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viewing 1 To 24 of 24 items
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LP
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MODE 300LP
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"This release couples two of Reich's 'sextets' for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007, which also makes its first appearance on LP. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich's Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these works while maintaining their propulsive character. Liner notes by Adam Sliwinski. LP lacquers and mastering by veteran Scott Hull at Masterdisk. Plated and pressed by RTI, California. Danish percussionist and conductor Mathias Reumert lives and breathes contemporary classical music. An in-demand soloist, he explores new percussive territory while remaining a committed interpreter of yesterday's masterworks. As creator and leader of the acclaimed ensemble Ekkozone, he explores the boundaries between classical, world and experimental music in performances at rock and jazz festivals. Ekkozone is a Danish crossover ensemble that masterfully explores the lines between classical, world and experimental music. Formed by Mathias Reumert in 2013, the ensemble enjoys a special connection with Reich's music and has performed a large part of his oeuvre, including several performances of Music for 18 Musicians."
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MODE 220DVD
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"Njinga The Queen King is a collaborative effort between writer/director Ione and composer Pauline Oliveros, which they refer to as 'a play with music and pageantry.' It is based on historical facts. This fully staged 'pageantry' with a large cast weaves the plot around singing, acting, music -- including ethnic music and percussion, electronic and dance. Njinga ruled 17th century Ndongo -- now Angola -- as a 'king' because tribal custom forbade her to rule as a woman. A skilled diplomat and fierce warrior, Njinga kept the Portuguese at bay from Ndongo for the 40 years of her rule. Flowing freely between time periods, Njinga traces the diaspora of Njinga's people to Brazil and the United States, linking the ancient warrior's life to that of a contemporary African-American woman who has lost touch with her heritage. Oliveros' score, and the use of electronics and spatialization, provides an environment for the traditional African music, heightening the drama. This recording is based on the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Next Wave Festival performances of 1993. In addition to Olveros' music and sound design, Njinga incorporates traditional Kongolese music arranged by Titos Sompas, and Brazilian music arranged by Nego Gato." Region 0, NTSC format; Run time: approx. 3 hours, 10 minutes; aspect ratio: 4:3 and 16:9; color; Dolby 5.1 surround.
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MODE 211CD
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"Responses To Ives was conceived in 2003 by pianist Heather O'Donnell as a way to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of Charles Ives's death (May 19, 2004). She approached composers spanning a generation, known to have strong affinities for Ives and asked them to write a 'musical reflection' on the presence of Ives in their lives and work. The set was premiered at the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin in 2004 in the midst of a twelve hour extravaganza of Ives. In the months following repeat performances took place in South Africa, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the U.S. The CD includes the first recording of Ives' 'London Bridge is Falling Down.' O'Donnell intersperses short, and often less known, works of Ives with the contemporary composers' 'responses,' all of which are first recordings. The 'responses' could not be more varied from each other - from introspective to virtuosic to meditative to extended techniques." Featured works: Charles Ives (1874-1954) -- "London Bridge Is Fallen Down!" (Burlesque Harmonization), first recording. Study No. 21: "Some Southpaw Pitching." "Set of Five Take-Offs." "From Four Transcriptions from Emerson:ii. Moderato; iii. Largo." "Study No. 9: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots in the 1830's and 1840's." "The 'Responses.'" Walter Zimmerman (b.1949) -- "The Missing Nail At The River" (for piano & toy piano). Michael Finnissy (b.1946) -- "Song of Myself." James Tenney (1934-2006) -- "Essay (after a sonata)" (for inside-piano). Sidney Corbett (b.1960) -- "The Celestial Potato Fields" (in memoriam Charles Ives). Oliver Schneller (b.1966) -- "And tomorrow?" (for piano and electronics)."
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MODE 208CD
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"Since the beginning of his compositional career, Joshua Fineberg (b. 1969) has been fascinated by the possibility of transferring the organizing power of tonality into fresh new sound worlds. He takes advantage of research in acoustics and psychoacoustics to craft a musical language which explores the inner world of sounds through careful analysis -- both by ear and with computer software -- and uses their internal structure as a starting point for the invention of harmonies and musical forms, lending his compositions a rare immediacy. A composer of the 'spectral school,' Fineberg studied in Paris with Tristan Murail and took a composition and technology course at IRCAM. He taught at Harvard for seven years, and is now professor of composition and the director of the electronic music studios at Boston University. Created at IRCAM in Pais 'Empreintes' uses live electronics to process each of the 14 individual instruments, at times creating a halo around the music while playing with the boundary between natural and artificial sounds. The title 'Veils' refers to the Tibetan Buddhist belief that for the unenlightened, true reality is obscured by a veil (or series of veils). The continuous resonance of the piano (the sustain pedal is depressed throughout the piece) creates a veil. To experience the 'real music' of the work, we must hear beyond the 'veil' of the active surface to the slower and more mysterious evolution of the instrument's resonance. In 'The Texture of Time,' Fineberg develops his use of live electronics begun in 'Empreintes.' Here all of the electronics come from one speaker set at the flutist's feet -- the result is that the flute and the electronics blend together, seemingly coming from a single source."
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MODE 207CD
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"Garth Knox is known as a viola player and a champion of new music, having played with the Arditti Quartet and the Ensemble Intercontemporain for seven years each before emerging as a soloist on both viola and viola d'amore in recent years. On this CD we hear not only his distinctive performing style but also his original compositions. In each of the eight studies that make up Viola Spaces, the music is based on a simple concept: a particular way of causing the strings to resonate. Although conceived as a series of concert studies, these pieces soon take on a life of their own, creating vast musical (viola) spaces to which you can bring your own stories and pictures. From a clearly defined constraint, the music bursts out of the instruments. These techniques include studies in sul ponticello, glissandi, tremelo, etc., but all the while entertaining to listen to. In addition to the viola ensemble etudes, the CD features Knox's compositions 'Jonah and the Whale' for the unusual duo of viola and tuba, and 'La Valse De La Vineuse' for clarinet, violin, viola and cello."
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MODE 202CD
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"The selections of chamber music on this CD by Hans Werner Henze (b.1926) tend toward his lyrical side, and with an emphasis on compositions derived from his theater pieces. The CD's repertoire especially suits the Naples-based Ensemble Dissonanzen, featuring the talents of its guitarist, Marco Cappelli. The 'Sonatina for Flute and Piano' was written in 1947, its style owing something to both Fortner (Henze's teacher in Heidelberg at this time) and Hindemith. 'Boulevard Solitude,' composed in 1952, established Henze as one of the leading composers of his generation, particularly in the field of music theatre. 'Ein Kleines Potpourri' was concocted from the opera for chamber ensemble, The driving 'Perpetuum Mobile' movement is a transposition of the opera's savage Intermezzo. The 'Drei Tentos' are from Kammermusik for tenor, guitar and octet composed in 1958, when Henze, who had been living in Italy for years, spent some time in Greece. Here, fragments of Holderlin's text are evoked without being enunciated. The kaleidoscopic 'Carillon, Récitatif, Masque' is scored for the unusual plucked trio of mandolin, guitar and harp. 'Toccata Mistica' is one of only a handful of works Henze composed for piano. Its fluid, impetuous tidal waves of sound allude to a disfigured seascape, with the grand piano cast adrift like a raft amid the breakers. The seven 'Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge' are derived from Henze's stays in Styria, an Austrian region where folksongs feature the bassoon. Here the folksong melodies are transformed verse by verse and influenced by a complex harmonic and contrapuntal texture in which the guitar accompaniment plays a key role."
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MODE 201CD
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Performed by Michael Finnissy, piano. "Chris Newman is a contemporary composer, painter, author and artist in Berlin. This is the first of Newman's Piano Sonatas, a large and important aspect to his work. The renowned British virtuoso and composer Michael Finnissy performs the four sonatas here. Newman and Finnissy have been collaborators for over a quarter century, ensuring definitive performances. Composer-supervised recordings. Michael has this to say about Chris Newman's Sonatas: 'Newman's music takes on more of the world than music usually does. It's also a lot more raw and loose-limbed than most new music is. An Art that seems lived at first-hand ... an energy and intensity that is more than merely sound. Chris loves composers like Machaut, Schubert and Mussorgsky -- and it's plain enough to hear them in his music. ...the titles (Sonatas, and there are Symphonies and String Quartets too) suggest the presence of abstract thought, and Newman works caringly, adroitly and with precision and detail. These pieces do not happen by accident. There is a Newman sound to be 'achieved' on the piano: very evenly balanced voicing between the hands, somewhat hard-edged -- on the whole reaching for each note as if it were virtually unpremeditated and unexpected."
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MODE 198CD
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Elisabeth Smalt, viola; The Barton Workshop. Frank Denver's music doesn't adhere to any easily defined aesthetic prescripts, and the four recent works on this disc resist categorization and ready comparison to the work of other composers. The music on this CD is far from abstract, and the titles of the four works suggest as much -- being rich in imagery and association and yet resistant to simple narrative interpretation. Sonically the four works share a common sense of intimacy. They inhabit an extremely quiet sound world. They place as great an importance on the level of nuance -- in the strange quality of a particular microtonal interval, or a delicate shading of timbre, or a novel combination of instrumental and vocal sound -- as they do on long melodic lines or large-scale formal structures. In these pieces there are resonances (both sonic and associational) of sounds from the real world, or perhaps from dreams: breathing sounds (sometimes calm, sometimes sharp and disturbing intakes of breath); footsteps; knocking sounds; a crow call. These sounds exist on a kind of threshold, not immediately registering as music, and they subtly dislodge our listening from its familiar habits. The conventional instruments used here violin, viola, flute, clarinet hardly ever sound as they normally do, largely because the sounds they make are so soft, so disembodied, that they seem like voices of a post-Holocaust civilization. Occasional fragments of melody drift past, seeming at times like imperfectly remembered snatches of something familiar. All four works present combinations of instruments that have rarely if ever been heard together before, offering totally fresh sonic images."
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3CD/DVD/Book
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MODE 189/92CD
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"A new concept of a musical textbook with 3 CDs and video DVD in a deluxe slipcase edition. Inactuelles is a unique collaboration between Mode and the Parisian art-book store Tschann to combine CDs and video DVDs of musical performances with an informative musical textbook. Percussion(s) is the first volume of Inactuelles: an incredible survey of music for percussion in the 20th and 21st century -- performed by the great French percussionist Roland Auzet. Inactuelles translates as 'Untimely': a collection of CDs/DVD/book packages that represent the most original in recent new music without concessions to style. That which is truly original -- a unique approach to composing musical sound -- transcends fashion, technical and aesthetic concerns and becomes 'timeless'... Inactuelles. The Music: Recordings of 13 works, including 7 world premieres. 3CDs and a DVD of studio recordings by virtuoso French percussionist/composer Roland Auzet for percussion solo (Xenakis, Taira), for percussion and voice (Xenakis, Pape), for percussion and ensemble (Xenakis, Milhaud, Alsina), for percussion and electronics (Auzet, Bancquart, Campion, Jodlowski, Tanaka). A DVD of Auzet's performance of Xenakis' Psappha and Rebonds by filmmaker Jacques Goldstein. Performers include vocalists Nicholas Isherwood, Janet Pape and Armelle Orieux, Ensemble FA, Ensemble Musique Aujord'hui, conductors Jean-Marie Adrien, Alain Bancquart and Domnique My. And the 5OO+ page book: A book (in English and French) by French musicologist Pierre-Albert Castanet, Percussion(s): Gesture and Spirit, which discusses the history of percussion music including interviews with Auzet about interpretation and performance of percussion music, especially the works and the composers recorded in this set." Region 0; NTSC & PAL; PCM Stereo; Aspect Ration: 16:9 Anamorphic; Running time: 24 min 43 sec.
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MODE 186CD
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Performed by Trio Dolce (on 3 recorders), recorded 1998. "The first recording of Cage's large scale composition for 3 recorder players. The Trio Dolce wrote Cage for permission to perform 'Solo with Obbligato Accompaniment' on three alto recorders, one octave higher than the prescribed range. In a letter from March 1987, Cage replied: 'Of course you may use the 3 alto recorders. I am glad that you are playing that piece.' They performed it on July 1988 with Cage in attendance. Cage's enthusiastic reaction to this performance encouraged Trio Dolce to ask Cage if he would consider writing a work for them which 'could take into account the ranges of the recorders' the Trio then owned. Upon meeting the members of the Trio during his residency at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in November 1988, Cage agreed to write a work for the Trio. 'Three' was completed in July 1989 and dedicated to Trio Dolce, who premiered it in July 1990 in the presence of the composer during a concert at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. The performance instructions state that the indication 'as legato as possible.' It requires great virtuosity and breath control, while at the same time changing recorders and maintaining a continuous legato, resulting in a sometimes fragile balance between the durations and dynamics." Volume 38 in Mode's Complete John Cage Edition.
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MODE 187CD
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"'Asking' is a large-scale work for solo piano that is a meditation and reflection on all of the meanings of the word 'Asking.' 'Asking' was specially composed for Eve Egoyan. As with many of de Alvear's pieces for piano, it is based on a open structure that requires the pianist make many little and big decisions while playing, so the work itself is asking questions of the pianist. De Alvear says: 'The dialogue between the interpreter and the music is one of the main concerns in my music. It is very important for a work to focus, like a mantra does, the thinking energy of the pianist interpreting the score, so that there is enough space for the inner being of the interpreter to open up and blossom."
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MODE 175CD
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"For his third CD on Mode, composer, trombonist, improvisor Roland Dahinden explores the string quartet medium. Each work is dedicated to and influenced by a major visual artist. Dahinden's four works refer to images by artists, but at the same time avoids illustrating it in a literal way. The sounds move through space thanks to a dynamic binaural system recording. Listening with stereo loud speakers, you find yourself towards the periphery of the space, listening with head phones, you are in the centre of the space."
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MODE 168CD
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"The music of George Cacioppo (1927-84) is important in the history of 20th century music composition as the missing link between the American 'sound based' music of the 1960s with the 'sound centered' musics of Giacinto Scelsi and his disciples, the French spectral composers, Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey. Critical of serial music and academicism's failure to take into account the nature of sound itself, Cacioppo was inspired by radical composers such as Varèse, Cage and Feldman, and produced the American equivalent of the 'sound centered' compositions of Giacinto Scelsi in Italy. Cacioppo created a distinctly new 'sound based' approach to harmony where there is a continuous transformation of 'pure' tones into clusters and then into 'noise.' or the contrary. On the other hand, Cacioppo treats time in a very supple manner -- the temporal flow is rather slow and unmeasured in order to allow his sounds to breathe as freely as possible, or as Cage said 'to let the sounds be themselves.' This marks the first collection on CD of Cacioppo's unique music. Liner notes by Cacioppo's colleague Gordon Mumma and Gerard Pape."
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MODE 165CD
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"This recording features six of the most inventive younger composers (born between 1957 and 1977) in Mexico's contemporary music scene. Irvine Arditti and the Arditti Quartet gave the first performances of many of these works for string quartet or solo violin. The works were recorded in 2002 during the first Radar festival." Composers featured: Juan Felipe Waller, Hebert Vázquez, Germán Romero, Iván Naranjo, Rogelio Sosa, Hilda Paredes.
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4CD
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MODE 161/63CD
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"Luciano Berio greatly enriched the repertoire for solo instruments and voice with his series of sixteen Sequenzas and works such as 'Psy,' 'Gesti,' 'Rounds' and 'Fa-Si.' Written between 1958 and 2002 and spanning almost five decades of Berio's creative career, these solo compositions reflect some of his most crucial aesthetic ideas and compositional techniques." Features: The first complete recording of the Sequenazs; The first complete recording of the alternate Sequenazs; Plus all of Berio's works for solo instruments; An international all-star cast of performers: Paula Robison, flute; Susan Jolles, harp; Isabelle Ganz, voice; Aki Takahashi, piano; Stuart Dempster, trombone; Rohan De Saram, cello; Ulrich Krieger, soprano saxophone; Irvine Arditti, violin; Seth Josel, guitar; Noriko Shimada, bassoon; Stefano Scodanibbio, double bass. Deluxe package with 104 page booklet of notes.
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MODE 156CD
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"Passacaglia, op. 23" (1936-37) for orchestra: The WDR Symphony Orchestra, Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; "Incidental Music" for Molière's 'Le malade imaginaire' (1934) for flute, clarinet, violin, viola and double bass; "Three Smaller Canons, op. 24a" (1936) for viola & cello; "Hexachord Suite, op. 24b" (1936) for oboe & clarinet; "Concerto for Nine Instruments, op. 22" (1937) for clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, violin, cello & piano, ensemble recherche, Werner Herbers, conductor.
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MODE 147CD
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6th volume Mode's continuing series. Features: "Music Of Changes" (1951); "Suite For Toy Piano" (1948); "Seven Haiku" (1952); performed by Martine Joste (piano, toy piano), recorded 2003. "This disc collects three early piano works of John Cage, including his classic work for toy piano and early works composed using chance. 'Music Of Changes' is a seminal piece in 20th century composition because it is the first work to be fully composed using chance operations. The title makes reference to the ancient Confucian book the I-Ching which, together with lectures by the Japanese Zen master Suzuki, introduced Cage to the concepts of chance. The title also makes reference to Cage's change in musical direction with this work. Cage prepared charts of squares which indicated numbers for tempo, dynamics, sounds, duration, rests and overlapping of material. He then used chance operations based on these numbers to compose a piece -- devoid of personal choice and influences -- which was then conventionally notated. The element of noise is also introduced into the composition, with indications for sound to be made by closing the piano lid, pedal noise, playing inside the piano, knocking under the keyboard, etc."
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MODE 139CD
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"This disc of French composer Joel-François Durand's music amplifies his ongoing interest in the classical 'four elements': air, earth, fire and water. The oboe concerto, La terre et le feu features a hallmark of Durand's work: rising figures that gradually strain upwards. The title of the solo organ piece 'Les raisons des forces mouvantes' comes from a treatise by Salomon de Caux, published in 1615, which concerns itself with scientific experiments based on the four elements."
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MODE 137CD
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"An American who came of age in the late 1980s, Jason Eckardt's music captures the essences of the genres that led him first to performance (as a guitarist), and then to composition: heavy metal and art rock, jazz, gagaku and p'ansori, the Second Viennese School, American post-serialism, and the new complexity. It evokes the power of inspired, virtuosic improvisation, the incisiveness of classical ensemble playing, and the raw expressivity of ethnic music. The first complete CD of young, New York based composer Jason Eckardt's music. All first recordings."
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MODE 126CD
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(Written for Sabat/Clarke); Duo for Violinist and Pianist (2 versions) -- Sabat/Clarke Duo. Composer supervised recordings. "Duo for violinist and pianist (1961) has structural parts which are repeatable and whose sequence is determined by cues -- a particular sound (e.g.) high violin pizzicato, very quiet low register sound on piano, or length of silence -- which, as a player, reaches the end of a structural part, determines what part must directly be played next. Each player, under determined conditions, proceeds independently (there is no fixed score relating to the two instruments). The cues from the one player to the other occur in the process of playing; neither players knows when what she plays will function as a cue, i.e. cannot control where the other player will play. The material of the structural parts is flexible and, if repeated, variable. Within time spaces (e.g. 4 seconds, 1/2 second, etc.) sounds may be chosen from variously specified sources, collections of pitches, dynamics, ways of playing and combined and distributed variably. There are also places in the music where individual sounds are coordinated between the players, for instance, violin plays a sound that must be sustained till the piano's next sound is heard (which is not for the violinist predictable), or the pianist must wait until the next sound from the violin ends, then play directly after. This may sometimes result in an impasse: piano cannot play until the violin stops playing while the violin cannot stop until the piano plays. This can be taken as the end of the piece's performance, as it is on this recording for the two versions of the piece played, in one case the impasse not happening till after some time, in the other coming much sooner. I think of the music of the Duo as resulting from the conditions of the piece's being performed, both fluid and requiring a highly focused and flexibly alert attention."
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MODE 125CD
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"Michael Colgrass and Gunther Schuller have led lives musically rich in the varied influences -- performing music of the 19th century tradition, embracing the 20th century innovations of both the academy and the avant-garde, and the exploration jazz and ethnic music. They are composers who enthusiastically cross musical genres and cultures, combining the elements they discover into works of great color and energy. The three works on this disc represent extraordinary contributions to the repertoire of wind ensembles and wind orchestras."
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MODE 062CD
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Dahinden (tenor & alto trombones), Anthony Braxton (saxophones), Joe Fonda (bass), Art Fuller (drums). "On disc, Dahinden is well known for his Hat Art recordings devoted to Cage and Wolff. This disc is the first release of his own compositions and interpretations of John Coltrane's 'Naima' and Anthony Braxton's 'Composition 136'."
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MODE 033CD
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Includes music by Harry Partch (the first Partch music to be played on his original instruments since his old 60s recordings), as well as Pugliese, Drummond, Rosenblum, and T. Monk. Newband's director Dean Drummond "had studied with Partch and played in his ensemble. 'Daphne of the Dunes' makes full use of their exotic tunings and sounds. This 20 minute work is a major addition to the recorded catalog."
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MODE 050CD
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A new recording of "Sonatas And Interludes" for prepared piano, performed by Philippe Vandre. This is the first version to use a Steinway "O"-type baby grand piano (as Cage originally composed and designed the piece for). "Cage's masterwork is quite different -- a big piece with a quiet voice. The prepared piano operates entirely by muting: by attaching objects to the strings of the piano. Cage alters their sounds in various ways, turning the piano into a percussion orchestra akin to a gamelan. The results are different from note to note -- but always quieter than before."
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