When Anton Diabelli, wishing to promote himself as a publisher, commissioned many of the best-known composers of his time to write a variation on a theme composed by himself in 1819 in order to publish a score with all of them, he couldn't possibly imagine that the greatest of them all, Ludwig van Beethoven, was going to write not one, but thirty-three variations, probably encouraged by his wish to keep his name apart from his minor colleagues or, who knows, by his eagerness to undertake an in-depth search of the possibilities of a theme that, initially, he scornfully mocked for it's 'Schusterfleck' ('cobbler's patch'). In the end, in his Diabelli Variations Beethoven turned the banal (that tiny waltzlet serving as the starting point) into transcendent. From hardly nothing he built a whole which overwhelms us with it's greatness. It's a work full of paradoxes, winks, double meanings, but it's also a contested work, not easily understandable, complex and experimental. Planned as a building with superimposed layers, seemingly heterogeneous and without an apparent connecting thread, it looks the perfect testing ground for a creative artist - like Uri Caine. In his hands you forget the quasi-monotonal character of the piece, and we remain drawn and surprised by it's continuous feinting.

Jim Black is the driving force in bands led by Laurie Anderson, Uri Caine, Steve Coleman and Dave Douglas. His style is characterized by sensitive jazz sounds, driving rock beats and intricate, swinging Balkan rhythms. The music of his formation AlasNoAxis is inspired by Bjork, Bill Frisell, Nirvana and Radiohead. Houseplant sometimes surprises with spherical sounds and quiet passages, without the usual jazz solo excursions. AlasNoAxis is a musical unit that, with it's harmonious but also pulsating sound waves, invites you to forget the turbulent world around us. "Speed, featured here as a tenor, takes on the role of indie rock/post-grunge singer... his breathy tone sometimes seems aimed at exuding a rather irritating or at least detached state of emotion - in keeping with Yoshitomo Nara's cover art -, which can still burst into fireworks without the saxophonist having to prove his ability... As a melodicist, Black is brilliant... The result is an increasing sense of drama, even at the medium tempos that dominate here - AlasNoAxis knows how Power can be ignited in ballads... Meanwhile, one of jazz's greatest drummers also let's off steam here and there, and no one can do it better - even if Houseplant isn't really jazz." - Dave Lynch

Classical Music

EINE NACHT IM ZOO

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Classical Music

The Munich-based French pianist Jean-Pierre Collot presents the piano works of Jean Barraqué, one of the most important composers of Serialism. This is a journey of discovery through Jean Barraqué's piano works, deeper and deeper through quasi-archaeological layers that bring us closer to the arcana of creation. The Sonate pour piano (1950/1952), masterpiece and experiment at the same time, here recorded for the first time in the definitive recast version, demands of us that we break all boundaries, as far as our conception of tempo, dynamics or agogic is concerned, that we create and explore new imaginary spaces. The deeper we go back in time, the more mysterious and gloomy the early pieces (1947-1949). All of these works are premiere recordings. The prelude to the third act of Tristan [Richard Wagner] — like a ghostly and fragile motto [of the young Barraqué] — throws on the whole program its pale, nebulous light. The Munich-based French pianist Jean-Pierre Collot presents the piano works of Jean Barraqué, one of the most important composers of Serialism.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Walking Out (Original Score)

This film by Joan Grossman and Paul Rosdy features music by John Zorn. In the years 1938041 nearly 20,000 European Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai, China, where most would spend almost a decade in exile.

Classical Music