Zender has worked to give the central category of “harmony” a special “oppositional” character. Out of his growing dissatisfaction with the equal tempered tuning system, he pushed the treatment of microintonation to the point of dividing the octave into 72 microintervals. It requires enormous vocal and instrumental mastery to make this microtonality seem an unanticipated enrichment. The four compositions on this album, presented here for the first time as a cycle, are steeped in these complex and subtle harmonic ideas, rich in possibilities yet extremely fragile. The pieces, with different performing combinations, function as a cycle primarily because of the poet chosen. ‘St. John of the Cross’ a great Spanish mystic of the 16th century. His “Cántico spiritual” is counted among the literary high points of the Spanish Golden Age. Zender set the first 14 of the complete 40 verses in a manner “entirely like Mozart”; this easily fits into Zender’s sophisticated and pluralistic musical and literary view of the world, which mediates between Hölderlin and Joyce, Shakespeare and Michaux, Dada and the Bible, and which discovers closer connections between Surrealism and Zen philosophy, or Master Eckart and Master Ikkyu, “than are dreamt of in our philosophy”.

Giacinto Scelsi (1905–1988) is one of the most unusual composers of the twentieth century, a unique figure whose importance was only fully recognized and celebrated after his death. During his lifetime, he was often dismissed, especially in Italy, as a pretentious dilettante because he did not notate his music himself. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he recorded his improvisations at the piano and had them transcribed by others. In this way, in the course of only a few years hundreds of piano pieces appeared, many of which Scelsi then collected into suites. He began his series of suites with the number 8, since the number 8 had for him a mystic significance. The “Suite No. 8” is subtitled “Bot-ba”, which means “Tibetan”. In fact, the suite has nothing to do with actual Tibetan ritual music, but is an expression of Scelsi’s deep affinity for Eastern philosophy. His final “Suite No. 11” is a special case and was put together quite late in Scelsi’s life, at least in its final version. The interpretation by internationally acclaimed pianist Sabine Liebner is therefore the first authentic recording of the work with its original sequence of movements. Liebner’s meticulously researched 2015 recordings of Scelsi’s Suite No. 9 and Suite No. 10 (WER 67942) have been celebrated by critics.

Like hardly any other personality in music history, Harry Partch has freed himself from the constraints of musical conventions. He has not only left the beaten paths of the conservatories, but has also developed his own microtonal sound system, which he has captured in spectacularly beautiful, archaically wild yet angularly modern instruments that are indispensable for a live performance. Since 2013, Ensemble Musikfabrik has been the only ensemble in possession of a full set of replica Partch instruments. These are not used solely for the performance of Partch’s own music, however; through numerous commissions in the context of their project "pitch 43_tuning the cosmos", they have inspired composers from all over the world to immerse themselves in these fantastical musical sculptures and their world of microtonal sounds. This album presents three outstanding examples of the many and varied ways in which the Cologne-based ensemble has taken up Partch’s legacy: Sampo Haapamäki’s "Heritage", "Wooden Clouds" by Martin Smolka and" Voices for Harry Partch" by Carola Bauckholt.

WERGO's unique "studio reihe" series continues with a rather special release. Arnold Schoenberg's “Serenade”, Op. 24 for seven instruments and baritone voice is one of the historically significant musical works of the early 1920s when Schoenberg began to develop what came to be known as “twelve tone” music or as “composition with twelve tones related to each other” – to use Schoenberg's terminology. The “Serenade”, Op. 24 is one of the earliest compositions that demonstrates twelve-tone technique in its most rudimentary form. The fourth movement, a sonnet by Petrarch and interpreted by Louis-Jacques Rondeleux, deserves special attention; it contains a rather simple sequence of twelve tones which are applied to a hendecasyllabic metre each. The sound recordings were released on the WERGO LP WER 60002 in 1963 and are now remastered in DSD. The recording was made under the direction of Pierre Boulez. Under the title of “studio reihe neuer musik”, WERGO released outstanding recordings in the 1960s, thus creating a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the early years of the label already.

This production received the quarterly German Record Critics' Award! Herbert Henck: piano.

Soundtrack to the TV film in four parts, "Jahrestage", directed by Margarethe von Trotta (with Suzanne von Borsody and Mathias Habich in the roles of the protagonists) after the four-part novel by Uwe Johnson. Johnson is - besides Grass and Boll - considered to be one of the leading, unerrent and shrewd, chroniclers of the recent German history. The scenes take the viewer to the former German Democratic Republic of the 1960s and 1970s, the Federal Republic of Germany, New York, and in flashbacks into the Weimar Republic, the so-called "Third Reich", the terrible time of World War II with the difficult post-war situation. At the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels which took place in Biarritz from 16 to 21 January 2001, the composer Enjott Schneider from Munich, whose stylistically wide-ranging œuvre comprises the opera "Albert - warum?" (Regensburg, 1999), the symphonies "Glockensinfonie. Lied an das Leben" (Domstufenfestspiele Erfurt, 1999) and "Sisyphos" (Herkulessaal Munich, 2001) as well as numerous film musics ("Schlafes Bruder", "23", "Stalingrad", "Das Madchen Rosemarie", etc.), received the golden film award "Fipa d'or" for the best film music ("Meilleure musique originale") in the category "Series et feuilletons". This European prize was awarded to him for his music for the four-part ARD television film "Jahrestage" (directed by Margarethe von Trotta after a novel of Uwe Johnson) which had been released by WERGO on the label ALCRA (ALC 54012) in November 2000.

To unfold a seemingly simple form into an intricate structure: The fan epitomizes the transformation from simple to complex. Transitions from clearly defined forms to figures of great heterogeneity are fundamentally inscribed into the two compositions on this album. In Caspar Johannes Walters "metrische Dissonanzen" the solo percussionist and the ensemble transform harmonic relations into rhythmical processes, fanning out a vast sound universe. And in "Schwankende Zeit" (Swaying Time) Isabel Mundry relates two adaptions of pieces by Louis Couperin to three new pieces of hers and thus creates with numerous musical and extramusical stimuli a network of references and allusions, of nearness and remoteness. The artwork of the album shows Gerhard Richter's "Abstraktes Bild" from 1962, commenting in an artistic manner on the thematic concentration of the program from the highlights of the "Musikfabrik i'm WDR" series. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.

The continuous change of timbres, lines and textures characterizes the three ensemble pieces on the present portrait album of Lula Romero. Instrumental and vocal parts merge with the manifold interacting live electronics to fluctuating, surreal soundscapes. Sometimes transforming other sounds, sometimes acting as an autonomous sound producer, the live electronics are in first line constructing space. The composer considers spatial elements as an integral part of her compositions and relates them with musical structure and sound material. The ensemble installation 'ins Offene' is - like Romero writes in the score preface - "a trial to superimpose different spaces and to blend them." Another example is the cycle 'die Wanderung' (the trek/wandering) where reduced sound material moves through various states, parts and instrumental spaces. Romero uses a broad range of compositional possibilities, which includes rule-based composing techniques as well as aleatory elements, and thereby creates complex musical structures. The recordings were produced in collaboration with the Deutschlandfunk and the SWR Experimentalstudio. Interpreters include the ensemble Vertixe Sonora, the Zafraan Ensemble and the vocalists Aki Hashimoto, Silke Evers and Noa Frenkel.

A fascinating multitude of tonal colors! We are presumably all familiar with the soprano recorder. But who would have imagined that this instrument from our childhood could also become the subcontrabass recorder or a bass gemshorn? In her "Book of A Hundred Melodies" Barbara Heller (70th birthday on 6 October 2006) has collected musical ideas, condensed them, and thus given each piece it's own character. The freedom the composer has granted in the choice of instrument enables Johannes Fischer to exploit for his interpretation not only all available means of artistic expression but the type of recorder as well. Nearly fifty different instruments, some of them rare and exotic, were used for the recording. Sheet music from Schott Musik International: ED 9484 Barbara Heller: Hundertmelodienbuch for Solo Recorder or other instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet).

Classical Music

Siegfried K�hler's life has been a tight-rope walk between so-called serious music and music for entertainment. He worked as a harpist, repetiteur, and conductor while he composed chamber music works as well as works for large symphonic orchestras. This CD contains works, directed by the composer himself, that show the wide spectrum of his oeuvre from serious chamber works to parts taken from musicals, a criminal comedy, or a musical revue. Liner notes in German.

On this portrait-album the British composer Naomi Pinnock creates tender-fragile, finely differentiated sound formations from highly reduced sound material. The attempt to transform imperfection into sound is crucial for Pinnock's work. Dirk Wieschollek explains in the booklet: 'The concentration and compression of musical gestures into essential expressive elements, always accompanied by the possibility of not existing at all, are often taken to a melancholic extreme.' "String Quartet no. 2" for example in the beginning remains in a heavy, wearily advancing motion created by varied expressive repetitions of a descending chord progression. In the second movement it segues into resigned, melancholic sound circles which end in a barely perceptible, toneless pizzicato at the bridge. Naomi Pinnock frequently derives inspiration for her works from literature and paintings. The piano solo "Lines and Spaces", which gave the title to the release, owes it's existence to her encounter with the abstract paintings of Agnes Martin, whose minimalist square canvases reveal the subtlest nuances of colors and lines. In the composition various differentiations and relations evolve through the reduction on horizontally-conceptualized, singular lines and chordally-inspired, vertical spaces. In "Music for Europe" Naomi Pinnock deals with the Brexit - but not politically motivated: 'I'd already started sketching the piece when the United Kingdom made it's decision to leave the EU. I was utterly devastated about the referendum result. [...] Even though I do adhere to the idea that you should concentrate on the work and not yourself when you're making art - it's going to express yourself anyway, so you don't need to think about self-expression - I can't tell you where I stop and the music starts. The fragility you hear is not contrived.'

Composed by John Cage between 1946 and 1948, "Sonatas and Interludes" for prepared piano is one of the most famous works of the composer and one of the works most admired by listeners and performers alike, holding a key position in his catalogue of works. Several years earlier, Cage had already developed the technique of piano preparation to explore the possibilities of sound manipulation: Preparation tables preceding each of his pieces indicate which materials (e.g. screws, bolts, rubber, felt or plastic elements) have to be used and where they have to be placed between the piano strings. Each object, it's size, strength, fixing method and position changes the pitch, volume, timbre and duration of the original piano sound. In comparison with Cage's earlier pieces, the preparation tables for the "Sonatas and Interludes" are comprehensive and accurate. The preparation, which takes the pianist from two and a half to three hours, encompasses more than half of all the strings of the piano. At first, Cage thus tried to achieve a specified sound image - an ideal which he later modified: "When I first placed objects between piano strings, it was with the desire to possess sounds (to be able to repeat them). But, as the music left my home and went from piano to piano and from pianist to pianist, it became clear that not only are two pianists essentially different from one another, but two pianos are not the same either all led me to the enjoyment of things as they come, as they happen, rather than as they are possessed or kept or forced to be."

It was Slavonic and on the Balkan cultivated folkloric music with it's often uneven measures and it's intonation and instrumentation partly dating back to pre-Christian times which offered New Music a structuring means as well as an up to then unknown innovative potential. The composer Bojidar Spassov (born 1949 in Sofia/Bulgaria) utilises in his cycle "Fiato continuo" for brass, woodwind and tape folkloristic instruments, intonation, rhythms and melodies to a certain extend as sound library. Out of this pool and with the addition of electro-acoustic tapes he generates completely new sound qualities, which in the end relate just as little to the material innovating New Music as to their folkloristic origin. In a lexical meaning it is free floating auras which encounter each other within the same time period and enter into a concert situation with each other and commensurate. In the five pieces Spassov equipoises the acting subject, the instrumental soloist and the composer who applies game theory with electro-acoustic means. Freed by electronic sounds of all heaviness and possibly also of all philosophic and historical pains, Spassov's music, often intonated at extremely high pitch, gives account of the very archaism, the very pre-cultural state of music for which immediacy contemporary instrumental and electronic composers struggle again and again. (Achim Heidenreich) Soloists of Ensemble Musikfabrik: Helen Bledsoe: flute / Carl Rosman: clarinet / Peter Veale: oboe / Marco Blaauw: trumpet / Melvyn Poore: bassoon.

The enigmatic beginning of Lisa Streich's portrait album in the series Edition Zeitgenossische Musik lays the cornerstone for a sound journey, oscillating between this world and the hereafter. In the liner notes, Rainer Nonnenmann describes an inventive musical cosmos, whose unity develops only of alleged contradictions: "Lisa Streich's music has a captivating beauty, at once earnest and playful, strong and meaningful, physical, cruel and tender. It gives us much to feel and think about. It is multi-voiced, ambivalent, incongruous, poetic and profane, as fraught with contradictions as is life itself. It is music of this world, and yet it is not." To create a wide musical spectrum, the Swedish composer uses a variety of instrumentation: raging from duo, over ensemble and choir, to orchestra. The five pieces have been especially recorded for this album by ensemble recherche, hand werk and UT insieme vocale-consonante, among others. Different production conditions also correspond to the musical diversity: While three of the album's compositions were recorded at regular venues, the recordings of the vocal works took place in the Cologne Cathedral and the Roman church of Santa Maria in Campitelli.