On the invitation of the House of the Cultures of the World in Berlin the Isang Yun Ensemble Pyongyang (North Korea) was the guest of the Federal Republic of Germany with seven concerts in May 1999, resulting in headlines like "Musical Bridgehead", "Reconciling Light", or "Isang Yun as the Hero and Saint of Music". The lively and spontaneous but not aestheticized interpretations of the chamber music works of Isang Yun - born in South Korea, living and working mostly in Berlin - by the Isang Yun Ensemble Pyongyang are captured on this recording from one of the performances from this fascinating tour.

These two complementary works by the Russian composer Alexander Raskatov (composition award of the Salzburg Osterfestspiele 1998) form a real compositional diptych: In "Commentary on a Vision" he links the varying sound aggregates following a sort of dream logic, in which there are no consecutive developments; rather, unforeseeable events appear in a quasi-visionary way from the subconscious and then vanish again. The chamber orchestral work "Xenia" is conceived as it's light counterpart, and is drawn by the ideas of childlike innocence and paradisiacal na�vet�.

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.

Norbert J. Schneider wrote his composition "... so lose im Raume" - in which he combines his sets of the "Duino Elegies" by Rainer Maria Rilke and his composition for the movie "Schlafes Bruder" [Brother of Sleep] - in the summer of 1995. In both works, mankind stands alone in the tension between love and God. In both, "childhood" is an important symbol. This recording derives a particular authenticity from the participation of the novelist Robert Schneider who not only creates a sympathetic atmosphere by reading from "Schlafes Bruder" [in German] between the movements of "... so lose im Raume" but also establishes important connections and is able to elicit curiosity about the further development of the musical process.

Andre Volkonsky was born in 1933 into a Russian family of emigres living in Geneva. Having studied piano with J. Aubert and Dinu Lipatti, he returned to Moscow with his parents at the age of 14 in the hope that the Stalinist regime would restore democracy in the post-war Soviet Union. Volkonsky studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory. When he left the Soviet Union in 1973 to live in France, he had become a much-sought-after harpsichordist, but he had also suffered a lot from the "ideological purge".

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.

Forty years after the death of the "bad boy of music," pianist Guy Livingston has brought to light an extraordinary collection of forgotten works by composer George Antheil. George Antheil was a maverick composer of quirky works that brim over with character..." (The New York Times) Guy Livingston "... a pianist with a flair for modernism of all stripes..." (The New York Times) The CD contains three premi�re recordings.

This CD combines compositions by Wolfgang Rihm dedicated to the Austrian painter Kurt Kocherscheidt (1943-1992) and works inspired by Kocherscheidts paintings and sculptures. Wolfgang Rihm says: "Every Art is a fine art or formative art. At the moment when it is perceived this is true in it's literal sense."

"Holz – Knochen – ol" [Wood – Bone – Oil] is a poetic and dramatic cycle that does not only sound like a study on the composition of diverse materials. Composer Enno Poppe tells a story of growth and decay. Whereas wood is a living and growing material, bone promises growth, then stability, firmness and – as a memento mori – death. Oil, in contrast, being a residue of past life, warns us of transience, millennia of decay, while also serving as a source of energy that imparts new life. "Holz – Knochen – ol" is also a work on tradition and modernism; on the possibility of writing a solo concerto, today; on the question whether the concept of melody can be actualized in avant-garde music; and on harmonic procedures based on mathematical operations. World premiere recording! coproduction with Deutschlandradio Kultur and Westdeutscher Rundfunk

In his "Harmonies", John Cage (1912-1992) used 18th-century church music as a model to create with them, by omitting some tones, calm, clear 20th-century music. Complementary to that, one can hear the six virtuoso "Canzoni" by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643). The CD unites music, the common vocal features of which can be called more than "ear-catching" (Canzoni, Anthems). Frescobaldi's look ahead, Cage's look back, both touching each other in the visionary. The interpreters Stefan Hussong (accordion) and Mike Svoboda (trombone) appreciate the free instrumentation of the works in order to enjoy the tonally interesting kinship of their two "wind instruments". A harmonic sensuous recording which will not only appeal to experts and lovers of early or modern music. - Get enchanted by this new and original combination!

Born in Hungary, piano studies in Switzerland, composition studies with the German composers Detlev M�ller-Siemens and Wolfgang Rihm - M�rton Ill�s' extremely self-willed intensity of expression is inspired by many different spheres of influence. This intensity is reflected in his "Scene polidimensionali" in an exemplary way. To Ill�s, his tonal lines here symbolize individuals who must interact, run parallel and conflict with each other in imaginary theatrical realms. So the voices communicate on a higher level, sending and receiving infinitesimal signals as if along neural pathways. Ill�s places different emphases in his "Torso" cycle. Typical of this cycle are motivic splinters and angular rhythmic particles that are subsumed in a rigorously constructed formal design permeated by lines of fracture. Despite the highly abstract differentiation, M�rton Ill�s views his music as a response to the world and as the consequence of an intuitive confrontation with it's superfluity of enticements and hardships. But dialectically woven into this approach is a withdrawal into Ill�s' own 'island of sound'. At root, it conceals a "romantic" approach whose acoustical forms remain fully beholden to the here and now.

Fortner's compositional credo was to be able to move without restrictions - this limitless feeling of freedom - in an universe of pitches and sounds using a sovereign mastery of musical materials. The three young interpreters of this CD excellently managed to pass their fascination for Fortner's music to the listeners.

Moritz Eggert received many international prizes as a pianist and composer (e.g. composition prize of the Salzburg Easter Festival; Schneider/Schott-prize; first prize of the "Ad Referendum" competition in Montreal; Siemens prize for young composers). His concert-length cycle for piano solo, "H�mmerklavier," has been a great international success with reviewers and audiences alike. His 4th opera, the large-scale piece "Helle N�chte" inspired by tales from the Arabian Nights and Knut Hamsuns "Mysteries" was premi�red 1997 at the Munich Biennale and in part published on this CD. Moritz Eggert's music is both serious and filled with humor, it shows that the so-called serious music can easily be enjoyed of. It is not restricted to musical experts, but explicitly meant for the broad public as well.

In Andr� Werner's music, string quartets, piano concertos, but also sound installations are represented. The works included on this new CD reveal a mentality intent on allowing the tone quality of sound - as well as it's theatrical, spatial and historical dimensions - to unfold within the compositional fabric. History thus actually does come to resemble the dawn of a new pre-history.

The contact with Gordon Kampe's music is like - guided by suggestive sound impressions - the perception of an imaginary theater. Titelgebungen, set headlines and section names of his works refer for example to the world of cinematic science fiction designs � la "Star Trek" and "Alien". In other compositions, however, also quite different associations are conjured up. As "metaphors machines" used, indicate such designations the uncertainties of a pre-determined course, whose music filled time holds unexpected and unforeseen. A central compositional characteristic is the sudden turn, which manifests itself as an unusual action or instrumental solo and thus defies the common musical affect.