The Echoing Green
** 2021 Stock ** Like Morton Feldman, whose music he acknowledges as an influence Walter Zimmermann (b.1949) is fascinated by the relationship between painting and music, and how material of an apparently simple nature played by apparently “normal” instruments is capable of almost infinite subtlety. Frankfurt’s HCD Ensemble are also members of Germany’s infamous Ensemble Modern. They are joined here by the superb violinist Peter Rundel and cellist Michael Bach. Wüstenwanderung [Wandering in the …
Final Fragments - Piano Music of David Kotlowy
** Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies. Notes by Jon Dale ** By the time I landed in Adelaide somewhere in the mid 1990s, to complete my secondary schooling and get the hell out of dodge – the tiny country hamlet that I’d been living in, in the northern parts of the Upper Hunter in New South Wales, at the foot of the Barrington Tops – I’d already been indoctrinated into a set of ideals through my reading, listening, and the questionable guidance of a few family members. Foremost was a kind of id…
Idle Hands - Music of Luke Altmann
** 2021 Stock. Comes in a four panel case with 16 page booklet, designed by Sam Songailo ** Russian pianist Konstantin Shamray studied in Moscow at the Russian Gnessin Academy of Music with Professors Tatiana Zelikman and Vladimir Tropp, and the Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg, Germany with Professor Tibor Szasz. In 2008, Konstantin won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. Konstantin has performed with the Russian National Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Mos…
La Terre et le Feu
** 2021 Stock ** This disc of French composer Joël-François Durand’s music amplifies his ongoing interest in the classical ‘four elements’: air, earth, fire and water. World class performers include the London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Pierre-André Valade, and renowned Swedish organist Hans-Ola Ericcsson. The oboe concerto, La terre et le feu features a hallmark of Durand’s work: rising figures that gradually strain upwards. The work consists of an introduction and four prin…
Out of Chaos
** 2021 Stock ** An American who came of age in the late 1980s, Jason Eckardt’s music captures the essences of the genres that led him first to performance (as a guitarist), and then to composition: heavy metal and art rock, jazz, gagaku and p’ansori, the Second Viennese School, American post-serialism, and the new complexity. It evokes the power of inspired, virtuosic improvisation, the incisiveness of classical ensemble playing, and the raw expressivity of ethnic music. The first complete CD o…
Labyrinthe de Minotaur
** 2021 Stock ** French composer Alain Bancquart (b.1934) is one of the leading composers of microtonal music in Europe. Labyrinthe du Minotaur explores the myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinthe. This large scale piece constantly delves into microtonal and harmonic relationships together with a lyrical polyphony. It is based on texts by his wife, author Marie-Claire Bancquart. The unusual instrumental ensemble incorporates (in addition to the above musicians): pianos in quarter- and sixteenth-…
Shadow of an Idea
The influence of two American composers – John Cage and Morton Feldman – has been decisive on Walter Zimmermann. With Cage, it was his music from the late forties – works like the String Quartet, the Suite for Toy Piano and the Six Melodies – that caught his attention: works underpinned by precise numerical construction, yet with an engaging directness of expression. Feldman has been an inspiration to Zimmermann’s lyrical impetus, and Cage to his constructivist urges. Yet the two do not always …
Another Sunrise
** 2021 Stock ** Peter Garland’s music is uniquely American; a blend of minimalism with influences from South/Central America, Asia and the Native Americans; along with American mavericks John Cage, Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, and Edgar Varèse. Born in 1952, he studied with Harold Budd and James Tenney. The works on this record share a special meditative, and at times ecstatic, spirituality. Garland has a long artistic association with the performers on this disc. Essential Music’s…
Look She Said (Complete Works For Bass)
** 2021 Stock ** “The double-bass – the paradox of its large size and basically quiet sound, and its low registral grounding – has long attracted me. I’ve also been fortunate in knowing outstanding double-bass players.” – Christian Wolff This disc collects all of Wolff’s large body of works for the bass, including a piece for solo electric bass guitar. Two of the works were written specifically for Robert Black, who prepared these pieces with Wolff. The composer attended all of the recordings se…
Octet • Music For A Large Ensemble • Violin Phase
*Includes 24-page booklet with photos and liner notes* Steve Reich's commercial success had ballooned after his prior release on ECM, Music for 18 Musicians, and this collection of three compositions, two new and one from 1967, was the follow-up. Music for a Large Ensemble is very much of a piece with the prior work, using extended melodic lines, a larger palette of sound colors, and key changes every several minutes. It's charming and pleasantly busy in an industrious way but really covers litt…
NuDaf
A 65-minute electroacoustic composition featuring Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, bassoon. NuDaf (2020) is the second longest piece in Phill Niblock's repertoire of recorded audio works. NuDaf is a departure from his previous pieces in that he makes extensive use of multiphonics and constructed the work with fewer tracks than usual, creating uniquely transparent and ephemeral textures. The piece is the result of a collaboration between Niblock and the stellar bassoonist Dafne Vicente-Sandoval. Her music…
In Memoriam Paul Zukofsky
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents In Memoriam Paul Zukofsky. This album presents the last music program designed by the late violinist/conductor Paul Zukofsky. Both Monkeys At Play and Josef Hauer’s Zwölftonspiel are first recordings. The program served as his New York memorial concert in 2017 played by pianists Aaron Likness and Andrew Zhou. All recordings were made at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, NY on August 22-24, 2019, recorded and edited by Ryan Streber, mastered by Ian Turner.
Ch…
Shapey - Riegger - Piston - Crumb - Sollberger - Berger
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Shapey - Riegger - Piston - Crumb - Sollberger - Berger. Ralph Shapey: (1921-2002) Evocation For Violin, Piano, And Percussion; with Raymond Desroches, percussion; Publisher: Theodore Presser Co. Wallingford Riegger: (1885-1961) Sonatina; Publisher: E. B. Marks Music Corporation. Walter Piston: (1894-1976) Sonatina; Publisher: Boosey and Hawkes, Inc. George Crumb: (1929-) Night Music Ii; Publisher: C.F. Peters, Inc. Harvey Sollberger: (1938-) Solos; with …
Duo for Violin and Piano, Sonata for Violin / Sonata Concertante / Second Sonata
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Roger Sessions: Duo for Violin and Piano, Sonata for Violin; Peter Mennin: Sonata Concertante; Easley Blackwood: Second Sonata. Performed by Paul Zukofsky, violin; Gilbert Kalish, Easley Blackwood, pianos. The Sessions Duo for Violin and Piano and the Mennin Sonata Concertante were both recorded at Paul Hall, The Juilliard School, NY in 1971. They were engineered by Horace W. Grenell and originally released as part of the Desto set "Music for a 20th Centu…
Dance and Secret & Joy and Peace
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Artur Schnabel: Dance and Secret & Joy and Peace; Sonata for Solo Violin performed by Paul Zukofsky, Conductor and Violinist; The Gregg Smith Singers. Dance and Secret & Joy and Peace by Artur Schnabel were recorded February, 1993 at BMG (originally RCA) Studio A, New York City. Producer: Joanna Nickrenz. Sound Engineer: Jay Newland. Montage: PZ, with Elite Recordings, New York City. Mastering: Soundbyte Productions, New York City. Sonata for Solo Violin…
Five Stanzas / Pelleas & Melisande, Op. 5
** 2021 Stock ** CP² Recordings presents Dane Rudhyar: Five Stanzas; Arnold Schoenberg: Pelleas & Melisande, Op. 5 by Colonial Symphony and Sinfóníuhljómsveit Æskunnar; Paul Zukofsky, conductor. Sinfóníuhljómsveit Æskunnar (the Youth Orchestra of Iceland) was founded in 1985, by Paul Zukofsky, and was a continuation of the "Zukofsky Seminars in Orchestral Music" which began in 1977, and were sponsored by the Reykjavik College of Music. The aim of both groups was to provide an opportunity for Ice…
Wind and Light
Greek composer Anastassis Philippakopoulos has been a member of the Wandelweiser composers collective since 2003. He pursues his own compositional style to create a new kind of tonal music, deeply associated with his individuality and the surroundings of his life in Athens, a unique blend of stoic minimalism, the warm colors of modern romanticism, and the introspective depth of Zen.
"For many years I have concentrated my attention on modal monophonic melodies. In my pieces I want to bring a bala…
Night Blossoms
'Night Blossoms' is French composer/pianist Melaine Dalibert’s sixth solo album, consisting of new compositions from 2019-2021. Of the six pieces on this album, 'A Rebours', 'Windmill', 'Eolian Scape', and 'Sisters' were written around the same time as most of the pieces for his 2020 album 'Infinite Ascent'. While 'Infinite Ascent' featured his intuitive compositions in a pop style, 'Night Blossoms' features works further developed with his algorithmic approach, which has been his long-term purs…
De-formation: Piano Variations
De-formation: Piano Variations, a work for solo piano. Composed and performed by Diamanda Galas in September 2019, the 21:19 minute piece is based on the expressionist poem Das Fieberspital (The Fever Hospital). Written by German poet Georg Heym in 1912, Das Fieberspital's depiction of warehoused patients of yellow fever presaged the treatment and hiding of infected and damaged soldiers later in WWI. De-formation depicts a march and delivery of maimed and infected soldiers to hospitals and indus…
Parametrical Counterpoint
** In process of stocking ** Kairos presents Parametrical Counterpoint by José Luis Hurtado. Composer José Luis Hurtado’s music has been performed across continents by ensembles and soloists such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, the Callithumpian Consort, CEPROMUSIC Ensemble, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Quatuor Molinari, Émile Girard -Charest, Lora Kmieliauskaite, Tony Arnold, Garth Knox, Claire Chase, Le Nouvel En…