Hans Zender works as a musician in two ways: as conductor and composer. In the meantime, composing clearly comes first for him. But Zender is not just a composer and conductor, but also a teacher, thinker and author with a far-reaching interest in the arts, cultures, and philosophies. Zender dedicated special attention to the category of “harmony” – in part arising from the ever-growing insufficiency of the tempered tuning. He has organized the offerings of the harmonic and overtone series for the musician in a system and designed an ordered harmonic structure that brings tempered and pure possibilities together. All the characteristics of Zender’s composing outlined above are combined on this release: the recreation of a concrete music history model in “Dialogue with Haydn”, the immersion in the Asian mode of thought in the two “...no kyo” compositions, the use of microtonality in “Dialogue” and “Issei no kyo“. All three pieces share a humorous-ironic undertone.

Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, whose works (including several film scores) have won numerous internationally renowned prizes, is a regularly commuter between continents and an aesthetic wanderer between the musical cultures of the East and the West. His works are often based on elements and aspects from the traditional music of China: popular melodies, motifs from Beijing opera, the striking scales of Chinese art music, Chinese instruments (like the pipa in "Pipa Concerto"). He has, however, a penchant for the sonic possibilities of the symphony orchestra, in which sound he finds the colors, harmonies, and rhythms with which he can best realize the narrative aesthetic he seeks.

Despite the complexities within the compositions, and also the rigorous demands they make on performers, the impact of Xenakis's music on the listener is always direct. The music is still alive with "the whole agony of my youth and the Resistance", but there is an increasing richness of expression, a spirit of exuberance and exhilaration, a new romanticism, what seems to be a celebration of the sheer joy of music by a composer at the height of his powers and in full command of his medium, his destiny. This production received the quarterly German Record Critics' Award. Spectrum / Guy Protheroe: conductor / Irvine Arditti: violin / Claude Helffer: piano / Penelope Walmsley-Clark: soprano.

Jörg Widmann is not only a composer, but also a conductor and clarinet player. This portrait album presents two works by the multi-talented universal musician, both of which are parts of longer cycles and combine (one or two) soloists with orchestral groups. Polyphone Schatten (Polyphonic Shadows, 2001), from the cycle Lichtstudie (Light Study), is a synesthetic attempt to combine the musical phenomenon of polyphony with natural laws. The colors of the two solo instruments – viola (played by Christoph Desjardins) and clarinet (played by Jörg Widmann himself) – are contrasted and combined with noise-like, atmospheric sounds from the orchestral groups. Drittes Labyrinth (Third Labyrinth, 2013/14) unleashes a mystifying, schizophrenic dialogue. The soprano soloist (Sarah Wegener) wanders through the concert hall in dialogue not only with the instrumental groups of the WDR Symphony Orchestra, but also with an imaginary partner. It is a journey to the inner worlds of the sounds themselves.

Includes work(s) by Peteris Vasks. Ensemble: Riga Sinfonietta. Conductor: Normund Sne.

Esthetic games as ends in themselves are far from the mind of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. He believes in "L'art pour l'homme" (Art for mankind) rather than "L'art pour l'art" (Art for art's sake). He sees his music as a language of the soul. This program features elegant performances of Sala, Musica appassionata and Credo from the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Atvars Lakstigala.

Though Vasks in his early works was influenced by Bartók, Shostakovich, and the “New Polish School”, he was inspired after 1990 by the minimalism coming out of Estonia. This Baltic-Finnish stylistic atmosphere is definitely present in Vasks’s Third Symphony (from 2004-05). The Tampere Filharmonia was responsible for the genesis of this piece. The orchestra’s management asked the composer for an “introductory piece” of 15 to 20 minutes duration. His trust in the unique energy of his own inner voices gave birth to a symphonic landscape of more than 40 minutes duration, his longest and most intellectually rich orchestral work so far. In his symphony, Vasks wanted to represent the beauty of the world God created, the destiny of humanity, and the fate of the Latvian people, as he explained. The symphony speaks “of love and fidelity to basic principles, of loss, and of the strength to rise and move forward – and also of the endless battle between darkness and light. Like its predecessors, the Third Symphony is quite transparent. There are seldom more than two simultaneous sound events at any given moment, one of which is usually a static background. There is little contrapuntal activity. Melodic gestures, atmosphere, and instrumental color establish the work’s character. His Concerto for Flute and Orchestra is constructed symmetrically. The burlesque middle movement is framed by elegiac outer movements flowing along in serene tranquility and beauty. Passages with wind chorales and distant ringing of bells alternate with passages the mood of which ranges from meditative via lamenting to euphoric.

Jakob Ullmann's career can be measured by the obstacles placed in his path. It was in the teeth of these obstacles that he learnt his craft: they have left their mark on his artistic stance, and the fact that he ultimately overcame them proved the rightness of his approach. For a number of reasons, Ullmann's works failed to blend into the musical landscape of the former state of East Germany. Avoiding peremptory gestures and unalterable laws, his restrained scores seemed strange and alien. Rather than producing user's guides to the art of composition, he composed arcane texts which demanded first and formost to be deciphered - almost like a palimpsest. To a cultural establishment that viewed music as a continuation of state policy with other means, this must have appeared no less suspicious than Ullmann's love for John Cage, whose principles of composition he espoused at an early date, thereby casting his vote in favour of the liberation of sound from intentionality and social semanticism.

Toshio Hosokawa's compositions for string quartet reveal manifold links with traditional Japanese arts: music, poetry, calligraphy, ink painting, and philosophy inspire him to compose his works. His compositional esthetic is also influenced decisively by his relationship to nature.

Hosokawa has on occasion mentioned that the specific sounds in his string quartets are not only derived from the fertile ground of Asian spirituality, but also from the scores of western modern and avant-garde composers, declaring that it is not his intention to perpetuate divisions between Europe and Asia: “I would not like to emphasize the leaves and branches of the different kinds of music that have developed within the two spheres of eastern and western culture, but rather find the common aspects that exist in the roots out of which both have grown.”

The Arditti Quartet enjoys a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Many hundreds of string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974.

The present recording unites two very different works by Mikis Theodorakis. The ballet suite created between 1947 and 1953 and originally entitled Greek Carnaval, and the elegiac composition Raven of 1970, music set to a poem by the famous Greek poet and Nobel Prize winner Giorgos Seferis, the final version of which was not completed before 1993. Both works were not only created in different decades, but also have a completely different character and form. While Carnaval, the final title, is symphonic programme music, Raven is a kind of lyric "orchestral song" for mezzo-soprano, flute, harps and string orchestra, or, as Mikis Theodorakis himself wrote in the programme of the world premiere of Raven, 'an unusual work within my complete œuvre as to its form, a kind of musical dream, standing out, beyond reality'. The special feature and uniting element of both recordings is their background of origin. Both are works from the time of his imprisonment. In addition, "Carnaval & Raven" are first recordings. The creation of "Carnaval" was influenced by the Greek civil war. In August 1947 Theodorakis wrote the first sketches on the island of Ikaria, a place of exile to which he had been deported shortly after the beginning of the civil war. From fellow prisoners he heard the folk song Captain Andreas Zeppos, the melody of which was used in the first part of "Carnaval". The final version of the ballet composition commissioned by the Opera of Rome was completed in 1953. But it was not before 14 April 1954 that Greek Carnaval could be performed for the first time by the Greek ballet ensemble at the Opera of Rome. The choreographer was the legendary Rallou Manou, the conductor of the opera orchestra was Andreas Paridis. The plot of the ballet had been created by the two important authors Vassilis Rotas and Spiros Vassiliou. The work's greatest success was in Paris in 1958, in a revised version entitled Le feu aux poudres. Finally, parts of Carnaval were used in the most successful ballet composition by Theodorakis, in the Zorba ballet suite of 1987. "Raven", a dark mysterious poem, a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe (and his poem of the same name), which Giorgos Seferis wrote in the remote Albanian town of Koritsa in early 1937, served Mikis Theodorakis as basis for the composition of the same name which he created between 7 and 15 January 1970 as prisoner of the junta. A 'chanson fleuve' with a prevailing mood of tragedy, dedicated to his friend and fellow composer Jani Christou who had been killed in an accident shortly before. In his prison diary, Theodorakis wrote that 'the "world premiere" took place in the prison kitchen with Petros. We sat at a table and made music, using a piece of iron and a bottle of beer. Later we enjoyed the beer.' The final version of the seven-part work for mezzo-soprano, flute, harps and string orchestra was not created until 1994 and was performed by Alexandra Papatzaikou, The Radio Choir of Athens and the Greek Radio Orchestra under the direction of the composer at the Athens concert hall on 2 March of the same year. The present CD was recorded with the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella Symphony Orchestra at the Capella Concert Hall of St. Petersburg in November 1995 under the direction of Mikis Theodorakis himself. Further details on the origin and background of Carnaval & Raven including rare photos are contained in the 24-page trilingual booklet.

Classical Music

'Tierkreis' [Zodiac] is one of the most beautiful and accessible compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, which he issued in several different arrangements, allowing each interpreter to create his or her own version by using special formulas. With regard to his Realization 1 Svoboda, who had worked in close cooperation with Stockhausen for some years, says: 'I approached the composition the way jazz musicians approach a standard: they take inspiration from the melody and harmonic sequences and then express themselves spontaneously and very individually.' In the second realization he gave the musicians just a few improvisational structures and asked them to improvise freely on Stockhausen's melodies. Mike Svoboda's two realizations are a wonderful clarification of the composition.

'Mantra', composed in 1970 and premiered in Donaueschingen, was Karlheinz Stockhausen's first composition following the orchestral work 'Carré' to return to a largely traditional style of notation and to a relatively closed form. 'Mantra' is at the same time, the first of Stockhausen's works in a style of composition that he has been pursuing exclusively since the mid-1970s: The entire structure is derived from a single melodic-rhythmic-tonal complex, i. e., the 'mantra'. Stockhausen described this method as 'composition by formula'. The unified construction of 'Mantra' is a musical miniature of the unified macro-structure of the cosmos, just it is a magnification into the acoustic time-field of the unified micro-structure of the harmonic vibrations in notes themselves. This CD was awarded the ,,Choc Musique"-Award.

STOCKHAUSEN Kontra-punkte. 1 Refrain. Zeitmasze. 2 Schlagtrio • Rupert Huber, cond; 1, 2 Recherche Ens • WERGO 6717-2 (52: 14)


In his program notes for this release, British scholar, pianist, and one-time Stockhausen assistant Richard Toop reminds us that these scores were, at the time of their composition in the 1950s, among the “essential cornerstones of the emerging post-war European avant-garde.” No argument here, but the question now is, are they of merely historical interest, or do they continue to engage and gratify listeners? And the answer is, when given performances as conscientious and vibrant as these, their “avant-garde” epithet disappears and the music—for the most part—retains its luster and ability to surprise.


The one exception to the above is the earliest of the works, the Schlagtrio (1952), where the rigorous serial organization, in combination with the stark instrumentation of piano and six microtonally tuned timpani (assigned to two percussionists), projects an austere timbral and rhythmic consistency that is never allowed to—if I may borrow a description from jazz—swing. (Let’s not be dogmatic about this; Anthony Braxton once commented about how much Pierrot Lunaire swings, and it’s not too hard to hear what he means.) There’s plenty of swing—rhythmic buoyancy and syncopated, often unpredictable phrasing—in both Konrta-punkte (1953) and Zeitmasze (1956). The latter, for flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, and bassoon, used to be feared for its technical difficulties, especially the coordination of separate breath-influenced pitch and phrase lengths, but it holds no terrors for the musicians of the Recherche Ensemble, whose tempi are bright without stressing virtuosity for its own sake, and who adapt a cool demeanor to the melodic lines as they intertwine and blossom. There’s more contrast to Kontra-punkte , as the title suggests, where five pairs of instruments—flute/bassoon, clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet/trombone, violin/cello, and piano/harp—engage in contrapuntal jousting and textural entanglements at dramatically shifting speeds, until their differences of dynamics and duration dissolve, the instruments individually drop out, and the piano concludes the activity.


The remaining piece, Refrain (1959), is, like the previous two works, concerned with the perspective of time as reflected by the nature of events, but originating from a different premise, with unconventional systems of notation (including circular staves and a moveable transparent plastic strip containing material to be interpreted and repeated according to its position) and sequences of chords that resonate and decay—an effect somewhat anticipating ideas used by Morton Feldman. Those occasional similarities may be more noticeable in the calmer version recorded by Bernhard Wambach (piano), Fred Rensch (celeste), and Mircea Ardeleanu (percussion) for Koch Schwann; the sharper attacks and implied momentum created by the members of Recherche give their performance an edgy, alert mien.


As the response to the music of Elliott Carter over the last several years has shown, even the most complex 20th-century scores speak a language that has become more familiar to us. Stockhausen may not be to everyone’s taste—nothing is, after all—but in the hands of such committed and convincing interpreters as the members of the Recherche Ensemble, his music sings.


FANFARE: Art Lange

A simplified graphic representation of the electronic music with the notation of the instrumental parts exists as a score. "Kontakte" exists in two versions: a four-track one for electronic sounds, of which the single or double-channel versions are particularly suitable for broadcasting or gramophone reproduction , and a second version for electronic sounds and pianoforte and percussion instruments. "Kontakte" was first performed in this version on June 11th 1960, at the 34th World Music Festival of the IGNM in Cologne with Christoph Caskel (percussion) and David Tudor (piano and percussion). The composition was designed to combine electronic sounds with the sounds of traditional instruments in one piece. Stockhausen approached this task with a concept which was to let different instrumental colours merge into one another in a continuous sound-metamorphosis; there was to be a constant 'lightening' of the sound: sombre noises at the beginning of the piece, and light, ethereal sounds at the end.