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Piano and String Quartet
A late work of extraordinary sensual beauty, realised by Apartment House, and – at 79’50” - only just fitting on a standard CD. Not to be missed
Verses
Another Timbre presents Verses, five chamber and solo works by the Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman. "I have been thinking about what is inside and what is outside. The everyday life and tragedy of what goes on around you, and the fact that to accomplish anything you need the isolation in the studio - I think about this moral issue. And then on another level, I think about an inside and an outside for art itself, and how ephemeral that is.... What I am looking for is a way to notate the mo…
Ballad
Two pieces for cello and piano by Canadian composer Linda Catlin Smith, both performed by Anton Lukoszevieze (cello) and Kerry Yong (piano). "In Ballad (45 minutes in duration) I was extending myself into a longer work; I wanted to make a work that could be the entire concert, that could unfold over a longer time. With Through the Low Hills (10 minutes), I was working with a very restricted vocabulary in a process of constrained variation, working and re-working just a few elements. I felt like …
Best that You Do This for Me
A 50-minute composition for string trio by the Japan-based musical pioneer and experimentalist. Commissioned by Anton Lukoszevieze of Apartment House, who perform it beautifully.
Brief interview with Anton Lukoszevieze
Why did you choose to commission a piece from Jim O'Rourke for Apartment House, and how did you know his work?
I have known of Jim for a long time, mainly through his work with Merce Cunningham’s dance company, who I also performed with at the very end of their time. But I had n…
Sculthorpe Studies
Wonderful engaged and engaging music by the young Western Australian composer Josten Myburgh. ‘Sculthorpe Studies’ combines harmonies taken from the work of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe with field recordings made in Whadjuk Noongar in Western Australia.
Jet Kye Chong, percussion Jameson Feakes, electric guitar Djuna Lee, double bassStuart James, piano & electronics Kirsten Smith, flutes Josten Myburgh, alto saxophone & electronics
Hlaholika
Four chamber works by the Slovak composer Adrián Demoč, whose previous CD ‘Ziadba’ was extremely well-received. Apartment House again on three of the tracks, with one piece played by a Czech ensemble. The title track is the third of Another Timbre’s quarantine commissions. Stunningly beautiful music.Interview with Adrián Demoč by Lukáš Borzik:
Let’s start at the end of the disc, with the final track – the duo for violin and double bass, because I know you’re particularly fond of it. What is i…
Jankélévitch Sextets
Apartment House play Antoine Beuger’s exquisite hour-long piece from 2004. Wonderfully immersive and absorbing sounds that feel as if they are touching eternity.
The way to go out
Three mysterious, shimmering chamber works by the Australian composer Newton Armstrong, performed by Plus Minus Ensemble and Séverine Ballon (cello) "In 1990 I was studying composition at university. I basically wanted to be Stravinsky. Chris Mann took an interest in me and I started spending a lot of time at his house, drinking tea and talking. He changed my mind about a lot of things and introduced me to people who were making music that excited me. The Melbourne experimental scene was thrivin…
Stain Ballads
Four chamber works by the Toronto-based composer Martin Arnold, whose previous album ‘The Spit Veleta’ sold out last year. Beautifully played by Apartment House. "There are number of ways that the word 'ballad' could be applied to a lot of the music I make - clearly, I'm devoted to lyrical (if endlessly meandering) melodies, slow melodies that invoke a kind of vague, indistinct sentimentality. But it's significant to me that the word 'ballad' comes from the from Old French balade, from Provençal…
All English Music is Greensleeves
Five pieces by the radical young Belgian composer, Maya Verlaak, impeccably performed by Apartment House, and the soloists Sarah Saviet (violin) and Mark Knoop (piano)"Subversion has destructive connotations. However, subversion can also mean reversing a current standard: being subversive can be anything that challenges an existing system. My approach to subversion doesn’t destroy current standards, but it uses the standards to create, while developing solutions to its own characteristics and p…
Parallel Words
Eventless Plot is the collective name for three musicians from Thessaloniki, Greece, who compose together. Vasilis Liolios, Aris Giatis and Yiannis Tsirikoglou have been collaborating in this way since they met as students 20 years ago. They bring in other musicians from Greece and Holland (where Yiannis now lives) as their compositions develop. The CD presents three of their recent and most compelling chamber works.
"The title reflects the basic idea of the composition. There is a contradiction…
Monument of Diamonds
Epic 45-minute microtonal composition by Kraig Grady, using a 17-tone scale, the Meta-Slendro tuning, created by Erv Wilson. Composed in 2020. The instruments were specially built or adapted for the unusual tuning system.
"The idea of Monuments came from the sound of the brass, in which I include the saxophone here. Brass seems to be used much less in newer music than strings, winds and percussion which is unfortunate. Since they are used less than strings or winds in new music, they seem to inv…
Repetition of the Same Dream
Five works for flute, percussion & electronics, recorded during Covid-19 lockdown in a church in Basel, Switzerland, March 2020. Commissioned by Another Timbre and performed by Mara Winter - flute and Clara de Asís - bowed objects, percussion & electronics.
"There were some pieces that I composed and others that were formed by Mara and I, where the roles of composer / performer dissolved into each other. ‘A passage through’ was composed specifically for Mara’s bass flute, also relating very much…
Let Pass My Weary Guiltless Ghost
Magnus Granberg and Skogen return with another exquisite hour-long piece recorded in Stockholm in November 2019. With Ko Ishikawa, Rhodri Davies, Toshimaru Nakamura, Simon Allen and others.Magnus Granberg - prepared piano & compositionKo Ishikawa - shoAnna Lindal - violinLeo Svensson Sander - celloSimon Allen - vibraphoneErik Carlsson - percussionHenrik Olsson - objectsPetter Wästberg - contact microphone, mixing board, loudspeakerToshimaru Nakamura - no-input mixing board
Fűr Biliana
Four chamber works for strings by the veteran German composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, performed by Biliana Voutchkova, with Michael Rauter and Nurit Stark. From a string trio from 1963 to a violin solo from 2018.
Unfurling
A 52-minute piece jointly composed and performed by Angharad Davies (violin), Klaus Lang (harmonium) and Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). Recorded during a residency at Dai Hall in Huddersfield, March 2020. Thanks to Ryoko Akama.
The Fish That Became the Sun
This CD offers the first recording of Frank Denyer's extraordinary hour-long piece for large ensemble The Fish That Became the Sun (Songs of the Dispossessed), composed between 1991 and 1996. The ensemble includes a huge number of home-made percussion instruments made from discarded materials, as well as obscure instruments such as eunuch flutes, ocarinas and crumhorns. The album comes with a booklet with notes by Frank Denyer and an essay by Michael Turnbull.Musicians include:Octandre Ensemble …
Among the Tarnished Stars / Quatuor pour la fin du temps
The UK ensemble Apartment House performs two works: Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du Temps in six movements, and Linda Catlin Smith's Among the Tarnished Stars, taking a fresh modern approach to the Messiaen, drawing out its experimental character, and the sense of drama and intricate gradations of sonority in Smith's rich and mysterious work.
Awirë
Cyril Bondi, Pierre-Yves Martel and Christoph Schiller formed a trio in 2017 and recorded a set of studio pieces which became the CD Tse, which was released on Another Timbre in 2018. The CD was very successful and has nearly sold out. On the back of that CD, the trio did a brief tour of Europe in October 2018, and played at Cafe OTO in London together with violinist Angharad Davies. The trio played a set, followed by a solo by Angharad, and then for the final piece the trio joined forces with A…
Windfell
James Weeks’ major work for singing violinist, Windfell, has been released on the leading British experimental music label Another Timbre. Written for and performed by Canadian violinist Mira Benjamin, Windfell debuted in October / November 2017 at concerts in London and in Durham University’s Klang series. Lasting almost an hour, Windfell arose from ‘an image of the violin surrounded by space and open air: on top of a hill, high-up and remote, played only by the wind. On this ‘wind fell’ the br…