★Mode
A Cage of saxophones 1
Between 1983 and 1991 John cage wrote three pieces specifically for saxophones, Four5, Five4 and Hymnkus, which are combined here for the first time on CD. In addition, Cage authorized Ulrich Krieger's arrangement for saxophone of Ryoanji. Krieger also made a saxophone arrangement of Five, one of the few compositions from this period performable on any instruments. This unique disc concentrates on Cage's late works for saxophone. A CAGE OF SAXOPHONES VOL.2 (mode 160), features a combination of…
Ascension to Purgatory
This is Pape's third monographic CD with Mode Records. Whereas his last Mode CD ("Electro-acoustic Chamber Works", released in 1998) presented his ground breaking works of 1993-1996, this new CD presents a selection of his more recent pieces composed from 1998 to 2004. While Pape continues his fascination with composing with chaotic sound in Le Fleuve du Désir IV and Weaveworld Prologue, it is his new approach to composing with packets of granular time that predominates on this CD. In La Na…
Njinga: The Queen King – The Return of a Warrior
Written and Directed by IONE Original music and Sound by Pauline Oliveros Traditional Congolese Music by Titos Sompa Set and Costume Design by Valerie Maynard, Dance and Movement by Carol Chappell, Nego Gato, Biza Sompa and Titos Sompa, Traditional Brazilian Music and Dance by Nego Gato.
Njinga the Queen King is a collaborative effort between writer/director Ione and composer Pauline Oliveros, which they refer to as “a play with music and pageantry.” It is based on historica…
Music in 2 Dimensions – Works for Flute
In honor of the 40th anniversary of great composer/ conductor Bruno Maderna’s (1920-73) death, Mode is pleased to release the first complete CD of Maderna’s music for flute. The flute played an important part in Maderna’s oeuvre due to his friendship with the exceptional flutist Severino Gazzelloni, who had premiered almost all of the flute compositions. Musica su due dimensioni is among the earliest examples to make live music interact with electro-acoustic sounds recorded on tape. There …
Modern Lied
Sarah Maria Sun (soprano) & Jan Philip Schulze (piano) perform works by Heinz Holliger: Sechs Lieder nach Gedichten von Christian Morgenstern (1956/57); Salvatore Sciarrino: Due Melodie; Helmut Lachenmann: Got Lost; György Kurtag: Requiem po drugu op. 26; Wolfgang Rihm: Ophelia Sings; Bernhard Lang: Wenn die Landschaft aufhört.
Xenakis Edition 15, Orchestral Works
**CD Edition** Metastaseis A (first recording), Orchestra Sinfonica RAI; Terretektorh for 88 musicians dispersed among the public; Nomos Gamma for 98 musicians dispersed among the public — Residentie Orkest The Hague, Arturo Tamayo, conductor.
Les Nuages en France
Marco Cappelli, guitar. Ken Filiano, double bass. Satoshi Takeishi, percussion. “… La Nuages en France is what happens when you cross one of Europe’s best and brightest new music classical guitarists/composers with the best of New York’s avant jazz/improv scene. The sonics recall the lusciousness of Ralph Towner’s ECM work, but the compositional/improvisational smarts and depth of Marco’s classical chops and background on this recording are unlike anything I’ve heard. Also, Marco has devel…
Italian Surf Academy : The American Dream
Marco Cappelli, electric guitar, Luca Lo Bianco, bass guitar, Francesco Cusa, drums, with special guest Gaia Mattiuzzi, voice.
The Dream Keeper
Jazz interpretations of Hughes' poetry with Eric Mingus (voice); David Amram (piano); Larry Simon (director, arranger, guitar), Groove Bacteria.
Italian Surf Academy : Barbarella Reloaded
"Italian Surf Academy has been exploring the sound related to 1960’s cinema since its first record, The American Dream (Mode Avant 13), a collection of music from Italian noir, horror and spaghetti western movies. In 2013 the Italian/French festival “Suona Francese” commissioned us to make a monographic program, but with the concept that it must somehow relate to French culture. We choose Barbarella — the classic 1968 sexual revolution icon directed by Roger Vadim, and starring Jane Fonda — beca…
The Great Works For Voice
Mode's reissue of Christine Schadeberg's 1995 recital of vocal music by Luciano Berio is a welcome addition to the catalog. While her performances don't make the listener forget the individuality and panache of Cathy Berberian, for whom most of these pieces were written, Schadeberg more than holds her own in her technical and expressive mastery of the music. Her voice is not large, but is remarkably flexible and secure, and her tone is pure. These performances are models of precision and clarity…
Sonic Encounters
The second recording from Margaret Leng-Tan, the "diva of the avant-garde", featuring works by three composers whom she specializes in: John Cage (USA), Somei Satoh (Japan) and Ge Gan-ru (China/USA). With Sonic Encounters: The New Piano, she explores the effect of Asian aestehtics on contemporary American composers and the influence of American composers on their Asian counterparts.The first recordings of two early works by Cage impart a hard-edged brilliance not usually associated with the prep…
The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara
**Milestone recordings. Joan La Barbara's controlled experiments into the limits of the human voice took her beyond music** Joan La Barbara is one of great figures in the history of the American musical avant-garde – holding equal standing as an innovator, composer, and performer. She has defined the field of extended vocal technique for the better part of half a century, pushing our understanding of the sonic possibility of the human voice – drawing on its primal root, and thrusting it into the…
Ephémère
This album tells stories about wind, ocean and a village feast in the southern France… The listener is led into a poetic journey about freedom and impermanence. It brings together three Ferrari-related works: by Luc Ferrari himself, by Ferrari’s wife Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari and an improvisation by Royer to one of Ferrari’s soundscapes. Luc Ferrari was very interested in collaboration. New music violist Vincent Royer began collaborating with Ferrari following their meeting in 2001.Regardin…
Incidental Music and Keyboard Miscellany
“Incidental Music and Keyboard Miscellany, though both consisting mostly of quite short musical items, have as a whole different origins and different shapes. Keyboard Miscellany is an ongoing collection, a place to deposit occasional pieces which seem to have no place else to go. The earliest is “Variation on Morton Feldman’s Piano Piece 1952” (1988). The piece came about when I was asked to contribute an analysis of a Feldman piece to a collection of essays on Feldman’s music. To do this I tri…
Soweto Stomp
Malcolm Goldstein, violin & direction. The Ratchet Orchestra. Composer/performer Malcolm Goldstein (b.1936) has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s. He received an M.A. in music composition from Columbia University in 1960, having studied with Otto Luening. In the 1960s in New York City, he was a co-founder with James Tenney and Philip Corner of the Tone Roads Ensemble. His 'Soundings' improvisations have received international acclaim for having reinvent…
New Piano Works From Europe And The Americas
A debut recital of incredibly varied and fascinating music from Argentinean pianist Haydée Schvartz. Her teachers include Roberto Brando, Dora Castro and Nikita Magaloff. Ms. Schvartz continued her studies in London with Maria Curcio and subsequently received a a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Buffalo, New York with Yvar Mikhashoff, where she won the Cameron Baird Competition in 1990. Mikhashoff brought Ms.Schvartz's incredibly sensitive pianism to our attention, and together they imag…
Urban Dreamings
This survey of saxophonist Ulrich Krieger’s chamber music illuminates his ongoing penchant, as a composer, improviser, and interpreter, for probing the affinities between the rock and classical avant-gardes. Krieger says of his music: “At the moment my interest is mixing band-type instrumentation with classical instruments (think Doom Metal meets Scelsi).”
A classicaly trained saxophonist, Krieger gained notoriety for his transcription of Metal Machine Music, which orchestrated rock legend Lou R…
Complete Cello Works
This first complete recording of Roger Reynolds' cello works is being released to celebrate the composer's 80th birthday. This special 2-CD set contains many first recordings. French cellist Alexis Descharmes and Reynolds have a close artistic relationship which led to this composer supervised set. Alexis Descharmes is an internationally regarded musician and specialist in contemporary music. He has worked with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Alternance and Ensemble Court-circuit…
Brazil 84
Brazil 84 is from Phil Niblock’s series “The Movement of People Working.” 16mm, unedited long shots, carefully framed to compress single movements, shot in rural and urban settings, capturing people in their working environments, men and women using their hands and body to an eternal working choreography that seems tuned to the microtonal universe of Niblock’s music. All these images are timeless, they could have been shot today, in the ‘60s or even earlier in the century. All these images…