Malika is without a doubt the most popular taarab singer currently working in Kenya. She enjoyed big hits with "Vidonge" and "Sitaki sitaki." After a spell living in Somalia, Malika returned to Mombasa, where she holds her position as queen of taarab unchallenged.

The self-discovery of a composer is dependent not least of all on a successful mediation process between stylistic considerations of the historical moment and personal stylistic preoccupations. The solutions are arrived at in various ways, moving between the poles of hermetically sealed self-indulgence and a constant willingness to adapt. Bialas retained his individual character as a composer throughout the various stylistic changes he experienced in the course of his work. Siegfried Mauser: piano / Christian Altenburger: violin / Barbara Westphal: viola / Julius Berger: violoncello / Auryn-Quartett.

The aestetic of this work is dedicated to clarity; simplicity accompanies, directs it. That is all. I wanted nothing more. This is the way Satie concluded a short text on his "Socrate", with which he presented the work he had finished in 1918 to the public. The text to this "symphonic drama" was compiled from three dialogues of Plato by Satie (Symposium, Phaedrus and Phaedo) which in some way represented Socrates' person and character biographically. The reproduction of the four male roles by one female voice suited Satie's aestetic purposes, because it helped to clearly limit the distance between text and listener, between past and present. The booklet of the CD is supplied with the complete texts of the three parts in French, German and English. John Cage, who has been propagating Satie's music his life long and who has repeatedly referred to Satie in his own work, created his "Cheap Imitation" in 1969. He subjected the entire score of "Socrate" to a type of metamorphosis with the aid of chance processes which had become characteristic for his compositions since the early 50s. The result was an almost completely one-voice composition, which in a certain way underlined Satie's striving for transparency, unadornment and clarity. Hilke Helling: alto / Deborah Richards: piano / Herbert Henck: piano.

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. Artis Wodehouse: piano / Michael McNabb: soprano saxophone, synthesis, and processing.

During his Berlin visit in 1998, the Siberian sound shaman Spiridon Shishigin made recordings for his first solo CD, "Soul of Yakutia". Khomus - instrument of seduction with spiritual and healing effects. The area around Lake Baikal is not only the home of the Turks, of the Mongolian and Tartar people, but also the original home of the mouth harp. From here the instrument has spread almost all over the world. The Sakha people say that the khomus (mouth harp) has been their means of expression, central to their existence, for at least three thousand years.

The zither with notched bridge, "mvet," and the "mendzang" xylophone are the most important musical instruments of the Beti of southern Cameroon. Traditional epic ballads and love songs are accompanied by the zither. The xylophone groups play very rhythmically and melodiously, in general on public and festive occasions. The recordings for this CD within Wergo's series "Museum Collection Berlin" were made in 1984 in Cameroon and in 1989 in Berlin, at a time when this tradition was still alive. First recordings.

Bells, drums, and stones are found among the earliest archeological founds of musical instruments. Since second millennium B.C.E. percussion instruments have been used in China in religious, court, and popular music. Pure percussion music soon followed. The percussion music of Thundering Dragon (with five hundred instruments in all, including bamboo, wood, bronze, iron, and elephant-foot drums, gongs with voices of winds, tigers, and dogs, and bells and rattles), which builds primarily on the traditional popular music of China, combines depiction of nature with humor and virtuosity.

As multifaceted as popular Sufism is, so varied too are the musical styles of the Indus Valley, which have been largely unknown until now. The spectrum reaches from ecstatic "qawwali" compositions by way of mystically inspired love poetry and popular melodies to the Shaman-influenced trance music of the Baluchis and the songs of the dervishes and fakirs. It is not simply music in the narrow sense that defines the life of the dervishes, their whole existence is a tapestry of sound that is woven from diverse musical threads. Their music reflects a love of God and the joy of existence. More than anywhere else in the Islamic world, in the Indus valley where music has played an important role in spreading a sensual and tolerant faith and has influenced the life of a population inspired by the Sufis. In the Punjab, the main musical form is the "kafi", of which there is a rural folk and an urban classical variety. In Sindh we find a large number of different forms. The "ways" preserved at the shrine of Shah Latif in their original form follow the metrical rules of the Sindhi language. Most of the poets of the Indus valley, who wanted to reach the masses, used the colloquial languages of the people, whereas "qawwali", on the other hand, made use of the general language Urdu. It is not only music in a narrower sense that defines the life of the dervishes: Their whole existence seems to be a kind of sound carpet woven from manifold acoustical threads. Let the triad of music, describing texts and pictures full of atmosphere bring you to a wonderful new world.

The first recording of selected piano works by the composer Johanna Senfter, of whose extensive oeuvre only chamber music works have been accessible to the public up till now, represents a great challenge to the interpreter. In order to provide as wide a view as possible of the development of the composer's compositional technique, the selection of works ranges from the romanticising character pieces of her early period to the late-period works which exploit the potentialities of tonality to its extreme limits. The piano writing creates a decisively orchestral effect through its widely-spaced chordal texture and the frequent octave treatment of the melodic line. The incorporation of various rhythmic models, which are also treated polyrhythmically, reflects the high grade of complexity of these pieces. Monica Gutman's differentiated and intellectually consistent interpretation, which meticulously takes into consideration every individual melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and dynamic component of the compositions, facilitates the interested listener's first approach to Johanna Senfter's compositions.

The Santals live in the north-eastern part of India in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Numbering about four million people, they constitute the second largest tribal community of India. Their belief in "bongas" (nature-spirits) sets them apart from their neighbours, and they have always strictly refrained from mixing with the surrounding population. In spite of economic difficulties, the majority of the Santals still live in their own villages, with agriculture as their main source of livelihood. The Santals have their own and very original conception of sound. They consider their acoustic environment as consisting of three categories: "sade" (produced by striking together different objects), "rak" (which is made up of the calls of animals) and finally "aran" (human sounds) which are again subdivided in "ror" (speech) and "rar" (song). Sounds are always an important indicator of anything going on in or outside the village, a means of ritual and practical orientation in time and space. The recordings were taken in November 1994 as part of a research project devoted to the Santals by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (New Delhi) in some villages in the neighbourhood of Santiniketan (Birbhum District of West Bengal). They contain not only music but also the daily activities of these villages, arranged in the form of a soundwalk through a Santal village, lasting from early morning until night.

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 Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki used to write chamber music even as a student in Cracow. He was writing the chamber music works for himself, then already an accomplished violinist, and his fellow students (The title "Sonata for Violin and Piano" from 1953 has only recently been published.). A specialty of these early works are Penderecki's inventions with which he altered the sound of the stringed instruments, indeed almost to the point of being completely unrecognizable. With the new sounds he introduced, he achieved effects both frightening and rough as well as a bewitching, irredescent lyricism: a broad scale of sounds and colors which no one would have thought possible with stringed instruments. After the composition of the "String Quartet No. 1" chamber music receded into the background. The next quartet appeared eight years later, and the following pieces for single instruments were mostly "gifts of friendship" for the outstanding interpreters of his instrumental concertos with orchestra. Only recently, in 1990, has Penderecki turned again intensively to chamber music, composing the strongly virtuoso "String Trio" which is also included on this CD. The interpreters of this production are renowned musicians and, being either Polish or having lived and worked in Poland, very familiar with the composer's works.

Am nhac t�i t� Nam b� (music of the talented) is an artistically ambitious variety of amateur music from southern Vietnam that developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century with the founding of circles of especially talented musicians. It's repertoire, which represents an essential part of the cultural identity of the south, belongs to musical traditions of Vietnam that are increasingly at risk of being forgotten. Every piece is created anew at each performance. The musicians must give an individual form to a preexisting abstraction with few fixed points. In this context it is interesting to note that the conception of composition and creativity differs from that of classical European models. The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

Perhaps the most beautiful, imaginative gift France ever bestowed upon Spain bears the name Maurice Ravel. Bego�a Uriarte: piano / Karl-Hermann Mrongovius: piano.

If we accept that contemporary composition is characterized by the striking co-existence of postmodern tendencies and continuing traditions of modernism, then it is legitimate to see in the works of Hans-J�rgen von Bose dating from the 1980s a realization of both tendencies - both in the sequence of pieces and within the works themselves. Without superficially avoiding the tensions and also contradictions inherent in such a combination of elements and issues, von Bose in his works has achieved a position of integration. The three pieces on this CD - each in it's own way - redefine the role of time through the collapse of flowing chronometric elements and aspects of cause and effect - and with the labyrinth as a formal concept.