Classical Music

Our focus with the CD 'Coronation' is not on blue blood or kingly power. In processes that are positively vegetal, the music on this CD sends up its shoots and produces blossoms like crowns. '(co)ro(na)', by Vykintas Baltakas, springs from a cascade of motivic branchings, its roots in a cycle of works named after the alchemical Ouroboros, a snake that swallows its own tail. Its 'dragon's blood', so the legends say, is cinnabar red - like the hue that shines in 'cinnabar' by Rebecca Saunders. Magnus Lindberg's 'Joy' expresses itself through its profligacy with spectral harmonies and the resonant snapping of the strings of a demolished piano. Iannis Xenakis creates sieves that proliferate until they transform into archaic dances, refulgent with the brass tones characteristic of so many musical moments: This is the sound that crowns the affair.

If you're holding this CD in your hands, you prize the unexpected. Not because it's written on the cover, but most likely just because you like to listen to new music. In other words: The unexpected is exactly what you're expecting. Admittedly, this expectation makes it considerably harder to present you with something genuinely unexpected in the seventh CD of the Edition MusikFabrik released by the label WERGO. The question posed by David Lang in the title of his melodrama - "Are you experienced?" - is rhetorical in nature, given that the piece takes a speculative look at the unexpected end of a concert evening. Philippe Boesmans, best known as a composer of operas, surprises us with a "Biedermeier" sextet. For Richard Barrett, interference becomes a structural principle, and Luca Francesconi knows the formula for driving the formulaic out of music. The tracks on this CD also trace an arc, from the beginning of the Ensemble MusikFabrik i'm WDR concert series to a world premiere during concert twenty-four at the network's Cologne studios: twenty-four concerts that formed the basis of the first seven CDs in the Edition MusikFabrik series. After many more concerts, the public can answer the ironic question "Are you experienced?" with confidence: "Yes, we are." How about you?

“To me the composer’s role is to comment on the things that surround us in the here and now,” says composer Martin Schuttler (b. 1974) who lives in Berlin. What surrounds us in the here and now is the reality of the street, normal life, things outside the box of our private universe, things we stumble across every day.Dirt, garbage, trash, grunge, low-tech, junk, kitsch, scrap: all of this, the profanest of the profane, finds room in and provides material for Schuttler’s music, his steely, angular compositions, which are not without their gentle, mild, dulcet, almost suave moments. Puzzlement. Disruption. An attempt to explain and enlighten. “Pelze & Restposten” (“Furs and Remainders”) is the title Schuttler chose to give to his first portrait CD. It’s a dialectical word-game on luxury items and mass commodities, on value and worthlessness, on quality and quantity, not without a touch of self-deflation. His CD presents compositions from 1998 to 2009.

Chinese Australian composer Liza Lim was inspired by the lyric poetry of the Sufi poet Hafiz for her work Tongue of the Invisible. Lim explains, "the way in which he mixes and shifts levels of meaning gives rise to complex and indeterminable frames of mind in oneself." This variety of meaning is first and foremost reflected in the juxtaposition and coexistence of precisely and meticulously composed textures and improvised elements. But the compilation of the text set to music also facilitates numerous variants and interpretations. These dialogues are superbly "narrated" here by the pianist Uri Caine, singer Omar Ebrahim and the soloists of the ensemble musikFabrik.

What we call silence is for me comparable to a dense knot of noise, frequencies, and sounds," says Rebecca Saunders. "From this surface of apparent silence I try to draw out and mould sound and colour." Samuel Beckett's works have become very important for the composer. Therein lies, perhaps, a certain parallel to Rebecca Saunders's more recent music: in the increasing sparseness of a language that gradually shuts out the inessential and ornamental. "Stirrings Still" is a music that seems to be inside and outside at once - both mobile sound sculpture and a journey beneath the surface of the sound waves, into the interior of a sound that suddenly seems more distant yet more intense. "Such and much more such the hubbub in his mind so-called till nothing left from deep within but only ever fainter oh to end," Beckett writes at the end of his "Stirrings Still". "Oh all to end.

Biret grasps the size of Beethoven' style. The polyphony is laid out in a relaxed way with little indulgence in point making. She keeps the big line and yet is thankfully sparing in her use of fortissimos. The piano tone is sumptuous. Biret' gentle. 747313126675 NXS8571266.2 14938696 .00 14.99 .21 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 03/30/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/5/5/6/1626556.jpg 1 1 N SOKOLOVIC / DEROME / PRYNN / D'ERRICO TRIO FIBONACCI: 5X3 773811157101 CCD15710.2 14925801 .00 18.99 .21 CENTREDISCS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 03/30/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/9/5/6/1626596.jpg 3 1 N HALVORSEN / THORSEN / BERGEN PHIL ORCH / JARVI ORCHESTRAL WORKS 1 095115158425 CHN10584.2 14925689 .00 21.99 .25 CHANDOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 03/30/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/2/6/6/1626626.jpg 0 1 N HANDEL / SIXTEEN / CHRISTOPHERS CORONATION ANTHEMS 828021606625 CORO16066.2 14258510 .00 20.99 .22 CORO COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 02/10/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/0/5/7/1/1471750.jpg 15 1 N LEHAR / KENNY / SKOVHUS / TURAY / KIRCHSCHLAGER MERRY WIDOW Yvonne Kenny, Bo Skovhus, Angelika Kirchschlager, and Gregory Turay star in this San Francisco Opera production of the Lehar operetta conducted by Erich Kunzel. 809478070559 BOPU7055BR 14939044 .00 39.99 .25 BBC / OPUS ARTE BLU-RAY CLASSICAL OPERA / OPERETTA / ORATORIO 03/30/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/4/6/6/6/1626664.jpg 4 1 N HAYDN / VIENNA PHILHARMONIC / BOULEZ / MEHTA HAYDN SYMPHONIES 812864010930 VNPR2009.2 14936722 .00 44.99 .20 VIENNA PHILHARMONIC COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 03/30/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/5/6/6/6/1626665.jpg 0 3 N WALTERS / FOULKES / PRYCE / SUMMERHAYES / EIMER SONG OF THE HEART 5060113440907 TCCT90.2 14173172 .00 20.99 .23 TOCCATA COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 01/13/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/1/3/1/3/1463131.jpg 22 1 N SCHUMANN / LE SAGE / NIKOLITCH / COIN / MEYER PIANO & CHAMBER MUSIC 9 3760014191589 ALPP158.2 14995200 .00 29.99 .31 ALPHA PRODUCTIONS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 05/11/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/3/9/0/3/1643093.jpg 28 2 N MOZART / FISCHER / LPO / PAO / COLLINGWOOD PIANO CONCERTOS: COMPLETE 78RPM STUDIO RECORDINGS Along with Schnabel, in the first half of the 20th century, Edwin Fischer was generally regarded as the greatest interpreter of the Germanic classics. This was the period when recording came of age and many first recorded performances, still thought amongst the greatest even today, were set down by Fischer. Supreme among them were the first complete recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and the Mozart concertos presented here as a specially priced three CD set. Also included are most of Fischer's solo recordings of Mozart and his only recording of a Haydn concerto. 5024709173037 APR7303.2 15041333 .00 32.99 .45 APR UK COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 05/11/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/8/1/0/7/1647018.jpg 0 3 N CHARPENTIER / SHEEHAN / WAKIM / O'DETTE / STUBBS ACTEON / ORPHEE DESCENDANT AUX ENFERS 761203761326 CPO777613-2.2 15336033 .00 18.99 .41 CPO RECORDS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL OPERA / OPERETTA / ORATORIO 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/1/3/8/9/1769831.jpg 5 1 N DAVTIAN / GLINKA / TCHAIKOVSKY / YURIGIN-KLEVKE ARAX DAVTIAN: RUSSIAN ROMANCES 013491200729 DLS2007.2 15336781 .00 18.99 .23 DELOS RECORDS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CLASSICAL VOCALS 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/3/3/8/9/1769833.jpg 25 1 N BENNETT / PRO MUSICA CHORUS & ORCH / STEWART EXCURSIONS: ORCHESTRAL / CHAMBER & CHORAL WORKS 736211367242 RAVL7809.2 15333704 .00 18.99 .25 RAVELLO COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/3/5/8/9/1769853.jpg 8 2 N BARTOK / GULBENKIAN ORCHESTRA / FOSTER FIRST RHAPSODIE: DEUX PORTRAITS / DANCES FROM 827949036064 PNTA5186360SACD 15333681 .00 21.99 .23 PENTATONE SUPER-AUDIO CD CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/7/9/8/9/1769897.jpg 3 1 N HAYDN / MOZART / BAMBERGER SYMPHONIKER / TARKOVI TRUMPET CONCERTOS 812973011699 TUDO7169SACD 15333780 .00 21.99 .23 TUDOR SUPER-AUDIO CD CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/1/0/9/9/1769901.jpg 1 1 N MACMILLAN / ORCH OF ROYAL OPERA HOUSE / WORDSWORTH THREE BALLETS: CONCERTO / ELITE SYNCOPATIONS The Royal Ballet performs works choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. Elite Syncopations, featuring music by Scott Joplin and others, features Sarah Lamb, Mara Galeazzi, Valen Hristov, and Steven McRae. The Judas Tree, with music by Brian Elias. 809478070740 BOPU7074BR 15333612 .00 39.99 .25 BBC / OPUS ARTE BLU-RAY CLASSICAL BALLET 11/16/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/9/2/9/9/1769929.jpg 0 1 N WYNER / WELLESLEY COLLECGE CHOIR / WYNER SACRED MUSIC 090404933325 BRI9333.2 15253484 .00 18.99 .22 BRIDGE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 10/12/2010 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/31/1540531-2936510.jpg 6 1 N KERNIS / TANENBAUM / PLITMANN AWAKENINGS: NEW AMERICAN CHAMBER MUSIC FOR GUITAR Chamber music breaks exciting new ground with these three works by leading American composers. Aaron Jay Kernis' beautiful Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby is a touching song cycle for the unusual combination of soprano, violin, guitar and piano. 636943965023 NAAC8559650.2 15204578 .00 19.99 .20 NAXOS AMERICAN COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 08/31/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/0/9/4/8/1698490.jpg 14 1 N MUSIKFABRIK SCHATTENSPIELE Black is the color of the bile said to induce a state of gloom. In the form of melancholia," it has become an allegory of the artistic imagination. The hour of melancholy strikes at night, when the sleep of reason brings forth it's monsters. This CD takes us on a foray into the land of shadows: it's compositions make remarkable use of light and shadow effects while simultaneously recalibrating the relationship between ensemble and soloist in unique ways. Michael Jarrell's arrangement of a violin concerto for chamber orchestra refracts the solo instrument's line through the prism of the ensemble. The tale told by Stefano Gervasoni's "lowered" concerto for double bass is only superficially about dolce far niente; his music is a nocturnal creature that gathers odd sound forms - until the alarm goes off. Taking an (early-morning) look in the mirror, the solo flute in Durand's "Ombre/Miroir" finds itself still faced with shadowy creatures as well. And finally, in Brian Ferneyhough's seven tableaux vivants, the angel of history appears: in verses of poet Charles Bernstein he shows his gloomy face.

From Heaven to Hell" The music of the angels as a euphonious affair is a relatively recent notion. In the Old Testament, the polyphonic praise of God was imagined as an overpowering roar. Martin Smolka's "Rush (Hour in Celestial Streets)" comes closer to this older concept with it's after-work traffic jam, though he also takes a detour through microtonality to write entirely new harmonies. On earth, light music celebrates a joyous resurrection in a very special "music machine" in Mauricio Kagel's "Orchestrion-Straat". And with his "Racconto dall'Inferno" (tale from hell"), Louis Andriessen sides both with and against Dante, submitting evidence that hell does have a sound-and that anyone caught in it's repetitive loops will find it difficult to escape. "We're on the highway to hell.

Adriana H�lszky�s music has a unique sculptural quality. "Where does the sound come from, and where does it go?" This question is central to her entire creative output and essential for the development of musical content in her works. H�lszky's third music theater piece, "Trag�dia (Der unsichtbare Raum)" [Tragedy: The Invisible Room] marks an extreme within her compositions: The changing constellations of the music bring the �Tragedy� to life - plot and language are radically excluded. The 18 instrumentalists, together with live electronic effects and pre-recorded material, produce a tremendous variety of sound recollections, shock gestures, and colors. �One is permanently aware of the absence of characters, constantly expecting someone to appear, but this state of anticipation is sustained until the end of the piece - and left unresolved.� (H�lszky) Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

This portrait CD provides insight into the sensitive and exciting sound aesthetics of the composer Malika Kishino. Nature and beauty constitute the main points of reference of her oeuvre. Japanese culture and it's aesthetics leave a mark on Kishino's music, yet it is futile to look for anything reminiscent of the traditional music of her home country. Nature, especially optical and visual phenomena or physical states, are an inspiration for the structure and character of her works which she herself describes as "sound organisms". "Rayons Cr�pusculaires", for example, refers to a radial light phenomenon that shows particularly in the spatial arrangement of this composition. Three groups of musicians stand facing loudspeakers which reverberate the sounds modified by live electronics back into the room. The work which was recorded specifically for this CD is a "complex acoustic event which not only sets the space in motion but also sharpens one's hearing with regard to special tonal qualities" (Michael Struck-Schloen). Meanwhile the currents of the water and it's changing states of matter are the starting points for "Sensitive Chaos". This examination becomes more or less audible in the form of dripping sounds which later turn into more flowing structures. Another topic is the menace to nature: Kishino dedicated the choral piece "Prayer / Inori" to the memory of the catastrophe of Fukushima.

Michaels Reise Um Die Erde (Michael's Journey Around the World) is the second act of the opera Donnerstag (Thursday) from the seven-part opera cycle Licht (Light) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It is a cosmic world theatre in which three protagonists set the tone: Michael as Prince of Angels who appears in human shape to lead mankind to God; Eva as Power of Love and Life; Lucifer as a fallen angel and adversary. To each of these three figures has been assigned a characterizing melody (a musical "formula"), which unfolds through the musical action of the entire opera cycle. In 2008, the ensemble musikFabrik performed Michaels Reise Um Die Erde twice at the The�tre Bobigny in Paris to great acclaim from the press and public alike. Wergo captured these live performances for release in the label's edition musikFabrik series.

St. Augustine advised his coevals to seek the truth in the "inner man." Such inwardness seems far removed from the reality of life in the twenty-first century. Perhaps that is why a tendency to focus on internal processes has emerged in the music of the last few decades-not in the sense of a new subjectivity, in which sentimental private matters are put on display, but rather in the sense of an exploratory introspection: It's a question of increasing the intensity. Mark Andre seeks existential sonic situations on his path "toward the inside" (nach innen, to quote the fully written-out title of his piece "ni"). Like Andre, the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho has also delved into the internal nature of sound. Her music originates in the rich variety of spectral harmonies, and it sets itself the task of telling a very old story in a new way: a violin concerto as the legend of the grail. An entirely different aspect of inner life manifests itself in Ian Willcock's piece. He visits the discoverer of the unconscious, Sigmund Freud, on his deathbed. At the start of the twentieth century, Freud's glimpses of the "inside" showed that there is more to be found there than the truth: the phantasm.

“In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” John Cage noted in 1957. Like the white of a canvas, deafening silence continually surrounds notated and sounded music. And even where music can be heard, it can eloquently conceal things; it can loudly shout out the longing for silence, or it can masterly play with resounding silence. In this edition, four distinctly different pieces reflect four completely different attempts to deal with emotional or audible silence, giving us a glimpse behind the “continuum” that surrounds us. As John Cage stated, “times have changed; music has changed”. It will never stop doing so. The demanding artwork of the album series is created with pictures by the painter Gerhard Richter, commenting on the thematic concentration of the programs in an artistic manner. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.

Paul Hendrich's sound system is a coherent whole in which individual parameters of a musical work (such as harmony or rhythm) are ordered by analogous processes. Each composition expanded the boundaries of the system and created its next layers. The uppermost layer could not exist in this structure without all the lower levels. In this sense, every other piece of Paul Hendrich is a metaform, because it uses the musical language developed in earlier compositions. At first glance, Paul Hendrich's thick scores seem complicated. However, they are composed of simple processes. This simplicity would appear to us if we could look at this work as a multidimensional space, which we can trace each parameter separately. Performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik, this release brilliantly displays the composer's genius.

Like hardly any other personality in music history, Harry Partch has freed himself from the constraints of musical conventions. He has not only left the beaten paths of the conservatories, but has also developed his own microtonal sound system, which he has captured in spectacularly beautiful, archaically wild yet angularly modern instruments that are indispensable for a live performance. Since 2013, Ensemble Musikfabrik has been the only ensemble in possession of a full set of replica Partch instruments. These are not used solely for the performance of Partch’s own music, however; through numerous commissions in the context of their project "pitch 43_tuning the cosmos", they have inspired composers from all over the world to immerse themselves in these fantastical musical sculptures and their world of microtonal sounds. This album presents three outstanding examples of the many and varied ways in which the Cologne-based ensemble has taken up Partch’s legacy: Sampo Haapamäki’s "Heritage", "Wooden Clouds" by Martin Smolka and" Voices for Harry Partch" by Carola Bauckholt.

Enno Poppe’s works are probably performed more often than those of any other living German composer – not only in Germany. With his idiosyncratic manner of dealing with tradition, this red-haired artist, born in 1969, has developed an instantly recognizable musical style that fascinates and touches both specialists and listeners normally skeptical of new music. No matter how wild or eccentric, how chaotic or structured Poppe’s pieces may sound, they always reveal the raw materials from which they are made: a small number of nondescript building blocks (quasi-motifs). The fascination for the listener consists in the perceptible transformation of these motifs. Poppe has worked closely for many years as a conductor with the Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne and has written a number of pieces especially for the group. The current album collects these chamber music works, including “Stoff” for nine musicians. The German word “Stoff” can refer to fabric or any kind of material, including musical or literary material; the appearance and disappearance of motivic threads is also characteristic of the “Nouveau Roman.” The titles and sounds of the other works are also simultaneously direct and ambiguous. This album is part of WERGO’s comprehensive series documenting Enno Poppe’s music.

All life originated out of primeval mud. And all life dissolves back into it again at the end. This release in the Edition Musikfabrik series leans its ear towards sewage sludge as well as “the ocean of yes and no.” It cringes at the end of the world before the sublimity of nature, seeking to surpass her with composed conglomerates, it allows itself to be buried alive, only to eat itself free from the earth three times. Four fascinating attempts to understand nature and to explore humanity’s position within it. For the composer Brian Ferneyhough, Cornwalls inhospitable landscape of moraine became the starting point of a composition for six voices and an 18 member ensemble. Klaus Langs „The ocean of yes and no“ is a story with no beginning or end, no climax and no apotheosis. While Carola Bauckholt has often used the “fauna philharmonic” in her recent compositions, she works with a whole bestiary in "Schlammflocke". In Jorge E. Lopez’s „Gonzales the Earth Eater“ the composer quotes William S. Burroughs’s psychedelic sceneries with creatures such as „Gonzales“, who defies his own funeral. This recording contains four fascinating attempts to understand Nature and to explore man’s place (in Nature). The demanding artwork of the series is created with pictures by the painter Gerhard Richter, commenting on the thematic concentration of the programs in an artistic manner. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.

Classical Music

Composer Michael Hersch adapts the tragedy of Medea from Ovid's�Metamorphoses�in his new opera for soprano Sarah Maria Sun, the vocal ensemble Schola Heidelberg, and Ensemble Musikfabrik. With librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. Hersch's setting underscores the profound psychological trauma at the heart of the tale with a characteristically powerful, bracing score.

The new album with works by Enno Poppe joins a series of its own on WERGO, the albums of which are dedicated to the composer born in 1969, who has steadily developed into a permanent fixture among German composers of international renown. The two first recordings are once again ensemble pieces, performed by two new music formations closely associated with the composer: Ensemble Musikfabrik and Ensemble Nikel, a quartet of saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano. In the three-movement piece "Fleisch", the "sounds" and playing gestures of pop and rock music are evoked, and microtonal effects are savoured with Moog synthesiser sounds, for which Enno Poppe has a soft spot. Enno Poppe wrote the rhythmically concise piece "Prozession" for the Ensemble Musikfabrik. For almost an hour, the work leads through various instrumental combinations along a continuous chain of differentiated rhythmic impulses of a large percussion section in an astonishingly entertaining manner, only to mysteriously dissolve into natural sounds at the end.

“It was only with Partch that a music began to take shape that could do equal justice to the physical desire for rhythmic pulse and a curiosity for new, unheard sounds; a music that enthralls us despite, or rather, precisely because of its unfamiliarity. A music for which we have no category, and which has no location, and yet in a strange way is grounded.” (Heiner Goebbels) The American composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) is considered a pioneer of the Just Intonation movement and was far ahead of his time when he began to explore microtonality. In the course of his life, he not only created a highly complex tonal system, but also designed and built an extensive set of instruments of sculptural beauty and great stage presence for its realisation, the only and original set of which is preserved in the USA.

On the occasion of the opening of the Ruhrtriennale 2013 with "Delusion of the Fury", staged by Heiner Goebbels, Harry Partch's entire set of microtonal instruments was reconstructed for the Ensemble Musikfabrik and learned by the musicians. It was only through this enormous reconstruction that performances of Partch's music outside his home country became possible at all. The dance and music theatre "Delusion of the Fury", whose recording by the Ensemble Musikfabrik sets new standards, is considered a key work and musical quintessence in Harry Partch's oeuvre. The extensive booklet documents the extraordinary music theatre production with numerous pictures as well as texts by Heiner Goebbels and Edu Haubensak.

The title 'Vida' of Misha Cvijovic's portrait album combines meanings from different languages - life, sight, healing and myth. The composer's music is equally multi-layered, resulting from her exploration of varying sonic and artistic perspectives. Booklet author Carl Rosman explains: 'A keen awareness of stage and physicality is constantly present, in works whose language is typically gestural, eclectic, and direct - although not without irony and polyvalence.' The album has three focal points: it begins with early compositions such as 'Lica Persefone', 'Tikkun Olam' and 'Cirque du Soleil'. As part of a young generation of composers from the former Yugoslavia who are significantly shaping the local contemporary music scene, Cvijovic also uses the ?-time rhythm of the Balkan region in the latter work, among others. She transfers this into a kaleidoscopic sound world in which the trumpet (Marco Blaauw) stands out with short acrobatic solos. The album also includes works such as 'Penumbra', 'Carbon' and 'Emotional Logic - Anger', which depart from the classical mainstream and take greater risks in improvisation and form, for example by expanding the ensemble with the timbres of accordion, baritone saxophone and electric guitar in 'Penumbra'. With 'Iktsuarpok' and 'Incandescent', the focus finally shifts to electronic and electroacoustic sound. Five of these works were recorded especially for this album in collaboration with the Ensemble Musikfabrik and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Enno Poppe can also be heard, as well as Sebastian Berweck on the Minimoog and the Trio Splitsignals Berlin.

Multifaceted tonal colours, virtuosity, and a field of tension between ruptures and connections characterize the music of Turgut Ercetin. In particular, he illuminates the in-between spaces in a wide variety of dimensions. As Paul Griffiths explains in the booklet, the composer explores "the space between instruments or groups, between harmony and noise [...], between spectra, between what is played and what resounds from the performance space." At the center of the album lies the cycle "Das Phonem zwischen zwei Wortern" ("The Phoneme Between Two Words"). The largest part, (b), draws on one of Turgut Ercetin's research fields: vanished architecture, here referring to two demolished Byzantine buildings. In this work, the SWR Symphony Orchestra as a modern orchestra meets a Baroque ensemble with musicians from the ELISION Ensemble. However, the two formations do not appear as opposites but as mutually interacting seeds. The smaller pieces (a) and (c) function as fanfare and epilogue: they condense the themes of fusion and separation, ultimately leading the ELISION musicians back to modern instruments. Ensemble Musikfabrik is featured in two works on this album: "Resonances (b)" and "Thousand Dead Bodies Under My Bed, All Cloaked with the Breath of the Living". The latter recalls how the past continues to live on - in art, in memory, in trauma. Within three interlaced ensembles, an interplay unfolds: characteristics drift from one group to another, while the very nature of the piece as a whole gradually shifts.

The music of Iranian composer Elnaz Seyedi challenges the listener to discover multi-layered and subtle sounds, often at the limit of perception. According to Dirk Wieschollek in the booklet text, Seyedi's compositions are characterized by the simultaneous presence of opposites: "the widely separated registers of the instruments, and the tension between fragment and continuum, development and stasis, tonal abstraction and enigmatic relationships to extra-musical content." Borrowings from poetry, which often form the intellectual breeding ground of her works, are particularly striking, such as in "Nach neuen Meeren" for clarinet and accordion, written for and interpreted by the Zollner-Roche duo. It was based on the homonymous poem by Friedrich Nietzsche. The painting "The Sun" by Edvard Munch in turn inspired Seyedi to create the ensemble work "a sun of one's own". The finest colour gradations and an imperceptible brightening are reproduced here by the Kommas Ensemble. In addition to traditional instruments, the composer also experiments with unusual sound producers such as spatulas of different sizes and pitches in the musical-scenic work "PS-nach Spuren" in collaboration with the composer Ehsan Khatibi, which is integrated into this portrait as an online video. Special instruments by the pioneer of microtonality Harry Partch can be heard in Ensemble Musikfabrik's interpretation of "fragments inside".

Vladimir Guicheff Bogacz's music thrives on surprises. Behind every note, there are unexpected twists and turns, which in turn lead to an exuberant sea of sound. Genre boundaries are deliberately crossed or not recognised at all. New music meets jazz meets South American folklore. Booklet author Rainer Nonnenmann summarises Guicheff Bogacz's musical approach as follows:"Hardly anything in his music is what one would expect from a particular instrumentation, genre, section or style. Existing traditions and narratives are questioned anew, turned around or dissolved."

In “encuentros casuals”, for example, the Uruguayan-born composer draws on the music of jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy or makes the cello in “igualito, igualito, igualito” sound like the guitar of Chilean singer Violeta Parra. “Vos, seguime” – recorded by Ensemble Musikfabrik – reflects on the classical piano trio, with its expansion simultaneously leading to its deconstruction. Finally, the members of Kollektiv3:6Koeln are allowed to complete an almost 35-minute tour de force in the ensemble composition “Heimlich”: In it, Vladimir Guicheff Bogacz explores the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, in order to develop a grab bag of artistic possibilities.