Wergo
271 products
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Asiago - Duo Berger & Friends
$20.99CDWergo
Nov 07, 2025WER74152 -
Lifelines
$20.99CDWergo
Jan 30, 2026WER74132 -
Altazor
$20.99CDWergo
Feb 13, 2026WER74162 -
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Korper
$20.99CDWergo
Sep 26, 2025WER74072 -
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KLANGNARBE
Gedizlioglu: Verbinden und Abwenden / Various
The music of the composer Zeynep Gedizlioglu (born in Izmir) is like a kaleidoscope of diverse moments - sometimes fragile, sometimes harsh-angular, then again expressive and culminating in virtuoso sound ecstasies. A central motivation force of Gedizlioglu‘s music is the reaching out for the ineffable, as Dirk Wieschollek writes in the booklet of the album: “shapes solidify, contours emerge, often in imperceptible variants or shifts among things already heard, only to vanish once again.“ The perception of the world and herself, the shift between distance and approximation and the search for relations and non-relations are characteristic of the work of the composer. The alternation between antagonisms play an important role in Gedizlioglu’s work, among others in “Verbinden und Abwenden” (Connect and Reject). The composition in three acts for orchestra and ensemble places the individual opposite the collective and questions the role assignments of both, the orchestra and the ensemble. The musicians of the ensemble are spread amidst the orchestra as soloists, like “foreign objects” in unrelated instrumental families. “Kelimeler” (Words), the only vocal composition of this portrait, searches for possibilities and impossibilities of artistic speech. Based on a Turkish text which was written by the composer herself the piece focuses on “darkness” and “voice” once whispering, speaking, breathing heavily, in impulsive outbursts or linear melisma. With these recordings Zeynep Gedizlioglu presents herself both with chamber music and large compositions for ensemble and orchestra. Formations like the hr-Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien, Quatuor Diotima and the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart can be heard on this release.
Ying Wang: Tun·Tu
Smolka: Poema de balcones - Walden, the Distiller of Celesti
Big Data / Decoder Ensemble
Reimann: Spiralat halom - Eingedunkelt - 9 Stücke
Lula Romero: ins offene
Poppe, Heiniger: Tonband / Yarn/Wire
| Founded in New York in 2005, the contemporary music quartet Yarn/Wire is made up of two percussionists and two pianists. The group has gained an international reputation for dazzling and innovative programs. This release features outstanding studio-quality first recordings of three works that grew out of Yarn/Wire’s long association with the artistic team of Wolfgang Heiniger (percussionist, composer, sound designer) and Enno Poppe (pianist, composer, conductor). Heiniger and Poppe have worked together for more than 20 years and the piece “Tonband” (2008/2012) was a collaborative effort: Poppe composed the first two movements and Heiniger the final three. The work is indebted to Stockhausen’s “Kontakte” for piano, percussion, and four-track electronics from 1958–1960 but also contains references to rock music and has an uninhibited approach to melody. The other pieces on this album grew out of the two composers’ work on “Tonband”. “Feld” is the most explosively rhythmic music Poppe has composed to date – extremely challenging for the performers yet electrifying and highly expressive. While Bartók used the pianos for percussive effects in his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion from 1937, Poppe here treats the percussion instruments like “extended pianos.” Heiniger’s “Neumond” (2018) places historic electric organ sounds in a constantly shifting tonal space, recalling the dark aesthetic of old horror films as well as other pieces on which he collaborated with Enno Poppe such as “Rad”, “Arbeit”, and “Rundfunk”. |
Scelsi: Suites Nos. 8 & 11 For Pianoforte / Sabine Liebner
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.
Pecou: Orquoy, Chango & Marcha de la humanidad / Stockhammer, French National Orchestra
The works of Thierry Pécou have brought something back into contemporary European music that had almost been forgotten: the sound of Latin America. Thierry Pécou is French, and his Latin America is the product of a creative fantasy that grew out of a desire to explore the nearly extinct Pre-Colombian cultures of Central and South America. Any assumption, however, that these are simply the exotic longings of a European culture tourist would be false. Pécou, who grew up in a Paris suburb and graduated from the Paris Conservatory, has Caribbean ancestors, and so his musical search for roots is also a personal journey of discovery. He is at home in two cultures. One is the culture of career and daily life; the other continues to exist only as a projection arising from the depths of the individual personality – a world which, not only for Pécou himself, has become impossibly distant in a cultural and historical sense. Thierry Pécou’s dreamed landscapes of sound can also be seen as an expression of this search for the ruins of a lost culture. With ritualistic repetitive structures, mysterious depths, and strongly physical sounds, his music conjures up an archaic past, but the colors he uses are those of a symphony orchestra, even though these colors are often placed in unusual or exotic constellations. “My position is somewhat ambiguous, because I am a European, even though I have certain roots in these places (Central America). At the same time, I also want to better understand the Mexican people and their history, for example, and hopefully contribute to the search for their own truth and their own roots.” - Thierry Pécou
Complete Works for Multiple Pianos
Asiago - Duo Berger & Friends
Lifelines
Altazor
Cage: Winter Music - Complete Version for One Pianist
Aggregate - New Works for Automated Pipe Organs
Soldanella – Works for Violoncello Solo / Julius Berger
When Pablo Casals rediscovered the cello suites of Bach at the beginning of the 20th century, the novel thing about it was that he played them "senza basso", i.e. without piano accompaniment. In a time of music-historical over-maturity and experimentation, renowned composers soon came up with their own attempts, among them most famously Max Reger's "Solo Suites" and Kodály's "Solo Sonata", both written in 1915. The cellist Julius Berger has made amazing discoveries especially in this early history of new cello solo music and presents them here as a performer in a most lively way. In the accompanying booklet, he enriches the production by adding exciting and witty stories worth knowing about the composers recorded here and their works. The introduction and transition to the new discoveries is made with the second of Reger's three suites, which Julius Berger comments on in an informative and very personal way.
Adolf Busch, on the one hand an eminent musician of the best German (emigrant) tradition, a world-famous violinist, and on the other hand a composer who is at the same time a highly experienced instrumentalist, wrote a Suite dedicated to his cellist brother Hermann in 1914, which is beyond neo-baroque models as regards the character of its movements, as well as a "Prelude and Fugue" from 1922, such as often composed by Bach, but not for cello. The British composer and musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey was a friend of the Busch brothers and admired as a genius by Casals. His expansive "Passacaglia" reminiscent of Bach's "Ciaconna" is admirably mastered with regard to its large-scale form and dates from 1910. The program is completed by a suite that makes reference to baroque movement types by Swiss composer and Munich composition teacher Walter Courvoisier from 1921, which Julius Berger premiered as recently as 1 October 2022.
Etkin: Flores blancas / Ensemble Aventure
Once again, Ensemble Aventure presents a jewel of new music that has so far been little known in Europe within its series of works by Latin American composers on WERGO: "Flores blancas", chamber and ensemble music by the Argentine composer Mariano Etkin. Listeners are captivated by the raw power of “La naturaleza de las cosas”, the title of which is an apt characterization of Mariano Etkin’s compositional language, which is a celebration of the sensuous nature of sounds and of the human senses as a source of knowledge without illusions, realized with a small number of “sound objects” that appear and fade away with a sense of both beauty and pain. Each of the eight works (from 1992 to 2016, Etkin’s late compositional period) on this recording focuses in its own way on the physicality of sounds and the foundations of human existence.
In his last years, Etkin’s musical language became more densely lyrical, introspective, and focused on fundamental elements of human existence such as dreams (“Sueños olvidados”) or blood (“Le sangre del cuerpo”) and, above all, tears (“Estudios para lágrimas”). Mariano Etkin creates authentic crystals of intensity – an unflinchingly existential music that looks into the eye of darkness, but nevertheless spreads its wings. It sings, throbs, and shivers with excitement before dissolving in pain and beauty.
Korper
A Bu & Kapustin: New Memories
The Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020), who died at the beginning of the pandemic-related cultural hiatus which has been unique with regard to world history, was able to experience considerable appreciation in his last two decades, which recently gained more and more momentum. Coming from an aristocracy of piano teaching - Kapustin was a pupil of a pupil of Horowitz's teacher Blumenfeld and then studied with the great Alexander Goldenweiser until 1961 - he was denied great recognition in the Soviet Union. As with many great piano composers since Chopin, the cycle of concert etudes from the middle of his life is particularly suitable for an introduction to this world of works. Kapustin's typical reference to jazz, which probably kept him from greater success in the Soviet years, is based on the highly individual, deliberate adaptation of stylistic elements. He got to know jazz greats such as Ellington, Basie, Cole, Garner, Peterson and others through records and the radio and picked out what suited him.
The extremely sensitive, not monotonously hammering as is so often the case, approach of the Chinese pianist A Bu, who is also trained in jazz, is pleasing with regard to interpretation, and he demonstrates his affinity for Kapustin's music through two samples of his own work. An affectionate and valuable addition to the recording is the story of his acquaintance with Kapustin in Moscow told by the young A Bu in the accompanying booklet, illustrated with photos.
Eötvös, Fujikura, Mamlock et al: Chattering Birds / Isanie Percussion Duo
Undisputedly brilliant in jazz and rock at all times, the percussion in all its diversity is proving more and more predestined for new music. Leonie Klein, a stirring artist in this field, offers here, partly in duo with Isao Nakamura, a compact, carefully compiled selection of today's music for percussion instruments. A solo version of Peter Eötvös's percussion concerto "Speaking Drums" is performed in true virtuoso style by the interpreter, with the voice of the percussionist joining the sounds of the drums. Vinko Globokar's "Dialog über Erde" experimentally exposes instruments to water, even in a small aquarium - a subtly elemental event. In Sara Glojnaric’s "Latitudes #2", the soloist on the drum set then enters into a breathtakingly virtuoso duel with artificial rhythm impulses from the tape. In Dai Fujikura's "Chattering Birds", the duo gives an astonishing demonstration of how much music is possible while radically reduced to finger cymbals. In Ursula Mamlok's "Variations and Interludes", again arranged for solo by Leonie Klein, the form emerges between the groups of instruments, and Hosokawa's "Windscapes" explores the contrast between vertical accent beats and horizontal sweeping and scratching sounds. And finally, Uroš Rojko's "Ritem kože", after many changes of perspective, constitutes the aesthetically homogeneous virtuoso conclusion to this album.
Rihm: Grat/Edge - Works for & with Cello / Gauwerky, Greffin-Klein, Porath, Uhlig
Wolfgang Rihm is one of the world’s most performed and prolific composers. In 1972, he not only graduated from high school but also completed Germany’s state examinations for composition and music theory. Rihm and the cellist Friedrich Gauwerky (who is one year older) met in 1968 when they were roommates for a week at a competition for young musicians in Erlangen. This was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Gauwerky has performed his friend’s music throughout his career, especially the “wild and unbridled” virtuoso solo work Grat. Like Rihm, Friedrich Gauwerky quickly became an internationally celebrated star: as a soloist for works by the New Complexity composers and also as a member of distinguished ensembles such as Ensemble Modern (as principal cellist) and the Elision Ensemble in Australia. Gauwerky has taught at a number of German music universities as well as at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.
Gauwerky says of his friend Rihm, “As a composer he almost always comes up with something unexpected, unpredictable, and new. This may be because he is so open and curious, unlike some composers who continue to churn out the same material because they once had success with it. I have tried to illustrate the broad spectrum of his compositional activity with the works on this album.” To celebrate Wolfgang Rihm’s 70th birthday on 13 March 2022, Gauwerky recorded a very personal tribute to his friend in the studios of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, including an early unpublished and never-recorded string trio influenced by Alban Berg’s lyrical twelve-tone writing.
Poppe: Prozession / Ensemble Nikel, Ensemble Musikfabrik
The new album with works by Enno Poppe joins a series of its own on WERGO, the albums of which are dedicated to the composer born in 1969, who has steadily developed into a permanent fixture among German composers of international renown. The two first recordings are once again ensemble pieces, performed by two new music formations closely associated with the composer: Ensemble Musikfabrik and Ensemble Nikel, a quartet of saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano. In the three-movement piece "Fleisch", the "sounds" and playing gestures of pop and rock music are evoked, and microtonal effects are savoured with Moog synthesiser sounds, for which Enno Poppe has a soft spot. Enno Poppe wrote the rhythmically concise piece "Prozession" for the Ensemble Musikfabrik. For almost an hour, the work leads through various instrumental combinations along a continuous chain of differentiated rhythmic impulses of a large percussion section in an astonishingly entertaining manner, only to mysteriously dissolve into natural sounds at the end.
Baltakas, Eötvös, Haas & Staud: Sax – Concertos for Saxophone / Weiss, WDR Cologne SO
After the invention of the saxophone about 180 years ago, it has been hugely successful in certain musical styles, but never really established itself in the symphony orchestra. It’s still seen as a newcomer, and relatively few solo works have been written for it – at least until recently. Marcus Weiss, one of the most successful classical saxophonists, chose four very characteristic concertante pieces from recent decades that demonstrate a wide range of possibilities for the instrument. All four pieces were premiered by him and three of them are dedicated to him. The compositions represent various directions within New Music with very distinct individual characters each.
“The pieces also show that we saxophone soloists always play the full range of instruments, from the lowest to the highest, from baritone to soprano. Every instrument is able to show its particular qualities in these works.” (Marcus Weiss) When Adolphe Sax applied for patents for his new instrument in Paris in 1846, he submitted drawings of the baritone saxophone. Georg Friedrich Haas’s work is therefore the centerpiece of this recording – the baritone with its physical power, with multiphonics that are juxtaposed with the orchestra, but also with a singing parlando. The youngest piece of this album, Peter Eötvös’s very virtuosic “Focus”, and the work by Johannes Maria Staud use both tenor and alto sax, while the soprano is exactly the right choice for Vykintas Baltakas’ crystalline music.
