The thirteen 'minor pentatonically' tuned strings of the long-necked Japanese floor harp sit like a mantra beneath my hands, Vetter writes. His koto playing is, however, more varied than a constantly repeated mantra, and more innovative in technique, which allows an underlying calm to vibrate through the many-layered structures.

The performer on this CD, concert organist Lionel Rogg of Geneva, is at home in the world's greatest concert halls. He began his worldwide career as a concert organist playing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose works for organ he would subsequently record in full three different times. Since then, he has been much in demand throughout the world as both organist and harpsichordist. As professor for organ in Geneva, Rogg teaches young organists from all over the world. More than forty of his students have been awarded the Prix de virtuosit�. Recently, Rogg has been devoting more time to composition. Following the devastating fire of 1984, as a member of a committee of experts, he decisively influenced the specification of the new van den Heuvel instrument in his native city's Victoria Hall. For Lionel Rogg it was particularly important that this concert-hall organ should be optimally configured for the specifics of it's surroundings, whether as an emancipated - orchestral - counterpart or as a solo instrument. The high tonal standard for the characteristic foundation stops (fonds) with wide mensuration and the powerful intonation of the reeds combined with the attention paid to the specification of the (low) mixtures, give the organ in Victoria Hall the desired symphonic, French character. The extensive battery of horizontal reeds and the pedal stops of 32' pitch (labial and lingual) make the four-manual instrument just as appropriate for the music of the founder of the symphonic organ music of France, C�sar Franck, as heard on this Organ-CD, as it is for the effective presentation of Liszt and Bizet transcriptions, with their virtuosically pianistic, even orchestral character. The booklet of this fifth CD of the Organ series contains liner notes in German, English, and French.

Classical Music

John Cage’s occupation with the sound possibilities of the prepared piano became the dominant tonal feature of his music after he moved to New York in 1942, and for many years it remained his preferred form of expression. Works for Piano and Prepared Piano, Vol. II, is an exquisite collection of dynamic pieces that John Cage wrote before he developed an interest in the I Ching, the ancient Chinese “book of changes,” or in atonality.

Already in the Renaissance the toccata (from the Italian toccare - to touch) was understood to be a free-form virtuoso piece for keyboard instruments. Today, as for centuries, the toccata is for keyboard a favourite model for improvisation, and the organ toccatas on this recording radiate the spontaneous sheen of an unacademic musical joy. Rosalinde Haas: organ. This production received the quarterly German Record Critics' Award.

With a score derived from star maps - the "Atlas Australis", a book of maps of stars as they can be seen from Australia - and the "I Ching" (64-choice Old-Chinese chance manual) "Etudes Australes" is a quintessentially Cageian work. Grete Sultan is an active recitalist who has performed music both classic and contemporary around the world. "When I wrote the 'Sonatas and Interludes', it was with Maro Amian in mind", Cage said. "David Tudor was in my mind when I wrote the 'Music of Changes'. Without Grete Sultan in mind, her quiet, indomitable strength, her devotion to the piano (which I also love), her discipline, her determination to transform music from the paper into life, I would not have embarked on this project. Now of course I am delighted that I did." Grete Sultan: piano.

Siegfried Mauser, who has already recorded Hindemith's complete works for cello and piano for WERGO with Julius Berger, inaugurates with this CD a complete recording of Hindemith's piano music on five CDs. The booklet reprints an extensive, essential essay by Friederike Becker that provides an introduction to the young Hindemith's aesthetic world and a detailed commentary on the piano works included here. Siegfried Mauser: piano.

This recording consists of three of my early compositions produced at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. The first two of them, especially "Dreamsong", became very well-known and influential in the filed of electroacoustic music and have received many honors. In those early days of computer music my colleagues and I were pioneering the development and use of many of the techniques of digital synthesis, recording, and sound processing that are now commonplace. Due to the almost fanatical emphasis on sound quality that was then a part of the CCRMA atmosphere, these works continue to stand on a par with the best that current instruments can produce. I hope that you will experience some of the excitement and inspiration that I felt in bringing this unusual music to life. (Michael McNabb)

"What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing"(Steve Reich, 1968). Minimal music, which numbers Steve Reich among its founders and as one of its most significant representatives, existed for hardly more than ten years. The Ensemble Avantgarde presents a wonderful survey of Reich's minimal music-compositions. The conceptional concentration in the musical work on the structurally simple means of its creation is seen especially in Reich's "Pendulum Music", which is presented here in three different versions. Strict minimal music ended with "Phase Patterns" of 1970. The Ensemble Avantgarde is an association of musicians in Leipzig who are dedicated to the performance of 20th-century music. Since its founding in 1989, the ensemble has worked with a variable membership under the artistic and organizational direction of Steffen Schleiermacher. Concert tours have taken the group through many European countries, East Asia, and South America. Numerous radio productions and CDs document the work of the ensemble. They have been specially recognized through a grant from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation and the Schneider-Schott Prize given by the city of Mainz.

Steffen Schleiermacher's cleverly conceived collection of five possible realizations of "Twenty-five Pages" makes it possible to experience both directly and drastically the immense variety of potential sound results: from the extremity of the first version in which the texts of all "25 pages" are played simultaneously, to it's direct opposite where all the pages are played consecutively by a single player with an aleatoric ordering of the pages and choice of clefs.

"I possess an uncanny passion for popular dance and have times when I dance night after night with bar dames (I only dance modern dances like the foxtrot, Boston, slingan, passo doppio, etc.), purely out of rhythmic enthusiasm and a subconscious sensual drive. Because of myunbelievably earthy, almost even animalistic consciousness, dancing infuses me with a phenomenal creative impulse." (Erwin Schulhoff in a letter to Alban Berg)

Hindemith's "Ludus tonalis" which is presented on this CD was composed in the American exile. It is not only the composer's last work for piano solo, but also one of the most important works of piano compositions of the 20th century. To show what music and composition are: This is what Hindmith tried to undertake in his "Ludus tonalis". The basis for harmonic practice and tonal structure presented in "The Craft of Musical Composition" finds direct application in the final concept of the "Ludus tonalis". Heinrich Strobel, musicologist and Hindemith's first biographer called "Ludus tonalis" the "Well-Tempered Piano" of the 20th century. Composer Fritz von Borries said: "What has here become music is not a mathematical problem or experiment, but a deep spiritual triumph, in which ultimate reason and ultimate being are revealed. How can the meaning of Praeludium and Postludium be more clearly represented than by letting that which began in the beginning appear in the end and run it's course in reverse direction and vertically inverted? And what wonderful music it is both times."

More than 50 composers from 13 different countries contributed to this collection of music with computers. Their pieces represent major directions of how avantgarde composers utilize the potential of new technology. Computer Music by Chris Chafe, David Jaffe, William Schottstaedt.

Julius Berger presents Bach's eternal ciphers - a source of inspiration for all time! Included in the full-colour booklet are works by the painter Linda Schwarz. Her "Notenbilder" [Score Images] are based on Bach's first cello suite and inspired by Berger's great technical brilliance and spiritual joy in interpretation. Julius Berger: violoncello.

Recorded in: Duomo Vecchio, Monselice, Italy 13-14 July 1998 Producer(s) Gian Andrea Lodovici Sound Engineer(s) Matteo Costa

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

DUPRE: Works for Organ, Vol. 7