World
* 2021 Stock * A sprawling, wandering hourlong geological survey of the composer’s ambitious spiritual world. Her music does not develop; it accumulates. - Bernard Holland, New York Times
The only single, continuous orchestral movement I know of to surpass the finale of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in duration. - Kyle Gann, Village Voice
Hildegard Kleeb - pianoJoseph Kubera - pianoThe Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble Petr Kotik - conductor
Libertad
* 2021 Stock * "There are pieces which must be done. The work Libertad is one of them. Inspired by the lyrics of Tsolagiu M.A. RuizRazo, it is one of those compositions that gave me enormous pleasure while working and that accompanied me with a wave of very great power [...] Perhaps this work [...] is one of those that carry the most power. There is an enormous mysterious protective circle around it. It is one of the works that has given me the most riddles, that contains knowledge that I can on…
Música Callada / See the Welter
The imagery of musical forms emptied of earthly meaning, of solitude, and of a connection to the divine were irresistible to Federico Mompou. A desire to be alone had shaped Mompou’s early musical direction: as natural shyness ended his ambitions to be piano virtuoso, after studies at the Paris Conservatoire he turned to composition instead. His approach remained introspective – far removed from the overt and public expressions of the avant-garde, both before and after the Second World War – and…
Adagios From The Underground
In the Understage area of the Alexandra Trianti Hall, the musical saw in the hands of Nikos Giousef, and accompanied by piano, samplers and analog synthesizers, is transformed into a voice. 'An otherworldly child's voice', 'a Siren's voice' or 'a castrato voice', as it has been described, it easily climbs to tonic heights that the human voice can only reach with great effort. The pieces chosen for the program reflect this criterion, with works such as the aria 'Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott' from the …
Gioseffo Zarlino - 2015/2019
* 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 …
Honeysuckle Burials
* Edition of 300 * The Clywdian Range in North Wales is a landscape of outstanding beauty, forged as much by the forces of nature as the hands of generations who lived and worked in its valleys and peaks from times of antiquity. It is a place of Neolithic mounds, Roman hill forts and a remarkable chain of Iron Age earthworks fashioned over two thousand years ago. In this borderland, close to Offa's Dyke, the eighth century boundary between England and Wales, a musician came wandering and wonderi…
Sexo Puro
* 2021 stock * Nobody who attended the first performance of Sexo Puro is ever likely to forget it. On that October afternoon, the conciliatory power of this work, which Maria de Alvear sees as a “meditation on inner goodness”, came into sharp collision with the irreconcilable powers that sometimes gather at contemporary-music festivals.
It was probably not even the theme of sexuality that so profoundly disturbed a part of the audience at the 1998 Donaueschingen Festival, even though it is seldom…
Section
* 2021 stock * The structures of Chris Newman's music are apparently simple, like his music pictures: large, thick dots of notes, but a lot of space in between: "The raw and the cooked" (Roland Barthes). He himself likes to cook well and with pleasure. Just his lamb chops, for example. He only puts them in a hot pan with oil; there is also chard, just pulled out of the water, but also more complicated things: coq au vin or bœuf bourguignon.His music has a strong physical structure, is quasi carn…
Legende
* 2021 stock * Acousmatic events dispense with performers. There are no musicians, even at public concerts. The audience is able to follow what is emanating from the loudspeakers with eyes closed and still not miss anything. What it hears is composed, and demands the same attention as any other kind of music listened to on a stereo system or via headphones. It is worth remarking this fact because so many people are no longer able to hear things without seeing something as well in video clips or …
Ataraxia
*2020 stock* Unlike my earlier freetonal and 12-tone works, my music since 1981 has been characterized by the use of repetition, and since 2004 by generally soft dynamics. While often termed "minimalist" or "postminimalist," I have come to prefer the term "focused music," as my works tend to concentrate on very specific, and often a limited number of, music elements.
Typically, there is but a single dynamic level specified, and sometimes not even that. I like to provide a good deal of freedom fo…
Angelus Novus
*2021 stock* Angelus novus is the third opera by Madrid composer Jorge Fernández Guerra. This time, he draws on a selection of texts by Walter Benjamin, which he uses to create a dialogue of sorts between a male character and a female character, who could be an alter ego or perhaps an angel.
The dialogue appears to transpire during the final moments of the character’s life, which may be reminiscent of Benjamin’s final moments at the Spanish border as he fled the Nazis.
Angelus novus premiered a…
Improvisaciones
*2020 stock* The double CD Improvisaciones is an homage to the Iberian baroque organ. Germán Valverde Usano’s music reminds one of the rich music tradition of the autonomous community of Castile and León as well as its rich cultural heritage with over 100 conserved Iberian baroque organs. The recordings took place in 2016 in San Agustín in Capillas not far from the capital city Palencia (Spain).
Germán Valverde Usano’s passion for the Iberian organ as well as his extraordinary musical talent are…
De Puro Amor & En Amor Duro
*2021 stock* What is one to make of Maria de Alvear’s two long solos for piano, De puro amor (‘Of pure love’) and En amor duro (‘In hard love’), both composed in 1991. The scores themselves, if one decides to start from here, are completely perplexing. Pages and pages are marked with hastily scratched notes, sometimes repeating themselves dozens of times. Little priority seems to have been given to rhythm, dynamics or articulation; even less to the notational conventions such as barlines, spacin…
Parallel Words
With Parallel Words, Eventless Plot compose as a true collective, crafting an album that drifts at the intersection of chamber music, electroacoustic experimentation, and subtle jazz inflections. The trio - Vasilis Liolios, Aris Giatas, and Yiannis Tsirikoglou - devise sound worlds marked by contradiction and hybridity. Across the album’s three substantial tracks, instrumental timbres and electronics run alongside each other, oscillating between a sense of tranquil detachment and mounting intens…
Gruppo di Construzione
Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, sometimes surprising …
Flores
**2021 stock** Flores, like any other work of Maria de Alvear, deals with the ideal of inner freedom. This is not a mere claim, it is manifested in the shape of the piece itself. Written in the author's typical mixture of composition and notated improvisation, the text leaves a certain scope to the seven instrumentalists as to the elaboration of the rhythm and at times also the intonation. The score has almost no directives for the parts of the two singers: what and how the singing is performed …
Solo for voice 58 : 18 microtonal ragas
**2021 stock** The world premiere recording of Solo for Voice 58 by legendary American avant-garde composer John Cage. Italian-German dhrupad singer Amelia Cuni is the ideal interpreter, trained in classical Indian singing but also able to improvise on ragas in a new music context. Cuni developed from Cage’s score of eighteen raga scales a remarkable and unique interpretation that belongs to both the classical Indian and Western experimental traditions. Includes an extensive booklet with essays …
Ways For an Orchestra
Following three beautiful studio albums, Minton and Weston are back with an outstanding program of orchestral arrangements. The music flows with great pathos through renditions of their own most memorable compositions alongside pieces by Eric Dolphy, Luc Ex, Lindsay Cooper, Jacques Brel and others. Music by Phil Minton, Veryan Weston, Eric Dolphy, Arthur Sullivan, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Lindsay Cooper, Luc Ex, Jacques Brel
Chirality
The new Eyvind Kang album was recorded in Italy with a 25 piece mixed orchestra of traditional strings and winds, with the addition of Moog synthesizer, accordion, percussion, field recordings and voice. It features vocals by Alan Bishop, co-founder of Sun City Girls. Eyvind Kang conductor, chironomy, violaAlan Bishop voice, field recordingsMarco Dalpane accordion, moog synthesizerMG_INC Orchestra:Ferenc Vojnic Hajduk 1st violin; Eliana de Candia 1st violin; Giulia Camardella 1st violin; Eleonor…
Fremde Zeit Addendum 5 · Solo V Für Klavier
Jakob Ullman's 5th solo work for piano is atypical for a piano performance, using electronic playback and requiring three assistants sustaining a soundscape to realize a concept of "gravity".