In the center of this musical and spiritual journey stands the historical minnesinger Heinrich von Morungen, who becomes the symbol of a stream of poets and musicians up to the present who have sought and found the sources of their inspiration in the East, beyond Europe's borders. The melodies of his songs are lost, but his texts and an image have been passed down in the Manesse Codex. A chronicle from the St. Thomas Monastery in Leipzig, where Morungen died in 1222, reports that he made a trip to India. Pursuing an idea proposed by Peter Pannke, musicians from the East and from Europe got together to transform Morungen's texts into the musical traditions of the lands of his visionary journey.

Paul Hindemith's works for piano have been completely released on CD now, with Siegfried Mauser as pianist. "Hindemith's Klaviermusik op. 37 shows the way", wrote Eberhard Preuner already in 1927, "strict thematic forms are combined with sweeping improvisational lines, melody is pitted against melody, everywhere you hear a style derived from pure chamber music." The individual movements of the "Tanzst�cke" op. 19 have clearly more the character of ballet music than that of a sequence of popular dances. Parallel fourths and sevenths clusters as well as parallel shifts of entire chords in the foreground are earmarks of Hindemith's textural technique in the early 1920s.

On July 29, 2015 composer Mikis Theodorakis will celebrate his 90th birthday. In honor of this occasion, Soprano Johanna Krumin and baritone Peter Sch�ne offer this collection of thirteen of the composer's songs. Regarded as somewhat of a political hero, Theodorakis has given a face and a voice to the Greek people. This project aims to be a musical homecoming, a return to his beginnings in the form of pure music free from all external constraints.

A�cha Kon� is the first female West African singer who can compete in her homeland with stars like Myriam Makeba or Mory Kante. Her accompanists, the Alloco Band, include some of the most outstanding West African instrumentalists of the younger generation. A�cha Kon� sings of the beauty of black women, love, religion, and the need for pan-African solidarity.

The numerous winter visitors and staging migrants gathering at Lake Constance in winter provide a magnificent and endlessly fascinating wildlife spectacle, which is also reflected in the many and varied sounds we hear from this sound image. Hundreds of Curlews, Whooper Swans and gulls, thousands of ducks, as well as many other bird species, have chosen Lake Constance, with it's extensive shallows and reedbeds as a staging, moulting and overwintering site. For more than 20 years, at first only in the spring, later in the autumn and winter, Walter Tilgner has been making digital sound-recordings in the typical fen and reedbed habitats of the Lake Constance landscape, mainly in the Rhine Delta of Vorarlberg, Austria, and over recent years in cooperation with the organization Vorarlberger Naturschau - inatura [Vorarlberg Conservation and Natural History Study Centre, Dornbirn, Austria].

Metamorphosen is the first of ten CDs in the Enjott Schneider edition released by WERGO: Many of Enjott Schneider's compositions refer to well-known works from music history or to the idiomatic stylistic tendencies of individual composers, in order to then create something new through metamorphosis as a creative response to tradition. It is a play with cultural sediments, a subjective commentary on existing forms and models. In this sense, the four compositions on this CD all refer to four historical models: "At the Edge of Time" is an homage to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Out of gestures and motifs from his Requiem, there arises a web of emotions melodically held together by the solo English horn, the traditional instrument of death and otherworldly lamentation.

The goal of this trio is to create out of the roots of European art and folk music a new kind of music that easily combines composition and improvisation. The personal style of each of the individuals involved, which has evolved out of their respective musical and cultural backgrounds, makes it possible to develop the maximum amount of freedom that is nonetheless fixed with the highest degree of precision. The traditions of Italian tarantella, of French folklore, of modern jazz, and of contemporary music serve not as superficial or nostalgic clich�s, but rather as the basis from which new discoveries also become possible. Performing at every moment like soloists and yet integrated within the overall sound, it is European in the sense that one's own identity communicates with that of the others. (Michael Riessler)

This album is the fourth of ten in the Edition Enjott Schneider series, released by Wergo. In the three works included on this CD, emotional processes have been pushed to the foreground - music as expression. The violin concerto Earth's Eyes refers to a remark of the philosopher Henry David Thoreau while the double concerto Dr.Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is based on the most famous literary version of the doppelganger motif and the second symphony Sisyphos was inspired by the mythological figure of Sisyphus, who was condemned to eternal labor because of his cunning and trickery.

WERGO is proud to present a further album by Enjott Schneider. In "Clair Obscur - Colors of Saxophones", extreme contrasts play a defining role: beautiful and ugly, loud and soft, bright and dark - all these qualities are brought to life by the Berlin saxophone quartet, clair-obscur. The musical spectrum ranges from Old Masters to the extreme fringes of contemporary music. Cri Muet for saxophone and orchestra brings together tender lyricism and machine-like rhythms, along with Beethoven quotations and contemporary atonal harmonies. As Times Go Bye for alto, tenor, and baritone saxophone plays with the concept of time using motivic material from Johann Sebastian Bach. In Pavane, old and new meet in the contrasting sounds of saxophone and English Horn as well as in references to the music of the Spanish Renaissance composer Luis de Mil�n. In Berlin Punk, Enjott Schneider attempts to transpose the attitude and character of Punk culture into a symphonic setting. Rough, loud, dirty, insolent, and aggressive, yet also lyrical, poetic, and yearning: this is the impressive emotional range that is radically achieved in the virtuoso performances by the members of clair-obscur.

Modern avant-garde composers have transformed noise into a legitimate element of music - not least by an increased use of percussion instruments. For this release, the young multi-percussionist Leonie Klein has collected a number of solo works that represent various stages in the development of New Music. Leonie Klein masterfully reveals each work's unique profile in the field of tension between composers' intentions and interpretational freedom. This collection displays multiple aspects of modern percussion music and is a representative exploration of an important area of New Music. Leonie Klein's interpretation of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Zyklus (1959), written for an orchestra of percussion instruments played by a single performer, is a kaleidoscope of sound colors. In Iannis Xenakis's Psappha from 1975, constantly changing rhythmic patterns depict musically structured periodicity. Helmut Lachenmann's Int�rieur I (1966) gives life to exquisitely subtle sound events, while Nicolaus A. Huber in P�thos (2010) brings contrasting elements into harmony to reveal "the longing of one note for the next." In Thunder (1993), Peter E�tv�s allows the timpani to achieve constantly changing pitches through the use of rapid pedal adjustments, and Johann Julius Fischer's repetitive Gathering (2018) for prepared vibraphone represents the current world of percussion music.

“Halleluja – Oratorium balbulum" is a portrait of the times in which we live, says Peter Eotvos. It is a sarcastic work with postmodern medley passages across music history. The plot takes place on several levels: among the performers as well as with the audience in the concert situation. The language is frighteningly clear, as is the rest of the situation we encounter: We experience Eotvos’s polyglot vision not so much in the language as in the music. There are numerous more or less recognizable quotations from Gregorian chant, Monteverdi and Schein; from Bach and Handel, as well as from Mussorgsky and Gospel music. Alle vittime senza nome [To the Nameless Victims], a purely instrumental work, makes no use of language and nevertheless succeeds in conveying the images and experiences of our time. In three movements, the journey of those seeking protection is illustrated by music in a free narrative style, with delicate solo passages as well as broad waves of sound in the orchestra. “Alle vittime senza nome is meant to remind us of the many Arab and African people who have climbed into overcrowded boats with dreams of reaching a better life only to drown in the waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy.” Eotvos wants to create an awareness of the people that goes beyond the conventional images in the media.

In the series ZKM milestones, Ferrari's radio play "JETZT" is presented unabridged on CD for the first time. The accompanying CD of materials includes audio documents that shed light on his artistic work in very different ways: The excerpts from a lecture by Luc Ferrari on his view of the radio play constitute a presentation resembling a radio play. "Ferrari (r)�cout�", a competition organized by the ZKM in cooperation with hr2-kultur, presents new works based on the "JETZT" materials by Tiziana Bertoncini, Antje Vo-winckel, Frank Niehusmann, David Fenech, and Neele H�lcker. Luc Ferrari / Brunhild Ferrari / Vivant Quartet de Narbonne (Richard Breton: guitar, Jules Calmettes: flute and saxophone, Henry Four�s: piano and composer, Alain Joule: percussion).

The thirteen 'minor pentatonically' tuned strings of the long-necked Japanese floor harp sit like a mantra beneath my hands, Vetter writes. His koto playing is, however, more varied than a constantly repeated mantra, and more innovative in technique, which allows an underlying calm to vibrate through the many-layered structures.

Truth is created by questioning and kept up by disputation. This sentence of the medieval philosopher Pierre Ab�lard is virtually the motto of Riessler's work. Thus, in this "jazz"-project the principle of improvisation is not only followed up within theme and harmony, but also includes in particular historic styles from the European music tradition back to the Middle Ages. Then, the Arabic cultures influenced Europe and a consenteous co-existence of modal playing and thorough bass techniques was usual. "The 'Michael Riessler Tentett' [produced] stunningly fresh scenes with instrumental ties across all historical and cultural boundaries..." (Hartmut L�ck: Frankfurter Rundschau, 24.10.92) "Most captivating was the performnace of the Michael Riessler ensemble that created a musical fantasia of the love story of Ab�lard and H�loise. This music was presented with supreme instrumental virtuosity... Michael Riessler, an excellent clarinet player from the Deinzer school, feels at ease in all music genres from jazz and ethno to Stockhausen and gave this project it's solid compositional structure..."(Bernd Feuchtner: Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 20.10.92) The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

These ten original pieces are honed down to the details, in an highly intelligent and ironically witty style that makes it possible to hear patterns of behavior, of language, and of thought. Harald Weiss speaks, sings, and plays all the percussion instruments, including many strange ones, all by himself - new, delightful surprises constantly result.