Stop Playing
Wolfgang Mitterer is playing the organ and leaves no tone unturned. The composer beams the traditional instrument straight into the 21st century – feel free to follow suit!The organ is a machine, and Wolfgang Mitterer certainly knows how to operate machines. Quite early on his passion for this complex instrument got hooked up to the manifold possibilities available in a digital studio setting; so, meanwhile the Austrian composer has become both: a much admired contemporary organist with a pencha…
3 Liederzyklen
Wolfgang Rihm sets poems from Heiner Müller, Hermann Lenz and Rainer Maria Rilke to music. Listen to a living document about one of the most important lied composers of our time.Wolfgang Rihm’s confrontations with the written word hold a special place among the more than 400 compositions he has written in the course of his long career. The composer, highly versed in reflecting on his own approaches and techniques, expands the textual material instead of labeling it, adding additional levels of m…
Sonatas
Markus Hinterhäuser shows us a terrific interpretation of the piano sonatas from the russian composer. Massive music!They say that Galina Ustvolskaya led a very secluded life, that she was a loner. It is amazing, though, how distinct an image of her emerges from the almost meditative way in which she immersed herself in structures, dynamics and combinations of pitches. And not only that. You can hear the concentration on her work and the contrasts within the scope of an existence, some even say…
Stanze
In his interpretation of the music from Osvaldo Coluccino, Alfonso Alberti takes us by the hand to lead us part of the way through our innermost being.What we hear seems like fractured piano music, like notes and sounds scattered in space: in his “Stanze,” Osvaldo Coluccino uses the piano’s resonant body to generate resonances in the spaces within us. He removes the windows, eliminates all opulence, and confronts us with environments that lie within ourselves. The light and the dimensions keep c…
Macbeth
The unspeakable evil in three nameless acts: We proudly present Salvatore Sciarrino’s Macbeth, recorded at the 2011 Salzburg Festival, released for the first time as an audio document!The infiltration of microorganisms of sound, restless reticence, ephemeral slitherings, whisperings, whizzings ... – and all of it develops a kind of intensity only the great Italian master is capable of creating. Salvatore Sciarrino’s opera Macbeth was presented in the fifth, and final, year of the Kontinent serie…
Live in LSO St. Luke's, London
Iancu Dumitrescu 'Extreme point of gravity' (2009) for ensemble (Hyperion & Talea Ensemble). 'Le silence d'or (V)' (2009) for ensemble and computer sounds. Ana-Maria Avram 'Telesma (X)' for three percussion groups and computer sounds (G. Aguilar, P. Teodorescu, A. Lipovsky). 'Textures (III) / Penumbra' for two bass clarinets (Rane Moore and Tim Hodgkinson) and ensemble (Hyperion & Talea Ensemble).
Live in Israel
Iancu Dumitrescu 'Liminal involvement' for ensemble. 'Le silence d'or' (Israel version) for ensemble and computer sounds. Ana-Maria Avram 'Lux animae XII' for ensemble and computer sounds. 'Telesma' (Israel version) for bass clarinet, ensemble and computer sounds. Contemporary Music Ensemble from Tel Aviv under direction Ilan Volkov with special guest Stephen O'Malley.
Einstein on the Beach
Composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, launched its creators to international success when it was first produced in Avignon, France, in 1976, with subsequent performances in Europe and in New York at the Metropolitan Opera. It is still recognized as one of their greatest masterpieces. Now, nearly four decades after it was first performed and 20 years since its last production, Ein…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 6
The sixth and final volume in Wergo's acclaimed series of recordings, Earle Brown - A Life in Music completes the label's reissue of the eighteen LPs of Earle Brown's legendary Contemporary Sound Series, recorded between 1960 and 1973. The first disc in the set contains works by John Cage and Christian Wolff from the early 1960s. Disc two presents violinist Paul Zukofsky accompanied by pianist Gilbert Kalish in works by Crumb, Yun, Wuorinen and Cage. The final disc contains works by South Americ…
Double Dupe Down
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Zeena Parkins is a keyboardist, harpist and composer who has worked closely with Fred Frith, Bjork, Ikue Mori and many others. Her brilliant work for dance has earned her three Bessie Awards, and her own bands have toured the world for over twenty years to great acclaim. This special compilation brings together her best compositions written for film and features some of the greatest musicians in the downtown scene. An endlessly creative collection of work by…
Madrigale
We know the mantra all too well: If I love it, what can I do but repeat it? If I repeat it, what can I do but get bored with it? One answer might be (must be): to make out of its repetition something infinitely variable. This Clementi has done for the last twenty years. He has found a technician's answer to the familiar question of what to do, musically, with the compulsive nature of memory, the obstinate tenacity of the Proustian 'petite phase'. Beethoven and Brahms exorcised this power, this c…
Fremde Zeit Addendum
4CD Box edition. Ranked #4 in the the Wire's Rewind 2012 best-of list. Three CD box collection with a 16-page booklet. "Experimental German composer Jakob Ullmann creates quiet music in order to give himself and his listeners the opportunity to hear more, and better. This comes about because our ability to hear is augmented when listening to quiet music. We hear better because we make an effort to hear better. That is why Ullmann likes to locate his sound-sources at the periphery, so as not to m…
Imagination at play. Prix Italia and Radiophonic Experimentation
Finally restocked! After five years of intense, passionate and sometimes painful work Die Schachtel (in collaboration with RAI) is proud to announce the release of the long-awaited massive Book (Edited by Angela Ida de Benedictis and Maddalena Novati) with 6CDs boxed edition dedicated to some of the most compelling Italian radio works which took part in the prestigious Prix Italia, a world-famous contest established by the RAI (the National Italian broadcasting company) in the early Sixties and …
The Number Pieces 6
New York based ensemble Essential Music had a strong relationship with John Cage in his later years. This experience gives these recordings a special authority. Recorded in 1993-94, they are being released for the first time. In 1987 John Cage began writing his “number” and “time-bracket” compositions, which became his primary compositional method for the remainder of his life. These works are named for the number of musicians participating, consist of the number of parts with no com…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 3
The voice as instrument, the temple bell as orchestra, the piano as detonator. Vol. 3 of Earle Brown's Contemporary Sound Series traces three radical propositions about sound and its sources - each originating from a different continent, each redefining what was possible within its medium.
The first disc belongs to Cathy Berberian. Originally issued on Time Records in 1962, it captures the American mezzo-soprano - then based in Milan and married to Luciano Berio - at the height of her extraordin…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 1
Few figures of the American avant-garde wore as many hats as Earle Brown. Composer, graphic notation pioneer, member of the New York School alongside John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff - but also, and crucially, a record producer whose ear shaped one of the most important document series in 20th century music. Between 1960 and 1973, working first for Time Records and then Mainstream Records, Brown curated the Contemporary Sound Series - 18 LPs presenting works by 49 composers from 16…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 4
"Wergo's reissues of the legendary Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series have been a big hit with fans of contemporary music around the world. Each set is a treasure-trove of works by a wide range of composers, performed by some of the finest musicians of the time. The three CDs of volume four feature string quartets by Boulez, Scelsi and Earle Brown, works for chamber orchestra by Xenakis, Aldo Clementi, Bo Nilsson, Wlodzimierz Kotonski and Yuji Takahashi and works by Milko Kelemen, Niccolo Cas…
Piano Piano
Bureau B reissues Piano Piano by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1991 on the Italian label Materiali Sonori. In classical music, "pp" (piano piano = pianissimo) is a dynamic indication of particularly soft music. And Piano Piano is a very soft, quiet album. Roedelius assumes the role of a fairytale character with his piano music, transported to a strange, fantastical landscape where, filled with awe and amazement, he tries to get his bearings. What he see…
Early Works
Indispensable 180g vinyl pressing of eight super-important compositions by the "Father of Electronic Music" dating back to 1923! Most notably - for us at least - it includes the incredible percussion pieces 'Ionisation' and 'Integrales' played by the Julliard Percussion Ensemble which are worth the admission alone - but then you've also got the three tape pieces 'Interpolations I, II, III' from 'Déserts' circa 1950-54 which seals the deal: ESSENTIAL** "The French-born Edgar Varèse (1853-1…