★Mode

First recordings of four Piano Sonatas by Chris Newman (Nos. 1, 4, 6 and 10, composed 1982-2004), played by Michael Finnissy, a collaborator of the composer for over twenty-five years, in composer-supervised recordings.

John Cage's Two2 (1989) for two pianos, a renga-based number piece built on time brackets, played in a 74-minute performance by Rob Haskins and Laurel Karlik Sheehan, from the Complete John Cage Edition.

First recording of John Cage's Three (1989) for three recorder players, with his early Solo with Obbligato Accompaniment of Two Voices in Canon (1933-34), performed by Trio Dolce. The Number Pieces 4.

First recordings of two major piano works by John Cage from 1950-51 found at the New York Public Library: Haiku and the solo piano version of Sixteen Dances, played by Jovita Zähl, with Thomas Meixner on percussion in two alternate dances.

First complete recording of John Cage's works for organ, played by Gary Verkade on the organ of Gammelstad Church, Sweden: Some of 'The Harmony of Maine', Souvenir, ASLSP and Organ2/ASLSP, with 4'33'' on the DVD only.

Four works by Johannes Schöllhorn: the concert piece clouds and sky for piano and orchestra with the WDR orchestra, rota for contrabass clarinet and string quartet, red and blue for percussion sextet, and a self-same song for solo contrabass clarinet…

The first complete recording of Giacinto Scelsi's works for solo violin, including the first recording of Divertimento No. 2, played by Weiping Lin, assistant concertmaster of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

First commercial release of John Cage's Variations V, the 1966 NDR Hamburg television production with David Tudor, Gordon Mumma and the Cunningham Dance Company, with the Paris 1966 audio, dancer interviews and a 12-page book.

Chaya Czernowin's Maim (Water), a 50-minute orchestral triptych with five soloists (tubax, oboe and musette, piano and harpsichord, guitars, viola) and live electronics, played by the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Johannes Kalitzke.

The debut recording of Israeli-born composer Chaya Czernowin: five chamber works from 1988 to 1996, including a string quartet and Afatsim for nonet, played by Sonor, the Arditti Quartet and Japanese and American soloists.

Twenty-eight miniatures by Howard Skempton from the 1970s to the 90s, for solo to quintet, performed by HCD Productions with soprano Sarah Leonard and the composer on accordion.

Hilda Paredes's chamber opera The Seventh Seed, on the Persephone legend to a libretto by Karen Whiteson, recorded with the Arditti Quartet and Steven Schick, plus two realizations of Permutaciones for solo violin played by Irvine Arditti.

Duo improvisations recorded unedited in Montreal in 2011 by bass clarinettist Lori Freedman and drummer and percussionist John Heward, the third set of duos featuring Heward on Mode/Avant.

Helmut Lachenmann performs with and supervises Ensemble Signal in Zwei Gefühle, Musik mit Leonardo for speaker and ensemble, and plays three of his own piano works, recorded after a four-concert tour of the programme.

Three of John Cage's late number pieces, Five, Seven and Thirteen, recorded in 1993-94 by Essential Music of New York and released for the first time. Thirteen, Cage's final completed work, is heard in only its second recording.

Morton Subotnick's electronic works: the first CD and surround release of the quadrophonic tape piece Four Butterflies, and Until Spring: Revisited, a live recomposition of his 1975 Buchla work. The DVD adds A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur: Revisited.

Christmas album by The Respect Sextet, with pieces by Misha Mengelberg, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, Frank Loesser, Robbie Robertson and Loudon Wainwright III, and guests JACK String Quartet, Ensemble Signal and guitarist Marco Cappelli.

Six chamber works by Keeril Makan performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble and pianist Cory Smythe, including Mercury Songbirds, Afterglow for solo piano and Mu for prepared violin played by Erik Carlson.

The first complete recording of Walter Zimmermann's string quartets by the Sonar Quartett, with Songs of Innocence & Experience after William Blake, Festina Lente and Fränkische Tänze, plus solo works for violin and for viola with voice.

Multimedia adaptation of Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers by guitarist Marco Cappelli, narrated by John Turturro in English and Enzo Salomone in Italian, with music by Sintax Error and video art by Anne Rothschild.

First CD recording of Songbirdsongs by John Luther Adams, a cycle for piccolos, ocarinas, flutes and percussion based on real bird songs, with Callithumpian Consort, plus Strange Birds Passing.

DVD of French-school percussion theatre by Aperghis, Kagel, Globokar, Alvarez and Drouet, performed by Aiyun Huang and colleagues and directed by Hans Fjellestad and Anton Cabaleiro, the first commercial video release of these works.

Jason Eckardt's Undersong cycle, built around Laura Mullen's text, with A way [tracing], 16, Aperture and The Distance (This), played by Fred Sherry, Claire Chase, Tony Arnold and the International Contemporary Ensemble under Steven Schick.

Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2, a continuous work of more than six hours, played by the Flux Quartet, in a deluxe DVD-audio edition with liner notes by Christian Wolff and Flux founder Tom Chiu.

Roger Reynolds's Sanctuary for spatially distributed percussion ensemble and live electronics, presented in three versions on a double DVD: a studio performance, a live performance at the National Gallery of Art and excerpts from the Salk Institute.

The complete Imaginary Landscapes 1-5 and Credo in US by John Cage, with radios, phonograph records and percussion, played by Percussion Group Cincinnati in the first volume of the Mode Cage percussion works.

The first complete recording of György Kurtág's 24 Signs, Games and Messages for solo viola, with first recordings of four further viola pieces, played by Maurizio Barbetti with baritone Gianpiero Ruggeri.

Stefano Scodanibbio's Oltracuidansa for contrabass and 8-channel tape (stereo version), built from almost six hours of contrabass sounds made with 26 methods of sound production, with the tape created at CCMIX in Paris.

The Respect Sextet, a young New York jazz group, plays music by Sun Ra and Karlheinz Stockhausen, drawing comparisons between the two composers and asking how the idea of space shaped their work.

Aldo Clementi's works for flutes, issued for his 75th birthday: Fantasia su roBErto FABbriCiAni, Ouverture for 12 flutes, Passacaglia, luCiAno BErio and Parafrasi 2, played by Roberto Fabbriciani with tapes restored by Alvise Vidolin.

Margaret Leng Tan's second recording, on piano: Cage's Primitive and In the Name of the Holocaust (first recordings), Hovhaness, Crumb, Satoh's Cosmic Womb for two pianos with digital delay, and Ge Gan-ru's Gu Yue. Released in 1988.

Margaret Leng Tan's follow-up to The Art of the Toy Piano: Cage's Suite for Toy Piano and Dream, a George Crumb song and other pieces, played on six toy pianos plus toy instruments, grand piano, music boxes and percussion.

Four-CD box of duo improvisations for saxophones, drums, percussion and electronics by Anthony Braxton and Gerry Hemingway, their first recorded collaboration in twelve years, made at Wesleyan University in August 2007.

Two CDs of John Cage works for saxophones and other instruments, played by Ulrich Krieger and Intersax, including the only available recording of Party Pieces, written with Cowell, Harrison and Thomson.

Fourth volume of Giacinto Scelsi's piano works: Hispania, Suite No. 5 Il Circo and Suite No. 6 I Capricci di Ty, three first recordings of large early works from the 1930s, played by Stephen Clarke.

Thirty-seven miniatures by Howard Skempton, interleaving solo piano pieces played by Daniel Becker with choral settings of Mary Webb, Edward Thomas, Emerson and others sung by EXAUDI under James Weeks; several are first recordings.

Second volume of John Cage works for saxophones, played by Ulrich Krieger and his ensemble: early pieces of unspecified instrumentation, saxophone parts drawn from Atlas Eclipticalis and Concert for Piano and Orchestra, and the first saxophone versio…

Six minimalist works by Reich, Riley, Andriessen, Gann, Adams and David Lang played by Orkest de Volharding under Jussi Jaatinen, including first recordings of City Life for wind orchestra and Kyle Gann's Sunken City.

Xenakis Edition volume 10 and the first complete recording of Iannis Xenakis's string quartets, played by the JACK Quartet: Tetras, Tetora, ST/4-1,080262 and Ergma, the last quartet, released on CD and surround-sound DVD.

Six chamber works by Frank Denyer from 1973-2001, including Out of the Shattered Shadows 1 and 2, Faint Traces, Music for Two Performers, Play and Passages, in composer-supervised performances by The Barton Workshop.