Composition / All styles

*2022 stock* It's over 70 years since John Cage wrote his pivotal Music of Changes, and it's beginning to show its age. It feels very much of its time, with its uncompromising adherence to the 64 hexagrams of I-Ching, the Chinese book of changes, determining the direction of the piece and its use of sudden, percussive attacks on the strings or the body of the instrument. But for all that there is no denying the extreme stamina and concentration required of the performer, and here Herbert Henck e…

*2022 stock* This recording deals with works composed between 1944 and 1958, including several of Cage's lovely and masterful prepared piano pieces, which will come as a major surprise to those familiar only with his chance compositions. Joshua Pierce is the principal pianist (assisted by Dorothy Jonas on the Three Dances, written for two pianos) and attacks the pieces with a nice balance of delicacy and aggression, although compared to the earlier Angel recording of the abovementioned Three Dan…

John Cage's importance for a comprehensive aesthetic reorientation of New Music after the Second World War can hardly be overestimated. His self-discovery and compositional articulation took place particularly in the field of piano music: in the art-merging experimental laboratory of New York around the dancer Merce Cunningham, the painter Robert Rauschenberg and the congenial performer and pianist David Tudor. It is good fortune that Sabine Liebner, who has already released several internationa…

*2024 stock* Live recording of the piano recital for the eightieth birthday of composer Hans Otte that Philipp Vandré and Elmar Schrammel presented at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. A selection of John Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes" for prepared piano was interwoven with selections from Hans Otte's piano cycles "Das Buch der Klänge" (The book of sounds) and "Stundenbuch" (Book of hours). This concert experiment, conceived by Ingo Ahmels, paid quiet homage to the "beautiful piano so…

*2022 stock* Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, a cycle of 20 short pieces for prepared piano (a piano modified by inserting nuts and bolts and other objects between the piano strings in order to produce percussive and otherworldly sound effects) by American composer John Cage. Created in 1946–48 after the composer had been introduced to Indian visual and performing arts, the cycle was intended to represent the so-called permanent emotions—the heroic, the erotic, the wondrous, the comic,…

*2022 stock* Morton Subotnick achieved fame in the field of electronic music with Silver Apples of the Moon and The Wild Bull, his best-known tape works of the late 1960s. Since then, he has been active combining electronics with other media, notably employing gestural sketches on tape to alter sounds produced by voices and instrumentalists. The two works on this 2015 Wergo release are representative of Subotnick's methods, using a trumpet with a chamber ensemble in After the Butterfly, to reali…

In this sonic journey, the cello gets lost and finds itself again within the folds of electronics—like an ancient soul echoing through the chaos of the present. Inspired by the words of Rutilius Namatianus in De Reditu Suo, this work unfolds as a pilgrimage between past and present, between whispered voices and archaic melodies that dissolve and reassemble in the reverberation of primordial frequencies. Distorted Gregorian chants, deep drones, and fragments of lost voices intertwine to form a so…

“Volume 2 of this much-anticipated continuation of Sorabji’s mammoth set of studies takes us almost half way in terms of number, if not in playing time (perhaps a third or thereabouts). The reason for this is encapsulated in the first entry on this new disc; with No.26 the composer appears for the first time to take a decisive step back from writing pieces with some ostensibly pedagogical intent — “studies” per se — and interjects a larger, more musically intricate piece; in this case a ravishin…

A beautiful sound art compilation featuring works by Ellen Fullman, Horatio Vaggione, Fast Forward, Takehisa Kosugi, Mario Verandi, Olga Neuwirth, celebrating the 35 years of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Comes with 32-page booklet. Ellen Fullman: Transmission Particle 1 for Long String Instrument and Oboe (2001; 9:00 min)[Ellen Fullman, long string instrument; Eliza Slavet, oboe]Horatio Vaggione: Scir for contrabass flute and tape (1988; 11:37 min)Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass fluteFast F…

Two compositions by the young Austrian composer/organist Klaus Lang who currently lives in Berlin/Germany. Der Wind und das Meer for viola (Barbara Konrad, viola) The Sea of Despair for String Quartet (Amras Streichquartett)

Austrian composer in a work for flute, viola, percussion, and voice aboout the inner state and flow we perceive when listening and concentrating on a piece of music.

Tractus emphasizes Arvo Pärt compositions that blend the timbres of choir and string orchestra. New versions predominate, with focused performances from the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste’s direction that invite alert and concentrated listening. From the opening composition Littlemore Tractus, which takes as its starting point consoling reflections from a sermon by John Henry Newman, the idea of change, transfiguration and renewal resona…

“Songs of Ascension” is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk’s earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk’s been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of Ascension” she teams up with a string quartet of New York players well versed in new music. With winds, percussion and two vocal groups added to her already extra…

*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* The starting point for Litany was a commission received from the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, US. For this reason, Pärt selected an English text as the basis for his composition. Arvo Pärt: “The English language lacks plasticity which is brought to music with long words. Working with a text in English, I had to make new discoveries and use melodic constructions that I normally don’t use in my music, to extract material from words and sentences. The text for Lita…

Nippon Cultural Broadcasting (= Bunka Hōsō) is known for airing Toshiro Mayuzumi’s composition for “Works for musique concrète X.Y.Z.” the very first Japanese work of musique concrète. Now, for the first time, the long-lost broadcast recordings produced by the director of that era are being released! These include a piece by Yori-aki Matsudaira's father, Yoritsune Matsudaira, created by repeatedly dubbing instrumental material, as well as an experimental work unique to Bunka Hōsō, produced throu…

*250 copies limited edition* Composer Taizo Hida was born in 1972 and lives in Osaka. In 2022, the album "of rain," in which pianist Satoko Inoue performs compositions by Hida, was released on Ftarri Classical and received high praise. Two new albums have been issued simultaneously on Ftarri Classical in order to showcase the richness of Taizo Hida's creations. One of these is the CD The Rain Traces Its Outline. “The Rain Traces Its Outline” is a work for piano that Hida completed in 2023. It wa…

Icelandic composer Snorri Hallgrímsson releases "Longer Shadows, Softer Stones", his debut for Deutsche Grammophon. The EP will be released on 180g vinyl and contains six tracks written and produced by him. The multi-instrumentalist Hallgrímsson, who has already impressed with his skillful reinterpretations of works by Satie, Schumann and Boulanger, takes on the vocals and plays piano as well as electronic elements. He is supported by strings from the Reykjavík Orchestra under the direction of V…

"Hyperrealist Music, 2011-2015" is a selection of late masterpieces by Noah Creshevsky, a proponent of "Hyperreal Music," which opened a new door to cyber-human music.

‘Monochromes II’ is a collection of thirteen solo piano pieces written and performed by Berlin-based composer/pianist Quentin Tolimieri between 2023 and 2025. This is Tolimieri’s second release on elsewhere music, following the 2022 triple album ‘Monochromes’ (elsewhere 022-3). In this new triple album, Tolimieri delves even deeper than in his earlier Monochrome pieces to explore the countless sonic possibilities and resonances that the piano can produce. Aiming to allow the inherently interesti…

*200 copies limited edition* Sixty-one + minutes of deep and powerful drone compositions recorded live at Epsilon Spires Church performed on organ, accordion, contrabass and cello by Richter, Mike Bullock and Laura Cetilia. Rich and meditative, arcing past, present and future.Sedimental’s first release for 2026 is a monumental document from avant-garde composer Ben Richter. It has been a pleasure to get to know Richter personally over the past five years as we live in close proximity to one anot…

Die Schachtel, for voices, chamber orchestra & tape by Franco Evangelisti / Performer:  Valentina Barbarini, Elena Sorbi, / Conductor:  Marco Angius / Orchestra:  Ensemble Prometeo. Written in 1962-1963 and performed at the Lenz Teatro di Parma. 27’ 4’’. Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 by Arnold Schoenberg / Conductor:  Marco Angius/ Orchestra:  Ensemble Prometeo/ Written in 1912 in Wien. Performed at Auditorium Paganini di Parma. 3’ 21’’.

With Figures of Glass (Piano Etudes – Edits), Vanessa Wagner offers a new listening perspective on Philip Glass’s Piano Études, shaping a curated selection of edited versions drawn from her acclaimed recording of the complete cycle. These edits do not alter the substance of the works; rather, they refine their temporal focus, revealing their emotional force with renewed clarity. Conceived in parallel with Figures of Glass, a hybrid project developed with visual arts collective Scale, the release…

This is the first widely distributed release for Isabel Pine after a series of self released EP’s and singles on Bandcamp. She studied classical music on viola from the age of 3 through into college, where she was on a path to be a performer in a large ensemble, but eventually left after feeling frustrated and limited in a world that did not provide much of an outlet for individual creativity. But the doors of perception really opened when she moved to British Columbia and was exposed to the raw…

*200 copies limited edition* "Paper Braids came out of a long collaboration between me and the wonderful musicians of the Kali Ensemble. Through a series of workshops, residencies, and performances over the course of four years, we built up a collective practice focused on three topics: listening as the basis of musical interaction, awareness of how sound interacts with the performance space, and using that spatial awareness as a basis for both the duration of individual sounds and the temporal …

The score Dotolim was originally realized in 2009 and composed for the performance space Dotolim. The musicians, Jin Sangtae, founder of Dotolim, and Joonyong Choi also performed on the 2009 version of the score. While on tour through Asia in 2023, I spent two nights performing and recording in Seoul at Dotolim. My idea was to realize a new version of the score with the current generation of experimental musicians active in Seoul. And unlike for the first version where I worked with electronics,…

In Kientzy Loops, the accompanying loop is a mix of six alto saxophones played in continuous blowing, while the principal lines are played on alto saxophone, except for the third section, played on baritone. The piece, premiered at the auditorium of the ADAC in Paris, was awarded a French national prize in the Victoires de la musique as the best piece of contemporary music for the year 2000. We are indebted to our friend Marc Chemillier for La Tortue de mer. As a mathematician Chemillier became …

Disc 1: Dexter Music for highland bagpipes. Highland bagpipes: David Watson, Matthew Welch, Michael Mahoney, Brendan O'Rourke, Rob Brazius & Richard Baughman. Disc 2: Sinister - Music for acoustic and electric guitars performed by David Watson. " "Fingering an Idea" (a phrase pulled from a Chris Mann piece) resulted from a Phill Niblock invitation to make a double CD for bagpipe and guitar. A bagpipe CD is a particular challenge. A high beam spatial explorer, it is the kind of unstable ph…

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…

Among the most remarkable documents to emerge from the early 1990s convergence of acoustic performance and computer music, David Behrman's Unforeseen Events stands as a testament to the profound possibilities unlocked when human creativity collaborates with artificial intelligence. Originally released in 1991 on XI Records, this stunning album represents the culmination of decades of pioneering work by one of America's most visionary experimental composers - a figure whose influence extends far …

Daniel Goode's Clarinet Songs has long been a favorite on the new music concert circuit. It is a 75-minute suite for solo clarinet which Goode began writing for himself in 1979, and reached its current form in 1991. It uses all of Goode's virtuosic techniques distilled into sixteen "Songs without Words," a poetics of the new clarinet. It is made up of a series of individual pieces, each a sound world of its own, based on some unique material, perhaps a specific technical, poetic, or sonic idea, …

“These performances, by Heinz Holliger and Marie-Lise Schüpbach, are simply astonishing in their fluency,” wrote UK magazine Gramophone of Holliger’s album Zwiegespräche, and the description applies with equal pertinence to con slancio, with its inspired and inspiring play of energies. The title piece, which opens the programme here, was written by the Swiss composer and nonpareil oboist as a tribute to musical partner Schüpbach: “Since I began playing in duo with Marie-Lise, I’ve been fascinate…

** In process of stocking ** Giacinto Scelsi (La Spezia, 1905 – Rome, 1988) is one of the most original Italian composers of the twentieth century. Musician and poet of aristocratic descent, Scelsi spent his childhood in his family’s castle, in Valva, where he received “un’educazione medievale” in which he recalls “scherma, scacchi, latino”, 1  and developed an early attraction towards improvisation on the piano. “De l’age de trois ans et demi, j’ai commencé à improvisers au piano. [...] je ne s…

** In process of stocking ** “The mystery of incarnation is the most beautiful aspect of divinity – and it is the reason why I am a Christian. I do not consider the differences between Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic: a Christian is someone who understands that God has come.” This was taken from an interview with Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) where he talked about Christmas being the one festival in the Christian calendar most important to him. In his music about the incarnation of God, Messiaen…

Between April and June 1971, after the democratic election of Salvador Allende’s government, Luigi Nono visited Chile for three months, meeting several artists, composers and politicians, among whom was Luciano Cruz Aguayo, one of the leaders of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR, Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria). Back in Italy, Nono started working on his next musical composition, which was meant to be a piece for piano and orchestra, for Maurizio Pollini and Claudio Abbado. In …

“I will say: I have given this flame to these eyes; I have drawn from the ambiguous smile of the moon […] these two naïve stars open to the infinite”, wrote the poetess Cécile Sauvage in 1908 to her unborn son, Olivier Messiaen. It is amazing that the poem in a sense expresses in a prophetic manner Messiaen’s interest in and passion for themes that were to accompany him throughout his life: the cosmos, infinity. It goes without saying that the poetic lifestyle of his mother was to have a strong …

Experiencing La lontananza utopica futura has enriched my musicianship. The unusual openness of the original materials by Nono required the establishment of an interpretive path through tapes and scores. This need has led to the emergence of a creative approach to performance, where the lines between roles and figures are blurred; with La lontananza, we cannot identify the composer as the provider of clear and direct instructions, and the performer cannot remain an invisible score-reproducer. A …

Four Systems (1954) is an early and influential example of Earle Brown’s open-form approach to composition. Written as a graphic score, the work replaces traditional notation with visual elements that suggest relationships of pitch, duration, dynamics, and rhythm rather than prescribing exact sounds. Four Systems may be performed by any number of musicians using any instruments, and its duration is equally open: the piece may last as long as desired, provided the time frame is agreed upon in adv…

How does a composer who spent years immersed in cultural theory and philosophy return to music-making? For Eldritch Priest - known to many through his provocative book Boring Formless Nonsense - the answer involves cultivating a compositional sensibility that appears offhanded while remaining rigorously structured, music that flirts relentlessly with ideas to blur distinctions between trivial regard and focused attention. This release documents three works spanning more than two decades, tracing…

A suite of five pieces for acoustic instruments and electronics by Argentine-born composer Santiago Diez Fischer, who lives and teaches in France and whose work occupies a unique space between new music, experimental rock, and free improvisation. All five pieces were written specifically for Gyre Ensemble - Alejandro Oliván López (baritone saxophone), Stefanie Mirwald-Keiser (accordion), and Christian Streit Smith (percussion) - a trio whose particular combination of timbres and approaches has c…

Madli Marje Gildemann’s Dream Sequence of an Ancient Forest brings together works from 2017 to 2023 in a dramaturgical arc shaped by precise observation and a freely flowing imagination. Her atmospheric, finely detailed sound world moves between scientific accuracy, natural phenomena, and mythological transformation. The album leads listeners from the secret processes of plants and the nocturnal journeys of birds to a primeval forest’s dreamlike consciousness and the animated presence of a human…