The year 2012 marks the Wergo label's 50th anniversary. For half a century, Wergo has been synonymous with contemporary music. The label's catalog reads like a virtual who's-who of modern music, both in terms of composers and performers. From the beginning, the intent of founder Werner Goldschmidt (from whom the label derives it's name) was to provide listeners with a snapshot of current musical activity and innovation. Goldschmidt's label and mission, now managed by the publisher Schott, is maintained to this day by a dedicated staff that is constantly striving to bring the best new music to the attention of the world. This specially-priced commemorative set features five discs, with one from each from the label's five rich decades. Featured composers include Cage, Nono, Schnebel Stockhausen and Stravinsky.

During preparations for their 25th anniversary in 2010, the Ensemble Recherche came to the conclusion that "There are no love songs anymore!" So they requested such pieces for the celebration from various composer friends. The response from the invited composers was very strong: More than 30 love songs were written in the process and more are in progress. One could almost speak of a new "trend". Accordingly, the list of composers for the love song cycle reads like a "Who's Who" of New Music. At the same time, the compositions were as various as the personalities of the participating artists. The first thing to be noticed is the range of diverse kinds of love that have been depicted: Appropriate musical correspondences were found for the entire spectrum from "agape" (selfless devotion) to "eros". Sometimes a composer's feelings of friendship for the ensemble are involved; at other times one participates in the passions - even those of a physical kind - of a composer. In addition, the range of the submitted compositions extends from solo pieces with accompaniment, via trios and quartets, to "traditional" ensemble pieces - and beyond.

The piano works of Mark Andre are founded on his intensive examination of the fleeting phenomenon of sound reverberation and decay. His fading sounds can take numerous forms; there might be a thick cluster that reverberates on a single string, or a single note that causes the entire landscape of strings to resonate. On this recording, Tomoko Hemmi and Yukiko Sugawara interpret Andre's experimental constructions, focusing on his more recent pieces which seem softer and more playful, although here, too, the intrinsic logic and necessity of every transition and development has been closely scrutinized.

Adriana H�lszky's own comments concerning her music reveal her fascinating use of parameters such as "space" and "time". She prefers to describe her works as individually structured "sound spaces". There are "expanding and shrinking spaces", and there are shifts from one sound area to another, which she compares to film editing with it's sharp cuts or gentle fades. There are sudden "intrusions" of one sound area into another, and sometimes two or more sound areas are superimposed. Also, the concept of time does not exist for her as a single entity: Temporal processes appear in multiple strands in her music: cosmic time, terrestrial time, and an endless variety of experiential times that permeate one another and are superimposed. Her work "Efeu und Lichtfeld" [Ivy and Field of Light] also contains a stark contrast within itself. "The worlds of the violin and organ appear to exist independently of one another. The violin figures move like pin pricks in a disconnected and restless fashion, primarily in the extreme upper register of the instrument. The organ sounds are like pulsating sources of light. The multiple meanings of the contrasting sounds arise finally as a consequence of the interaction between gradual transformations of color and discontinuous changes in pulse." (H�lszky)

In the 1950's, John Cage tried to make the genesis of his compositions dependent on random processes. Several years later this randomness of the compositional process was reflected in the indeterminacy of the performance, with the aim of separating the compositional design from the interpretive result. Solo for Piano comprises 63 pages with 84 different types of graphical structures, which, due to their shape, are reminiscent of musical notation, but on the other hand, represent no clearly reproducible notes. Here, the notation is modified into a kind of "proposal" for the performer; thus, all kinds of implementation of the score are infinitely possible. On this disc from Wergo, pianist Sabine Liebner presents her own unique interpretation of Cage's musical proposal.

Trumpet player Marco Blaauw has made the further development of the trumpet, it's technique and repertoire, his life's work. He frequently collaborates both with successful contemporary composers and younger composers that deserve to be heard. On this recording, Blaauw presents a fascinating selection of contemporary compositions for trumpet. It includes works by Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders and the composer of the title track, Carl Ruggles.

Michaels Reise Um Die Erde (Michael's Journey Around the World) is the second act of the opera Donnerstag (Thursday) from the seven-part opera cycle Licht (Light) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It is a cosmic world theatre in which three protagonists set the tone: Michael as Prince of Angels who appears in human shape to lead mankind to God; Eva as Power of Love and Life; Lucifer as a fallen angel and adversary. To each of these three figures has been assigned a characterizing melody (a musical "formula"), which unfolds through the musical action of the entire opera cycle. In 2008, the ensemble musikFabrik performed Michaels Reise Um Die Erde twice at the The�tre Bobigny in Paris to great acclaim from the press and public alike. Wergo captured these live performances for release in the label's edition musikFabrik series.

In the early 1960s, Wergo launched a series that would become a legend in the history of contemporary music recordings. Studio Reihe Neuer Musik featured some of the most important and cutting-edge compositions of the modern era, ranging from Schoenberg's Erwartung to the symphonies of Lutoslawski to the Concord Sonata by Charles Ives. Some of these seminal recordings have never been released on CD and some have been unavailable in any form for many years. On the occasion of the label's 50th anniversary, Wergo is releasing a selection of these gems from the early days of it's 50-year history. These are highlights of 20th-century music history that have lost nothing of their topicality and liveliness, in standard-setting recordings featuring great performers and audiophile sound quality. The CD reissue series starts with recordings featuring works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Christian Wolff.

Black is the color of the bile said to induce a state of gloom. In the form of "melancholia," it has become an allegory of the artistic imagination. The hour of melancholy strikes at night, when the sleep of reason brings forth it's monsters. This CD takes us on a foray into the land of shadows: it's compositions make remarkable use of light and shadow effects while simultaneously recalibrating the relationship between ensemble and soloist in unique ways. Michael Jarrell's arrangement of a violin concerto for chamber orchestra refracts the solo instrument's line through the prism of the ensemble. The tale told by Stefano Gervasoni's "lowered" concerto for double bass is only superficially about dolce far niente; his music is a nocturnal creature that gathers odd sound forms - until the alarm goes off. Taking an (early-morning) look in the mirror, the solo flute in Durand's "Ombre/Miroir" finds itself still faced with shadowy creatures as well. And finally, in Brian Ferneyhough's seven tableaux vivants, the angel of history appears: in verses of poet Charles Bernstein he shows his gloomy face.

To celebrate composer Wolfgang Rihm's 60th birthday, Wergo presents this selection of his music for organ. In Rihm's works, the organ holds a special position as his instrument of choice for adventures in compositional self-discovery. The works heard here span his entire career, from the early Drei Fantasien to the more recent Bann, Nachtschwermerei. Performed by young organist Dominik Susteck the disc features the organ of St. Peter's Art Station in Cologne. The instrument's unusually large number of overtone registers as well as specially constructed registers for new music makes it's unique in the world.

When the Korean composer Isang Yun died in Berlin in 1995 at the age of 78, there still was a touch of the exotic in his oeuvre which was characterized by the cultural fusion between Asia and Europe. Isang Yun has become known primarily as a composer of five symphonies, numerous orchestral works and five operas. Amongst his musical oeuvres, however, his almost 50 chamber music works occupy a central position. Yun has composed chamber music virtually all his life, where, in addition to traditional genres such as the string quartet, he has experimented with unusual combinations. This aspect and Yun's affinity for the accordion, whose capability for sound modulation strongly attracted the composer, have played an essential role in the selection of works for this CD. The accordion is present in all of these pieces as a connecting link. In the "Concertino" and "Intermezzo" it is heard from beginning to end. In "Pezzo fantasioso per due strumenti con basso ad libitum" the performers have decided in favour of violin, accordion and cello. In the case of the "Duo" for viola and piano, the piano part was transcribed by Stefan Hussong for accordion. "I cut out a piece of the cosmic stream." (Isang Yun)

This recording features the Bugallo-Williams Duo playing Gy�rgy Kurt�g's complete works for piano duet and two pianos as included in the eight published volumes of J�t�kok (Games). The work's original concept was as a collection of pedagogical performance pieces, and the composer has been adding to the series since 1973. Eight volumes had been published as of 2010, and volumes IV and VIII are for piano 4-hands or two pianos. In addition to a focus on rhythm and time, Kurt�g also addresses techniques including using palms, fists and forearms as a means of exploring the keyboard.

In the compositions on this CD - "Sichtbare Spuren - Visible Traces" - within the "Edition MusikFabrik", visible things have left audible traces, whether in reference to the image of the piet�, distorted to the point of grotesquery by Mario Lanza or in the form of the everyday activities from which Nicolaus A. Huber has fashioned his music's "canvas." In Bernd Alois Zimmermann's score for an experimental film by Michael Wolgensinger, we find traces from a whole range of musical spheres, as a counterpoint to the image. In the case of Rebecca Saunders, even invisible things become visible in the quest for the lost object. In the case of Rebecca Saunders, whose piece provided this compilation's title, even invisible things become visible; in the quest for the lost object, on which she is accompanied by Samuel Beckett, "it is the thing alone, isolated by the need to see it, by the need to see. The thing immobile in the void, here at last is the visible thing, the pure object."

What we call silence is for me comparable to a dense knot of noise, frequencies, and sounds," says Rebecca Saunders. "From this surface of apparent silence I try to draw out and mould sound and colour." Samuel Beckett's works have become very important for the composer. Therein lies, perhaps, a certain parallel to Rebecca Saunders's more recent music: in the increasing sparseness of a language that gradually shuts out the inessential and ornamental. "Stirrings Still" is a music that seems to be inside and outside at once - both mobile sound sculpture and a journey beneath the surface of the sound waves, into the interior of a sound that suddenly seems more distant yet more intense. "Such and much more such the hubbub in his mind so-called till nothing left from deep within but only ever fainter oh to end," Beckett writes at the end of his "Stirrings Still". "Oh all to end.

To mark Helmut Lachenmann's 75th birthday, WERGO presents a CD re-release of the former LP of 1985 with the composer's works "Accanto", "Consolation I" and "Kontrakadenz". This audio document is a historical recording for it is actually one of the first recordings of Lachenmann's works. "It is time to abandon a tonal concept that only allows for the show side of the sound, that cuts off the sound from all the supposedly ugly", writes the conductor Clytus Gottwald about Lachenmann's tonal realism in the accompanying booklet. In fact, this CD stands for dealing relentlessly with musical (listening) traditions: Accanto, with the clarinettist Eduard Brunner and the Symphony Orchestra of the Saarl�ndischer Rundfunk, alienates and parodies Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Little consolation is provided by Lachenmann's Consolation I in which he refers to Ernst Toller, yet fragments his text into sibilants and vowels, sung by the Schola Cantorum. And finally, his Kontrakadenz performed with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra is a "cascade of acoustic situations".