Both the piano work Hamamuth - Stadt der Engel and the piano concerto Wer sind diese Kinder are composer Rolf Riehm's attempts to substantially broaden the spectrum of political music. Hamamuth - Stadt der Engel focuses on the omnipresence of violence experienced during the Iraq War. Both works show that it would be insufficient to look for their political facets exclusively on a semantic level. The physical understanding of music appears to be almost equally important. These powerful works are performed by the SWR Sinfonie Orchester Baden-Baden conducted by Beat Furrer.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The London Sinfonietta combine two works from Thomas Adès, one of the most distinctive and popular voices in modern composition. Both works feature accompanying films (by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements) that are included in this CD/DVD set. This is the second CD for the London Sinfonietta with Signum. It follows their October release of music by Louis Andriessen, featuring the UK premiere of Anaïs Nin, alongside his famed work De Staat. In Seven Days is a musical interpretation for piano and orchestra of the biblical 'creation' by Thomas Adès, composed in collaboration with a film-piece by the artist and filmmaker Tal Rosner. Both music and film evoke the processes of the creation rather than the objects described in the movement titles, using simple elements in repeated and evolving contexts in a perpetual state of flux, change and growth. The Piano Studies Nos 6 & 7 are arrangements of player-piano works by the American composer Conlon Nancarrow. An influential figure to generations of composers, Nancarrow's studies for the player-piano (or pianola) allowed him to generate music of extreme rhythmic complexity in a multitude of inventive ways. These arrangements for two pianos by Thomas Adès capture the strange magic of the originals, where fragmented musical ideas are played off against each other in a wild, almost jazz-like way. The works are accompanied by film-visualisations by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements.

Marked by the experiments of Luigi Nono or Helmut Lachenmann, and by his practice of seventeenth and eighteenth century music, French composer Brice Pauset is pursuing an original path, marked by his rhetorical questioning of earlier forms of music. This is music in tune with our own culture and, at times, would transmit its evidences. The vocal issue remains central, even in Brice Pauset’s catalogue: “The voice as an instrument,” he writes, “the voice as identity (and it then literally becomes human), and finally, the voice as an instrument of identity. It is only at this moment that the musical and political can carry on a dialogue, and that music can attempt to express its time.” Performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester & Chor Koln, Ensemble Recherche, and Arditti Quartet, this is an album of great intensity served by first-rate performers!

Classical Music

Classical Music

Beat Furrer’s art of composition is like an exploration of fundamental principles, an exploration that is made accessible in the work and through the act of hearing it. Aggregate states in sound, musical processes, the nature of time itself and the contrast between the subject and the world are the topics of his works – though they are at the same time expressive snapshots of the moment. This portrait CD with works by Beat Furrer from 1991-2011 affords a twenty-year overview of his works. Aer, …cold and calm and moving, and Lied belong to a group of works that he wrote after completing his first opera Die Blinden (1989). Auf tönernen füssen (2001) after Friederike Mayröcker belongs to the time when he wrote his music theatre piece Begehren, while Studie, for piano (2011) was composed most recently, shortly after his music theatre work Wüstenbuch.

With Johnny Hodges, the alto saxophone found itself in the hands of a goldsmith. As a member honoris causa of the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1928 to 1970, Hodges’ delicate phrasing and incomparable talents as an improviser made him one of the most remarkable musicians in jazz history. In this previously unreleased live recording dating from 1961 he plays the great classics in Ellington’s material, titles he always incarnated with an incandescent grace. The Live in Paris collection by Michel Brillié allows listeners to hear previously-unreleased recordings (made at concerts and private- or radio-sessions) by the great 20th stars in jazz, rock & roll and song. These “live” takes, and the artists’ rapport with their audiences, gives these performances an additional soul and sensibility in counterpoint to the rigorous demands of studio recordings. Particular care was taken when restoring the sound of these tapes in order to meet modern standards while preserving the original colors of the period.

Johnny Hodges (1906-70) known for his pure tone and personalized style had been the stalwart of Ellington Orchestra throughout its history except for a period in the 50s. Hodges left immeasurable inspiration to the generations to come. He led this Ducal All-star septet to give concerts in Europe during the spring of 1961. The existence of the Copenhagen concert has been rumoured among the fans but never materialized until now making this album a historical augmentation of Hodges’ discography.

Johnny Hodges - The Clef & Norgran Albums 1951-54 - It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career. - Johnny Hodges was a jazz alto saxophonist, who enjoyed a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1920s through to his death in 1970. Best-known for his work with Duke Ellington, he had a pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads that won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, and made him ubiquitous on recording sessions across the spectrum of jazz. He occasionally led his own bands, and this 41-track 2-CD collection focuses on albums he made in a concentrated period in the mid-1950s with his small orchestra for the Clef and Norgran labels, owned by renowned impresario and producer Norman Granz, which were forerunners of Verve. It features the titles from the albums. "Johnny Hodges Collates", "Johnny Hodges Collates No. 2", "Swing With Johnny Hodges", "Memories of Ellington", "Castle Rock", "The Blues" and "In A Tender Mood", with some of the titles appearing on more than one album. A number of the titles were also released as singles, and two of them "Castle Rock " and "A Pound Of Blues", were US R&B hits. It naturally features some notable musicians of the era, including Al Sears, Leroy Lovett, Billy Strayhorn, Al McGibbon, Sonny Greer, Emmett Berry, Lloyd Trotman, Flip Phillips, Red Callender, Ray Brown, J.C. Heard and others. It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career, and a great showcase for his understated virtuosity as a jazz musician and leader.

Classical Music