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 concertos of Karl Amadeus Hartmann exhibit a rich spectrum of formal and expressive possibilities, not only richly varied in relation to each other, but also a welcome addition to his more unified group of eight symphonies. Particularly with his departures from the classical-romantic concerto form, Hartmann discovered new and individual solutions that confirm the importance of his concertos as significant and original contributions to the development of this form in the twentieth century. The works compiled on this CD were written between 1931 and 1955, thus providing a superb insight into all of Hartmann's important creative phases.

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.

The "H�lderlin -Lieder" (H�lderlin songs) of Wilhelm Killmayer, now released by WERGO, provide a portrait of the later H�lderlin, the portrait of a person living in solitude and isolation. The poet H�lderlin lived the last 35 years of his life in a tower in T�bingen. The poems which he wrote during this time, bear witness to a man who removed himself from the public, "historical" world, who became a complete "stranger" he had always felt himself to be. Killmayer says about his compositions: "The ethereal purity of this language seems to emanate from another world, after it's restoration to sanity. This tone and it's utopian promise have also informed my musical version. To me, the music of the future will not be complex, but transparent like air." Peter Schreier, the renowned soloist of this recording, participated also in the world premiere of the song cycles.

On the occasion of the composer's 75th birthday on 16 December 2007, WERGO continues publishing CDs within the Edition Rodion Shchedrin with a world premiere recording. The Russian choral opera "Boyarina Morozova" describes the schism in the Russian Orthodox Church that began in the seventeenth century. This religious conflict, whose effects are still felt today, ignited in reaction to the ecclesiastical reforms of Nikon, then patriarch of Moscow. The composer's preface: "Setting to music this terrible page in the history of the schism of the church and the rise of the Old Believers in Russia and the bitter fates of the people involved was a long-held dream. Several times I began it, but each time I dropped it again, because I could not, it seemed to me, suitably tackle this gripping theme. Only when it became clear to me that it should take the musical form of a 'Russian choral opera' did my work make progress. As literary materials I used texts from the two great books 'The Life of Protopope Avvakum, Written by Himself', and 'The Life of Boyarina Morozova, Princess Urusova, and Mariya Danilova'. The four soloists (Boyarina Morozova; her sister, Princess Urusova; Protopope Avvakum, and Czar Alexei Mikhailovich) would be joined by three instrumental soloists: trumpet, timpani, and a percussionist playing other instruments. The choir would not only take on the usual role of a choir but that of the orchestra, which sometimes plays the part of a narrator, sometimes that of a modest accompanist."

This CD is the first to be devoted exclusively to the organ music of the Latvian composer, Peteris Vasks. With the exception of the "Te Deum" (recorded in St. Gertrude in Riga), all of the works were recorded on the magnificent organ of the cathedral in Riga. Here, over the course of the past twenty years, Talivaldis Deksnis, since 1984 one of the principal organists of this venerable house of worship, has performed all of Vasks's works for organ, many of them for the first time. The bird songs that Vasks so dearly loves and characteristic hymn-like choruses can be clearly heard on the organ as well, though they now sound more peaceful and distant; the threatening clusters of chords, which warn of a coming global catastrophe, also lose a bit of their terror. Besides original compositions for organ, this CD also includes two adaptations of works for string orchestra: "Viatore" (which has also been recorded for WERGO by the Sinfonietta Riga and Normunds Sne; see WER 67052) and "Canto di forza", both dedicated to Talivaldis Deksnis, with whom Vasks has maintained a lifelong friendship. The two organ adaptations are surprisingly different in their effect from the original versions for string orchestra. In the ethereal registers of the organ, the "human" voices of the string instruments rise to weightless, immaterial heights. They flow out into realms of light. "I am absolutely certain that music helps to keep the world in balance." (Peteris Vasks)

The symphony has been declared dead countless times over the past century. Nevertheless, Hans Werner Henze sought all his life to come to terms with symphonic form. On the occasion of his Symphony No. 8, he said: "I do not allow myself to be deterred from writing symphonies. I lay claim to this venue for addressing a large public in music, created especially for messages that go beyond the private. I won't let anyone steal it from me, even if modern cultural philosophy has declared this form dead - and perhaps precisely because it has." Whereas his No. 7 - which "is the one that comes closest to the model of the classical symphony" - has a strong relation to Friedrich H�lderlin's life and torment, his No. 8 is a symphony based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "very light on it's feet and rich in melody" (Henze).

The musicians of the Ensemble Phorminx present central stations in Helmut Lachenmann’s oeuvre: from "Pression" for solo cello of 1969 or the clarinet piece "Dal niente", "Toccatina" for violin, or "temA" for flute, voice and cello to the trio "Allegro sostenuto" of 1986–88. These stations can be categorized by central questions and problems of composition, but they just as emphatically document a constantly progressing development that never comes to a standstill, much less settles down into a “style.” If in works like "Pression" or "Dal niente" Lachenmann worked out his idea of a “musique concrete instrumentale”, in works like "Allegro sostenuto" he permitted a series of approaches to design and procedure that he had categorically excluded from his early works.

The composer Friedrich K. Wanek, in his capacity as an editor for contemporary music, led what he called an "orderly double life". In the job which he earned his living from he was responsible for the works of other composers; he only found time for his own composing in what would have been his leisure hours. As a result, the body of his works is small and has very seldom come to the attention of a broad public. On the other hand he was able to sustain his independence and choose for himself his own compositional direction. This consists of an unbroken connection to the modern classical tradition. Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Heinz R�gner: conductor / Ann-Katrin Naidu: mezzo-soprano / Sonare Quartett / Georges Kiss, Beatrice Martin: harpsichord.

Five compositions from three decades are brought together here representing all of Penderecki's creative periods. This provides an interesting possibility for reflection. The series of works begins with the 1983 Concerto for Viola, music by the composer at the age of 50, reflecting the current position of his compositional work: a pluralism which combines all the possible aspects of his earlier writing experience. This began in 1959 with "Strophes", his first point of contact with the west European avantgarde. This however had no further consequences, because Penderecki had already in 1965 in his Capriccio for Oboe condensed his very personal and bold experiments with material in the border region between sound and noise. Similarly in 1973 at the age of 40 when he wrote his little Intermezzo for Strings, he had already written his First Symphony, the emphatic work of his middle period. Only thereafter came the surprising shift in style - Penderecki's "romantic phase" - one of the results of which is the Concerto for Viola. Tabea Zimmermann: viola / Mariusz Pedzialek: oboe / Olga Szwajgier: soprano / Amadeus Kammerorchester Posen / Agnieszka Duczmal: conductor.

When New Music began to emerge on the inner horizon, Ulrich Stranz became engrossed in a game with just a few notes. He distrusted the routine trick and plumbed the seemingly familiar. Introverted alternative worlds fascinated him, as well as questions connected to time and it's modes. The selection for this WERGO CD includes representative works that were composed or revised between 1971 and 2001. Developments and constants of Ulrich Stranz's musical idiom are revealed, and a rounded portrait emerges - of the larger, coherent context. "At the beginning of the 1970s a new generation of composers undertook to free the categories of material which had been dominated till then from their ideological chains and to make the processes available beyond the limits of quasi-moralist pretensions. The composers in question, young at the time, among them Ulrich Stranz, thus provided a wide field of action for musical expression, an achievement which is still waiting for historical recognition. This 'greater freedom' leads, as such things always do, to irritations, as is always the case where trails laid to show the march route become rarer." (Wilhelm Killmayer)

Karin Haumann (born 1962; compositional studies with Walter Zimmermann and Nicolaus A. Huber) uses to dissect a particular sonic event into component parts in her mind and to reassemble them by reconnecting the modules. It's also very fascinating to hear how the composer uses the human voice as a sound generator. When Karin Haumann dissects a sound into it's component parts she creates material for gradual or quantum changes, for example by transferring them to the entire ensemble, or by creating new combinations or instrumentations.

The dialectical relationship between near and distant plays a main role in Erik Oña's compositions – not only in his work for ensemble, "Alles Nahe werde fern" [Everything near becomes distant], whose title refers to words by the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. Using western musical instruments, Oña creates a strange and alien atmosphere that points to a quite different source of inspiration. His work lives from the dichotomy between (emotional) freedom and (structural) restraint, between a high potential for sensual timbres and their rigorous structural underpinnings. It is a productive field of tension that Oña has explored to its imaginary limits. coproduction with Westdeutscher Rundfunk

The German Music Council campaigns for Germany's vibrant existence as a land of music in all areas of life that are connected to music. In its renowned Contemporary Music Edition, the Council set itself the task of creating a basic listening library of contemporary composition in Germany. This release features a selection of five works by composer Philipp Maintz. Wide ranging in both scoring and content, these works show Maintz as a powerful voice in today's classical music.