Frank Michael Beyer, who lived in the seclusion of Greece years of childhood, pays homage to the "cradle of the West" in his "Greece" -Partitur musically a very real way. It was suggested the three-movement work by a hymn of ancient singer-poet Mesomedes the Muse Kalliopeia and to the God of the arts Apollon. In Beyer's composition is archaic Doric connect and specifically the presence of it's own layers of color to a uniform expression. The composition "Greece" which is used in 1980 composed "Trio for Oboe, Viola and Harp", which was inspired by Ursula and Heinz Holliger. The composer refers to the concepts of Melos, Rhapsody and dance, their association and expression spaces the three sets of the trio is based. In Beyer's eins�tzigem orchestral piece "cross-talk" - it consists of four comparable structures, wave trains, and a swan song - there is both: Diaphonisches and Symphonic. Frank Michael Beyer's works - mostly orchestral and chamber music - were honored with various art prizes.

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.

In 1946 Hindemith, who became an American citizen in January of that year, composed the Requiem for Robert Shaw's Collegiate Chorale. Whitman's poem had been written on the death of Lincoln. Some parallel events at Roosevelt's death and the excellent interpretation presented Hindemith's work a great success. The recent identification of the Jewish melody Gaza, which appears in large parts of the work, reveals a further meaning: It must be seen as Hindemith's musical reaction to the Holocaust, a reaction, whose effect is all the more penetrating and persuasive, because Hindemith himself never revealed the identity of the Gaza melody for the purposes of cheap publicity. Hindemith wrote a Requiem for the living (the survivors), who are obligated to remember and identify themselves with the victims and must transform this historical moment into an imperishable personal experience.

"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)

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. Harmen de Boer: clarinet / Taco Kooistraa: cello / Yoko Abe, Rainer Boesch, Carlos Roque Alsina, Richard Teitelbaum, Adam Wodnicki: piano.

One of the most spectacular water bird sanctuaries of the world - the Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary which was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1985 - can be found in between Jaipur and Agra, less than 200 km south of India's capital New Delhi. Consisting of lakes, marshes, thickets, scrub, and dry savannah, the Sanctuary provides a singular opportunity to observe a huge variety of birdlife. The number of birds to be found in winter - the season when the recordings on this CD were made - is, in fact, so large that it is almost impossible to single out any particular species. What presents itself to the visitor of the Sanctuary is a big chorus of many, many different voices, with some of them coming to the centre of the stage in especially dramatic moments. The CD "Opera of birds" is a guided soundwalk through the Sanctuary which provides you with an overview of the most prominent species of birds to be found in Bharatpur in the winter season - and may also be used for a relaxing listening experience.

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. The Historical CD of Digital Sound Synthesis. Randall, James: Mudgett, Monologues for a Mass Murderer/ Sound examples of Jean-Claude Risset's Introductory Catalogue of Computer Synthesized Sounds.

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. Andreas Gutzwiller: shakuhachi / The University of New Mexico Percusssion Ensemble / Christopher Shultis: director / Cecil Lytle, Clark Griffith, David Burge: piano.

Convinced that the Revelation of Saint John was the response to questions that man has posed since the beginning of time, and that music has the power of evoking something and making it comprehensible even without using images, he turned to the overpowering subject of the Apocalypse, a subject that is difficult to grasp in human, artistic terms: visions of the end of time, of the goal and fulfilment of divine creation. Completed by the end of 1939, the premiere took place in occupied Paris on 11 June 1942 under the direction of Charles Munch. The passage in the text about the 144,000 children of Israel who were redeemed went unnoticed by the Nazi censors. The unusual orchestration of this fantastic oratorio includes a quartet of vocal soloists, a mixed chorus, organ, and two orchestras: the orchestra of heaven, which corresponds more or less to a large symphony orchestra, and the orchestra of hell, an ensemble of grotesque sound effects.

Paul Hindemith was motivated to work with Gottfried Benn after he had read his article "Can Writers Change the World?". In it Benn states, in opposition to the political program of salvation of his days: History has no overarching sense, no upward movement, no dawning of humanity, a motif of the Orient, a myth of the Mediterranean Sea; it survives the Niagara Falls, only to drown in the bathtub; necessity calls and randomness answers. Benn then gave form to these views in his poem "Das Unaufh�rliche", which is supposed to express the self-transformation of the creative act. Hindemith was confronted with the paradoxical problem that he could in no way express the principle of the perpetual, to which as an art form music, too, is subject, by means of an emphatically autonomous music. Instead, he sought to embody the principle of the perpetual in his basic compositional decisions. Hindemith succeeds by always giving something fictive to the "organic" closed forms of the "natural" musical flow. The principle of the perpetual is assigned to three themes, which almost all of the work's other themes are derived from in the most subtle, unobtrusive art of transformation. And when the final chorus returns to these three themes in their original form, it makes thematically manifest what was always latently present: the principle of the perpetual.

The music of Wilhelm Killmayer needs no declaration of facts, nor a declaration of love. Like almost no other music it "emanates from itself", is autonomic. For the premiere of "fin al punto" (which was written for the twentieth anniversary of the Munich Chamber Orchestra) in 1971 Wilhelm Killmayer wrote the following text: "The calm already contains the catastrophe. Out of the calm grows the movement that drives itself to the furthest extreme of its powers, where it collapses. It is the point at which one gives up, beyond which one can escape into the open."

Pioneers of the Ars Acustica: Every radio plays is to be understood in the most general sense, as an auditory experience in which all of the sound phenomena, whether sounds, words, or noises, are in principal equal: part of the available material.

Hans-J�rgen von Bose belongs to that generation of German composers who brought about a volte-face in the early 1970s. They bridled at the constantly increasing complexity of music and instead wrote their works "from the belly." But he was also inspired by the music of Alban Berg, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Gy�rgy Ligeti and Brian Ferneyhough. Von Bose's ideal, however, always remained the same: to recreate modernity from the spirit of romanticism.

Unsettling and opposed to any and all concessions to fashion, these are apt descriptions of Christfried Schmidt's music. For decades this composer, now over sixty years old, was subjected to massive and undisguised repressive measures by the East German cultural authorities. Yet, at the fall of the Iron Curtain, he was struck by indifference, particularly from those who do not want to grapple with the unsettling acoustical fantasies of a person which cannot be diverted from his artistic direction. Nevertheless, Schmidt's music is not avant-garde in an obvious sense of the term. On the contrary, Schmidt writes his music within the bounds of what we might call an open expressivity. He cultivates a seething, often beseeching idiom that obviously links him with the grand traditions of expressionist music from the turn of the century: with Mahler, Schoenberg and Berg no less than with Varese and Xenakis. Schmidt gives his listeners music that can be aggressively emotional even when it is quiet, whose underlying impetus perhaps thrives on the idealistic and utterly "nonmodern" intention of engendering a state of catharsis - true to Beethoven's maxim that the purpose of music is to improve mankind.

The CD presents partly unpublished choral works of Paul Hindemith who wrote in 1952: "It is not going too far to say that the art of a cappella ensemble singing and the music written for it can be thought of as the measure of the achievement of the musical culture of any particular period." The brief texts of the canons reveal his love of punning games and an underlying sense of humor.

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."

The "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" is Arnold Schoenberg's "in tyrannos". Lord Byron's disparaging poem on the despot deprived of his power on which the work is based goes beyond the bounds of the concrete motivation for writing it, however, and becomes a passionate indictment of every kind of despotism. With its ambiguities and bold insights into the relationship between word and tone, as Pierre Boulez says, "Pierrot lunaire" contains inexhaustible material to ferment future works. Schoenberg characterized his "Five Orchestral Pieces" in a letter to R. Strauss in the words: "Absolutely not symphonic, exactly the opposite, no architecture, no structure. Just a colourful, uninterrupted succession of hues, rhythms and moods."

For Wilhelm Killmayer 70th birthday WERGO presents a selection of piano works of the composer on CD. Stylistically typical works of the 90s as the Etudes collections and the "round songs and morning songs" is a cycle of scattered pieces from different time, which has subsequently ordered cyclically the composer juxtaposed. Noticeable here is the stylistic spectrum, has emerged despite the different quantitative weighting in this selection. The "Canto melismatico" shows Killmayer a master varied Ostinatokomposition. The "Album Leaf" represents the uneventful, pause rich and tonkargen 60s style, which can be seen as a kind of subjectively fully coated rebellion against the pitch and wear the structural mechanics processing of serial music perfectly. The "Spring Song" has already advance to consistently diatonic pieces 90s, who have found in the short cycle of "Etudes blanches" their most radical formation. The "Etudes transcendental" follow, the art of listening with this unusual music is to develop a new sensitivity to the unusualness on the edge of the familiar.

No romantic artistic life � la Wagner or Puccini stands in the background of Egk's body of work. His artistic personality exhibits no monomania. Egk viewed himself with a certain objectivity; humor, wit, and sarcasm are the characteristic elements of such a distancing self-perspective. In many ways Egk can be considered an heir of the French 18th century, a descendent of Voltaire whom Egk first read and admired in his school years in Augsburg, and who remained an influence throughout Egk's life. So "La Tentation" is indicative of Egk's relationship to France, in particular the enlightenment of 18th century rationalism. Janet Walker: alto / Werner-Egk-Quartett / Manfred Clement: oboe / Ulf Rodenh�user: clarinet / Johannes Ritzkowsky: horn / Eberhard Marschall: bassoon / Werner Booz: double bass.

In Paul Hindemith's collected works the compositions for violoncello and piano occupy a significant position. They range from solo sonata to concerto with large orchestra. The large number of compositions for cello is perhaps surprising when one recalls that Hindemith first attracted public attention as a violist and that many of his works were written especially for his own concert performances. However Hindemith was always surrounded by cellists - in his private life as well as in the circle of friendly colleagues - who performed his works. Julius Berger: Violoncello / Siegfried Mauser: piano.

Musica Ricercata of 1951-53 is a collection of 11 piano pieces which even with their traditional character went beyond what was considered appropriate for performance in Hungary in the early 1950s. The tenth piece, e.g., was considered too "decadent" because of the abundance of minor seconds. The short "Capriccios" and "Invention", written in 1947-48, reveal convincingly the emergence of Ligeti's musical identity. "Monument � Selbstportrait � Bewegung" (three pieces for two pianos) was written in 1976 while Ligeti was working on the opera "Le Grand Macabre". The conception of these three pieces arose from the inherent technical possibilities afforded by the simultaneous playing of the two pianos. Ligeti works here with processes which develop consequently from an initial core to unfurl in great complexity.

Music is the air I breathe and the planet I inhabit. The only way I can pay my debt to music is by bringing it to others, with all my love. (Cathy Berberian) Cathy Berberian was born in the United States of Armenian parents. While proficient in the traditional concert repertoire, Miss Berberian was renowned for her contribution to contemporary music. Her enormous flexibility and range together with a strong sense of theater and innate musicality have been acclaimed by press and public alike, and have inspired the creation of compositions by major contemporary composers such as Berio, Bussotti, Cage, Milhaud, Maderna, Pousseur, etc. One of the highlights of her career was her musical relationship with Stravinsky who made the final version of the "Elegy for JFK" for her voice and with whom she gave concerts and made Columbia recordings of Stravinsky's vocal music.

The Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin made herself well-known by her soundtracks for experimental and silent films or her works for drama and dance theater. This CD has been produced at the ZKM (Center for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe). "Unceremonious Processions" is something like "live studio music". Kats-Chernin's 15 short pieces could have been the music for a film that was never made. The set would be an abandoned theater; the ruined technical equipment would become the props, strewn about the stage. Many traces can be heard in this music, those of Shostakovitch and Prokofiev, or of American Minimal music. There are also points of contact with House and Ambient music despite the models of nostalgic dance music that lend form to many of the pieces. But "Unceremonious Processions" does not appeal to the emotions of the listener, it is itself emotion - so tangible that it easily lingers on in one's memory. Uta-Mirjam Theilen: clarinet, bass clarinet / Uwe Dierksen: trombone, tuba / Dirk Rotbrust: percussion / Gregory Jones: cello / Heinz Huber: accordion / Elena Kats-Chernin: piano / Christian Venghaus: sound designer.

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.