Composition / All styles

2002 release ** "This CD mainly consists of very early pieces by Arthur Vincent Lourié, heavily under the spell of Scriabin & Romanticism."

After a first album made up of 11 pieces from Tombstones by Michael Pisaro-Liu — works with delicate tones and dusty melodies that wrap us in an intimate atmosphere — the musicians of the Muzzix collective, brought together under the direction of Barbara Dang, present this second recording, which completes the entire collection. This new opus continues the sonic exploration: timbres become more diverse, textures thicken, and silence — in its rawest materiality or its faintest breaths — becomes a…

* Edition of 500 * Marc Sabat's Gioseffo Zarlino is "the third in a series of pieces inspired by ideas in the history of music theory, which I seek to experience and unfold in a sounding world" (taken from the liner notes by the composer). In the piece, unfolding cyclically over 70 minutes, voices, strings, harp, and flute, weave through each other exploring a novel tonal space developed by the Renaissance Italian Composer-Theorist, Gioseffo Zarlino in 1558 and reinterpreted in the 21st Century …

A 50 minute solo for viola d'amore played by Marco Fusi. The piece was composed in 2022-2023, and has six movements.

2007 release ** "In Very Slow Disco Suite (2006), De Bièvre slows down a disco song from 120 bpm to 20 bpm. Against this languid harmonic background, three musicians play material that is dictated at random by a microcontroller. In this way, De Bièvre tried to guarantee the spontaneity of the performance."

2000 release (visible storage wear) ** "These ten singular compositions by Gregorio share one thing in common: a rare ability to express astonishing collages of sound, interspersed with outstanding individual improvisation, resulting in surprisingly accessible sounds that baffle as they fully absorb the listener. In an incisive essay the composer cites varieties of constructivism and concrete art as influences and wisely eschews the self-expression of so much of free improvisation in favor of ".…

1995 release (visible storage wear) **

The music of Fabien Lévy thrives on ambiguity, paradox and sonic illusion. With a deep interest in cognitive perception, he creates complex textures where clarity meets mystery, virtuosity blends with playfulness, and every composition becomes a daring exploration. Influenced by spectralism and his mentors Grisey and Risset, Lévy embraces musical allusions – from visual arts to world traditions – creating pieces that challenge and transform the listener’s perception. Whether through kaleidophoni…

*2025 stock* Austrian composer Thomas Larcher’s new album features premiere recordings of three strongly contrasting works. The Times has hailed Larcher’s music as a world “of haunting landscapes and dreams, stylistically disparate but fused by the composer’s astonishing ear and quizzical attitude to traditional forms”, a description borne out by the compositions here. The Living Mountain, for soprano and ensemble, draws upon the memoir of the Scottish poet and nature writer Nan Shepherd. Unerzä…

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-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.Werdo's  unique “Studio Reihe” series continues with Christian Wolff:  The works by Wolff recorded on this CD by the legendary pianists David Tudor and Frederic Rzewski and their …

2005 release ** "Bending the Tonic (2004), a work for ensemble that November Music commissioned De Bièvre to compose. In this work, a computer records all the audio signals of the musicians (except for those of the contrabass and percussion) and plays these signals back according to a fixed temporal system. The harmonic basis is formed by a stereotypical blues progression, that De Bièvre stretches over 144 measures. The title refers to the importance of the tonic in blues music."

2024 stock. "My intention … was to explore those situations in which a loss of orientation leads us more deeply into the moment itself. There is a certain aquatic feel to the music, in which the performers are joined with a complex and sonorous fabric of computer generated sound. […] The work is twenty minutes long, divided into three roughly equal sections. In the first, the primary aim of the performers is to match, submit to and intensify the taped sounds. The second, in which the synthesized…

Idiosyncratic, large-scale and in its fundamental disposition one of a kind, Florian Weber’s Imaginary Cycle, conceived for the unique instrumentation of brass ensemble and piano, is a hybrid of multiple musical languages that seamlessly blends the harmonious with the oblique. Here Weber presents a cycle in four parts, plus an opening and an epilogue, in which the German pianist is joined by a group of four euphoniums, a trombone quartet as well as flautist Anna-Lena Schnabel and Michel Godard o…

1994 release ** "Ivo Janssen recorded these works more than 30 years ago. The album presents music by Dutch composers written between 1964 and 1991. Janssen plays these pieces with great authority. "Men Go Their Ways", by Ton de Leeuw,consists of 5 movements and is inspired by a Haiku poem. It is dedicated to Xenakis. I think the piece would be best heard in a resonant, small concert hall in which the delicate reverberated effects could come alive more effectively than over speakers. The movemen…

Katharina Rosenberger's Tempi Agitati, a vocal work for Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart that sets Petrarch's texts alongside madrigals by Willaert and Rore, using extended vocal techniques. Complete Petrarch texts are included.

Felipe Lara’s Chamber Works for Strings redefines the ensemble as a resonating body, where strings become vocal cords and bows breathe sound into existence. In Corde Vocale and Tran(slate), the quartet is not a polite conversation but a raw, elemental force – organic, urgent, and monstrous. Sonare unfolds in processional waves, while Archi elastici stretches time to its breaking point, embodying breath itself. With Postcard and Prisma, Lara explores dialogue and divergence. Across these works, t…

Danish composer and multiinstrumentalist Anders Lauge Meldgaard and the innovative string trio Halvcirkel are thrilled to announce the release of their collaborative album, Spirit. This extraordinary fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds will be available on March 20th, 2025, on vinyl and digital platforms through the Copenhagen-based experimental label År & Dag. Spirit invites the listener to experience an intricate interplay, where melodic lines and creative textures from the string players…

*200 copies limited edition* Sullivan Johns is a composer and musician from the UK. He studied at Leeds Conservatoire and Leeds Arts University. His previous release, Assembled Parts (Rusted Tone Recordings - 2022), constructs a narrative on themes of loss, grief and memory using minimal drones and field recordings. Described by Bandcamp New and Notable as "Striking experimental compositions that conjure both childhood joy and icy terror”, pieces from Assembled Parts were Broadcast on BBC Radio …

This album contains three works by Seamus Cater, including his creative response to the work of Alexander John Ellis (1814-1890), who presented a paper 'The History of Musical Pitch' to the Royal Society in 1880. Ellis was a mathematician, collector, philologist and musical enthusiast, who spent a lot of time measuring the exact frequencies of contemporary and ancient musical instruments, and so is remembered as one of the founders of comparative musicology. Two of the pieces on the disc are 're…

*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Block Gifts is a collection of three works for organs composed by James Rushford between 2015 and 2018. Using harmonium, portative organ and electric organ, each piece is linked by Rushford’s idiosyncratic combination of strict intervallic systems in different tunings (Werckmeister, quarter-tone, equal temperament), and haptically-informed rhythmic and expressive freedom. Creaks, stutters and sweeping fingers on keys become instrumental sounds…

*2025 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Håkon Thelin is a generation-defining double bassist whose exuberant musicality and high-level technique have been heard in a wide array of album releases and concert performances over the past 25 years. Known both as an interpreter of contemporary music, where the notes resemble mathematical equations with both 8 and 9 unknowns, the musically omnivorous three-headed troll Poing with Frode Haltli and Rolf-Erik Nystrøm, and as a composer of both solo and e…

A prolific composer, performer, and author, Curtis Roads says he “pursues research in the interdisciplinary territory spanning music and technology.” He was Editor and Associate Editor of Computer Music Journal (The MIT Press) from 1978 to 2000, co-founded the International Computer Music Association in 1979, and was a pioneer in the development of granular synthesis. Roads developed the Creatophone, a system for spatial projection of sound in concert, as well as the Creatovox, an expressive new…

*2022 stock* John Cage's first manifesto, written in 1937, was called The Future of Music: Credo, and the future it described was an "all-sound music" open to every kind of noise. This volume of Wergo's Edition John Cage follows that idea across three decades, from the prepared piano of the 1940s to the vocal and spoken works of the 1970s. Sonata XIII, from the Sonatas and Interludes, and Music for Marcel Duchamp are pieces for prepared piano, played by Peter Roggenkamp: screws, bolts and rubber…

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-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.The "Studio Reihe”now continues with a work by Arnold Schönberg:  The premiere of Schoenberg's first stage work "Erwartung (Monodram)" [Expectation (Monodrama)] Op. 17, composed i…

*2022 stock* It may come as a surprise but one of the leading creators of keyboard music in the twentieth century is a composer by the name of John Cage. Cage’s reputation is so deeply associated with the avantgarde, with chance music, graphic notation, performance art, technology and Zen Buddhism that is early, conventionally-notated music for percussion ensemble and keyboards is sometimes neglected. Or was until recently. In the last few years – with the advent of performances and recordings l…

*2022 stock* This work began life as a radio play in 1982, a commission from and for Klaus Schöning and Cologne’s WDR. Working on the principles of collage, Cage brought together 15 unlikely characters – Narrator, James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Vocoder, Erik Satie, Jonathan Albert, Mao Tse Tung (as a child), Henry David Thoreau, Rrose Selavy, Thorstein Veblen, Buckminster Fuller, Brigham Young, and Robert Rauschenberg – who speak together, their dialogue comprised of literal quotations, freely ada…

György Ligeti's only opera, Le Grand Macabre, is an entertaining, taut piece of musical theatre that sits somewhere between parody and ominous seriousness, between clowning and wisdom. Based on Michel de Ghelderode's play and set in the imaginary land of Breughelland, it follows Nekrotzar, alias the Grand Macabre, who has not only ambitions to suck blood but apocalyptic visions: he wants to bring about the end of the world personally, and fails. Ligeti himself said its bizarre, exaggerated music…

2016 release ** The four works on this CD, ranging in date from 2004 to 2014, form an integral part of Andrzej Kwiecinski’s creative development and at the same time demonstrate his particular affinity with music for strings. Umbrae (2004) for string quintet. Mural (2008-10) for string quintet. Luci nella noote V (2014) for four string quartet. Contregambilles (2014) for string quartet. After studying composition, musicology and Baroque singing (countertenor) in Warsaw, Kwiecinski moved in 2005 …

1990 release **  Syrinx – Claude DebussyDensity 21.5 – Edgard VarèseMusica Su Due Dimensioni – Bruno MadernaSequenza I – Luciano BerioDas Atmende Klarsein (Fragment)– Luigi NonoCarceri D'Invenzione II/b – Brian FerneyhoughCome Vengono Prodotti Gli Incantesimi? – Salvatore SciarrinoCanzona Di Ringraziamento – Salvatore Sciarrino

1989 release ** Marubatoo (13:05) John Wyre Fauna (13:17) William CahnCymbal (11:55) Bob BeckerRain Tree (11:10) Toru TakemitsuRemembrance (9:36) Robin Engelman "This is a fine collection of pieces performed by one of the premier percussion ensembles in the world. The Canadian quintet Nexus approaches the notion of the percussion ensemble with an ear for innovation and a discipline for virtuosity. Nowhere is this clearer in this disc than on the album's centerpiece, "Cymbal," by group leader Bob…

A double CD with location recordings - recorded by Christophe Albertijn - of organ and carillon music plus a 32 page booklet of/for the unveiling of Katharina AW, a relational artwork by Joris Martens.

2025 stock ** ""Marcin Masecki, an outstanding Polish cross-genre pianist, composed the new work inspired by famous composition of Frederic Rzewski and invited another pianist Piotr Nowicki to perform it. Marcin Masecki (born 1982 in Warsaw) is an avant garde pianist. His father was a clarinetist who started playing musical games with him at age 3 and by age 7 Marcin took up piano. He began playing at clubs at age twelve and by the time he was fifteen, he had his own trio. In 2005 he won the mai…

1990 release (RARE) **  Ionisation (1933) Edgar Varèse 5:58Trio (1936) John Cage 3:56Canticle (1939) Lou Harrison 4:13Polifonica Monodia Ritmica (1951) Luigi Nono 8:50Gloria E Morte (Words By Marco Luzzi) Guido Facchin 1978 11:21Concerto Da Camera(1986) Roberto Beccaci 9:43Pavone, Mulo, Volpe (1987) Saverio Tasca 5:00Il Respiro Della Notte (Liric By Elena Budini) Luigi Celeghin (1989) 3:55Omaggio A Giocando Duchamp Vinci Leonardo Alfredo Tisocco (1975)

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…

1990 release ** Music by young French-Italian composers or performers of contemporary music: Griffith Rose, Enrico Correggia, Fabrizio De Rossi Re, Giulio Castagnoli, Mauro Cardi.

2008 release ** Lohengrin, Salvatore Sciarrino's "azione invisibile", is both a gloss on Wagner's opera and a sly debunking of it. It was conceived by its composer as an opera with action invisible, for one singer/actress who assumes all the charactersn Sciarrino's monodrama, based on one of Jules Laforgue's Moralités Légendaires, episodes from the story are viewed through the distinctly jaundiced eyes and ears of Elsa, the woman Lohengrin marries and then deserts. A single voice narrates and ta…

2000 release ** "“To awaken the ear well” was one of the goals of Luigi Nono in his last creative period, the 1980s and 20th century. Between pianissimo and complete silence, the listener is invited to unexpected sound adventures. Tense intensity with a sparse expression goes together with the breaking of clear coherence in a very concentrated and targeted manner. As one of his first works, the Variazioni from 1950 derives its substance from Arnold Schönberg, his posthumous father-in-law. The us…

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…

1992 release **  Felix Werder - Three Night Pieces Op. 121 (1972)    Klaus Hinrich Stahmer - König Wiedehopf (1981)    Frank Michael - Trio Op. 58 (1985)    Wolfgang Hildemann - Suoni Serale XI/XII (1989/90)    Klaus Hinrich Stahmer - Hallo - Georg Philipp! (1981)    Wilfried Jentzsch - Paysages FI G Für Flöte Und Computerklänge (1984) Flute, Alto Flute, Piccolo Flute – Hanna PatzeltFlute, Bass Flute, Alto Flute – Winfried Meier-EhratFlute, Piccolo Flute, Bass Flute – Frank MichaelGuitar – Andre…

1991 release ** "Electroacoustic chamber music. In the booklet Mikael Tosti is credited playing electroacoustic violin as well as Ko de Regt, obukano and Henrik Jespersen, electroacoustic saxophone."