Music, IDA 030). Among the greatest and most sin…
A Complete Anthology Of Solo And Duo Violin Pieces
Black Truffle is pleased to announce its second release from New York violin duo String Noise (Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris), following on from their self-titled double-disc collection of compositions by Alvin Lucier (BT061). Here they presen…
Trio IX / Exercises
The American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934) is the last living representative of the New York School (Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc.). Wolff was not even an adult when he studied with Grete Sultan and John Cage. Wolff’s music was much more politicall…
I Like To Think Of Harriet Tubman
Chamber works by Christian Wolff from 1950 to 1987, mostly first recordings, including the Serenade written at sixteen, the Harriet Tubman setting for voice and trio, and For Morty, played by The Barton Workshop under James Fulkerson.
3 String Quartets
Starting with his music of the 1960s and early 1970s, with works such as For 1, 2 or 3 People (1964), the Prose Collection (1968–71), and Changing the System (1974), Christian Wolff (b. 1934) quietly re-invented chamber music. He created music in whi…
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks
With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-centur…