Browse by Label: WERGO (GERMANY)

Artist:	SATIE
Title:	Inside The Dream
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	ALC 5107CD

"Inside the Dream evolved out of a live, multimedia performance, complete with multi channel sound and augmented with club-style electronics. The brain-child of Jurgen Grozinger, this project glorifies the surrealist movement in general and the work of Robert Desnos in particular. The disc includes a selection Grözinger's arrangements of Satie's works (including his beloved 'Gnosiennes'), flanked by Grozinger's own works, which were written as an homage to Satie. All are performed with the perfect balance of melancholy and desire by the European Music Project, under the direction of the composer/arranger."

Artist:	OBST, MICHAEL
Title:	Crystal World
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	WER 2011

Another excellent electronic work by Obst. "...my investigation of the wide range of acoustic manifestations of traditional Asian percussion instruments... the compositional process and the many electronic transformations of the instrumental sounds and their overtone-spectra led to very unusual music structures. The resulting unique sounds were comparable to various manifestations of light -- such as reflections and prism-spectra -- and reminded me of a novel by J.G. Ballard titled The Crystal World." -- Obst. Limited stock.

Artist:	OLBRISCH, MARTIN
Title:	FM o99.5
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	WER 2054-2CD

Selections from a Radiophonic Installation piece, originally broadcast for 48 hours in Donaueschingen in 1993, a streaming sampling of electronically processed sound & richly developed. "From the very beginning, it was a network of references between music, commentary and Hörspiel, of sound, noise and voices. Because its material is gleaned from diverse acoustic situations, paradoxes arise. A string harmonic can be louder than an orchestral tutti, the sharp breathy sound of a flute can blow away an entire woodwind ensemble. Music can suddenly change into a concrete description of a situation or vice versa. All of these moments join to create a virtual sound space which only apparently reproduces the picture of a real event in its totality."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Surround Music
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	DVD-AUDIO
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 2058

"This DVD-Audio disc (only playable in DVD-A compatible DVD players) offers innovative works from three different musical styles that do not use surround sound for effects but as musical means. Fifty minutes of surround music were played by some of the best electronic musicians and recorded live at ZKM and are recorded here under the name Fiber Jelly. Alvin Lucier's classic 'I Am Sitting in a Room' is presented in a live production with eight rooms resonating at the same rinse. And Medusa by Ludger Brummer for two percussionists and four-channel sound synthesis was recorded and mixed at ZKMs Blue Cube, the surround-music studio par excellence." Composers: Alvin Lucier, Ludger Brummer, Justin Bennett, Kaffe Matthews, Anne Wellmer, Fiber Jelly.

Artist:	BRUMMER, LUDGER
Title:	Thrill
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	DVD-AUDIO
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 2059

DVD audio/video. "On this DVD, composer Ludger Brummer's works are presented for the first time in their original, multi-channel format. Each and every detail of these works was created on a computer. The acoustic idea uses techniques that give the sound a realistic and natural impression in space. Thrill is a strange kind of Musique Concrete: All of its sounds are created with physical models. All the sounds should be considered to be true 'natural' and since they sound out or the speaker they are as well real -- but artificial in the same moment. It is audible that the sounds have references to real existing sound phenomena. As a bonus, two videos (4-channel audio) are included, in which Brümmer collaborates with video artist Silke Braemer."

Artist:	LIGETI, GYORGY
Title:	Requiem
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 60045

"Captivating. One of the unique aspects of Ligeti's music is his ability to project dense, chromatic webs of sound with an almost Mozartian clarity; this disconcerting sensation is masterfully reproduced in this performance of Ligeti's Requiem by conductor Michael Gielen. The finale--calamitous, but strangely withdrawn--represents the composer at his most dramatic. And yes, this is the music Stanley Kubrick used to accompany the discovery of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also on this disc are two other essential works, 'Aventures' and 'Nouvelles Aventures', highly comic, highly theatrical, justly celebrated choral works." --Joshua Cody

Artist:	STOCKHAUSEN, KARLHEINZ
Title:	Kontakte
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6009

Kontakte is a Stockhausen classic from 1959, for electronics, percussion and piano (played here by David Tudor). One of his "moment form" compositions, which "...lead up to no climax, nor do they have prepared, and thus expected, climaxes, nor the usual introductory, intensifying, transitional, and cadential stages which are related to the curve of development in a whole work; they are rather immediately intense and -- permanently present -- endeavor to maintain the level of continued 'peaks' up to the end; forms in which at any moment one may expect a maximum or a minimum, and in which one is unable to predict with certainty the direction of the development from any given point... leading to timelessness."

Artist:	STOCKHAUSEN, KARLHEINZ
Title:	Klavierstucke I-XI
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$44.00
Catalog #:	WER 60135

Pioneering piano studies, composed throughout the 1950s, recorded in 1985-86 by Herbert Henck. "Stockhausen experimented with different modes of attack and pedaling which modify the vibration of the strings and with silent depression of the keys which frees particular strings to resonate. In this way he achieved a 'filtering' of the sound spectrum that comes after the attack... the result was a rich palette of overtones and echo sounds which emphasized as never before the piano's characteristic resonance and its unique ability to suggest sound effects in perspective." --Herbert Henck

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	Sonatas & Interludes For Prepared Piano
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 60156

Written in 1946-48 for prepared piano, recorded in 1975 by Joshua Pierce. "...represents the culmination of his work with the solo prepared piano, which had been his musical invention a decade before. Essentially, into the bed of piano strings he put such objects as large wooden screws, bolts of various sizes, pieces of plastic and rubber -- in short, a panoply of devices that transformed the sound of the piano strings... it, more than anything he had done to that time, showed his colleagues that Cage should be considered an important composer." --Richard Kostelanetz

Artist:	LIGETI, GYORGY
Title:	Continuum
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 60161

Originally released 1988. "This CD of works by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti represents an extremely interesting combination of several of his serene works for harpsichord, organ and wind quintet with two electronic compositions from the late 1950s." Recorded in 1957/58/62/70. Performed by Zsigmond Szathmáry, Antoinette Vischer & Karl-Erik Welin. Features: "Continuum für Cembalo" (1968); "Zehn Stücke für Bläserquintett" (1968); "Artikulation" (1958, elektronische Komposition); "Glissandi" (1957, elektronische Komposition); "Etüden für Orgel" (1967-9); "Volumina für Orgel (1. Fassung)" (1961-2).

Artist:	BERIO, LUCIANO
Title:	Circles/Sequenza I/Sequenza III/Sequenza V
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6021

Circles is a piece based on e.e. Cummings texts, performed by Cathy Berberian. Berio's "Sequenzas" are a series of pieces designed for soloists to extend the boundaries of their musical isolation as far as possible. Sequenza I performed here by Aurele Nicolet for solo flute. Sequenza III by Berberian for solo voice; "The scale of possibilities in vocal expression... from stammering to long held passages, from a wild cry to hastily articulated babbling." Sequenza V is for solo trombone, by Vinko Globokar; "...completely unexpected and unfamiliar sounds, which are unquestionably closer to electronic music... by simultaneously singing and playing different, and precisely described notes which are carefully selected by virtue of their dissonant friction..." ? Henri Pousseur.

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	25 Year Retrospective Concert
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	3CD
Price:	$44.00
Catalog #:	WER 6247

The legendary performance at Town Hall, NY May 15, 1968; previously available as a ltd. private pressing 3LP box set. "The pieces performed were written over a period of 25 years, between 1934 and 1958. Presented together, they reflect not only Cage's search for new compositional processes and means of expression, they also already contain the seed for all the technical procedures and the ideological basis of his later compositions: the interest in Eastern philosophies, the involvement with 'silence', and the introduction of chance as compositional procedure." Includes classic early prepared-piano works, "Imaginary Landscape No. 1" (a recording of constant and variable frequency records, cymbal and piano), percussion ensemble, tape music, "Concert for Piano & Orchestra," etc. Comes with a 92 page booklet, with in-depth notes, historic photos, score reproductions, etc. One of the nicest Cage items you could imagine.

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	Roaratorio - An Irish Circus on 'Finnegans Wake'
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6303

An excellent, indecipherable code of radio work based on James Joyce's text, with Cage reading. "...Cage's experiences with music and poetry, oral recitation and tape montage, and his close association with Zen Buddhism, lead to an all-inclusive cosmology built out of human voices, natural sounds, sounds coming out of his environment, noises, singing, and music...the montage is expanded by the inclusion of Irish ballads, jigs, and instrumental music which he recorded in Ireland." --Klaus Schoning

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$44.00
Catalog #:	WER 6310

"James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet is a poetic, philosophical spoken piece by John Cage, based on his memories of decades of studying the works of Joyce, Duchamp and Satie. Live performances in German and English took place in 1987 at the 'NachtCageTag' of WDR Cologne to mark the 75th birthday of the composer and in 1990 at the WDR Sound Art Festival '2nd Acustica International' in New York. Both versions feature an outstanding cast, including some of the giants of 20th century composition."

Artist:	SCHWITTERS, KURT
Title:	What a Beauty/Die Ursonate
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6313

A year after deleting the original, historic Schwitters recordings of "Ursonate", Wergo release these new recordings (from 2004) by Die Schwindlinge (a women, Silke Egeler-Wittmannn, plus 2 guys who look like they just got back from the lipstick factory). Well, there's tragedy all around us and this CD is pure cabaret nonsense. I know that we could all extend our "sense of humor" and just "enjoy" the wackiness, but the only sentence that complements the conclusion of this CD is: "Please Kill Me."

"The members of the ensemble Die Schwindlinge present the 'Ursonate,' 'An Anna Blume,' 'what a b what a b what a beauty,' 'Ribble Bobble Pimlico,' 'From dawn to dark' and further sound-poetical works by Dadaist composer Kurt Schwitters. These works exemplify Schwitters' motto, 'May my humorous laughter be a sign that we will have an entertaining time together.' Schwitters (1887-1948) was an exceptionally gifted reciter and lecturer -- although less as someone who forms language than as someone who deforms it. As an artist-clown, the bourgeois Schwitters was capable of giving free rein to his anarchistic and chaotic tendencies. As a performing artist he took the goals of the modern architect, 'light, air, and sun' and added another, laughter."

Artist:	STAUB, VOLKER
Title:	Suarogate
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	WER 6545

"Suarogate" is a work of some '70s minutes' duration for vocal quartet, flute, trumpet, trombone, steel strings, percussion instruments (three players) and sirens. "Whether produced by nature or by human beings, logs or metal containers, Staub turned these objects into his 'acoustical material' in the original sense of the word. He was, in a manner of speaking, constantly en route on a voyage of discovery of sounds. At first, he built his own instruments and the result is marked by a close proximity to arte provera, a rejection of overblown techniques, and an almost ecological renunciation of compositional devices. The second stage is the compositional process per se, e.g. the gradual incorporation of traditional instruments in his wholly original 'sound concretisations'. Volker Staub's composition is formed of 23 (partially interpenetrating) pieces which form new entities at a higher level of organisation."

Artist:	REICH, STEVE
Title:	Phase Patterns
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6630

"Contemporary recordings (1997-98) of these seminal live-instrument-hocket works, recorded by the Leipzig Ensemble Avant Garde (Michael Obst, Stefan Sopora, Klaus Steffes-Holländer, Josef Christof) under the direction of noted 20c repertoire pianist Stefen Schleiermacher. Any new recording of classic Reich is reason alone for rejoice; here we've not only gotten full-bandwidth recordings (and bang-up performances) of the under recorded (at least in the last 20 years or so) 'Piano Phase' (1966, for two pianos), 'Phase Patterns' (1970, for four electric organs) and 'Four Organs' (1970, for four electric organs and maracas) (with an average time of 17 minutes each), but THREE separate takes of 'Pendulum Music' (1968, for microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers and performers). Nifty new design for Wergo (w/fonts nicked out of the DR oeuvre) to boot. Completely necessary." --Hrvatski

Artist:	PENDERECKI, KRZYSZTOF
Title:	Seven Gates of Jerusalem- Symphony No. 7
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6647

For five soloists, speakers, three mixed choirs and orchestra. Performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir Warsaw. "Krzysztof Penderecki first passed through the seven gates of Jerusalem in 1974 during an unofficial visit to Israel, which at the time was off limits owing to military conflicts with the Arabs. The Holy Land impressed the composer deeply, especially because he felt he was retracing Christ's steps. In 1995, Penderecki received a commission to compose a work for the celebration of the third millennium of Jerusalem. Penderecki, who had already composed five symphonies and planned out his sixth in concept, decided in favor of a new vocal work and chose for its theme and title Seven Gates of Jerusalem. It was premiered on January 9, 1997 in Jerusalem, and subtitled Symphony No. 7. The number seven has long fascinated Penderecki. For The Seven Gates he wrote seven movements. The main theme of each of the respective movements II and IV has seven different notes that serve as the motif for their passacaglia-like structures. Again and again, one finds in the score distinctly emphasized groups of seven notes, repeated on a single pitch. Finally, there are the seven powerful fortissimo chords that end the seventh and final movement. Wergo's CD is accompanied by lavish and extensive liner notes, including an essay by Wolfram Schwinger, biographies of the performers, and a full libretto. This world premiere recording was made during a live concert that took place in Vienna on November 16, 1999."

Artist:	LIVINGSTON, GUY
Title:	Don't Panic! 60 Seconds For Piano
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6649

"What if sixty composers from 18 countries wrote 60 pieces for solo piano, each 60 seconds in length? This is the concept behind this brilliant CD, created by American pianist Guy Livingston. It is a showcase for the endless possibilities of late-twentieth century music. Many of the pieces are amplified or for piano and tape or use techniques from virtuosic-serialism to unsettling performance art. All are premieres written for Mr. Livingston. The framework is quite fascinating: Although one minute seems like an unbelievably short time, it actually offers the composers a good deal of scope. An entire atmosphere can be established (or destroyed) in 60 seconds. The program offers a wide-ranging sampler of new music styles from traditional classical to the cutting-edge of the avant-garde."

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	Credo In US... More Works For Percussion
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6651

"Ten years after their first highly esteemed Cage CD Works for Percussion Quatuor Helios present a second with works by the inventor of the prepared piano. In the wake of this process comes the series of the five 'Imaginary Landscapes'. 'Credo in US' is another heroic work, particularly in the ambiguity of its title: is Cage patriotically referring to the United States, or is he simply humanistically proving allegiance to the first person plural? Collages, layerings and overlaps clash with omnipresent wild and scattered piano bits, strewn with explosions and streaked with silences that are in themselves aggressive. In 'Inlets', the performers let Nature do the composing. Quatuor Helios has always been open to collaboration with composers in order to develop new contemporary percussion languages, often associating 'classical' instruments, new technologies and musical theatre." Features: 2000 recordings of: "Credo In US" (1942, for piano, cans, buzzer and records), "Imaginary Landscape No.1" (1939, for piano, 2 oscillators and a Chinese cymbal), "Inlets" (1977, for three players of water-filled conch shells), "Imaginary Landscape No. 3" (1942, for coil, gongs, oscillators, tin cans, marimbula, buzzer), "But What About the Noise of Crumpling Paper Which He Used to Do in Order to Paint the Series of 'Papiers froissés' or Tearing Up Paper to Make 'Papiers déchirés?' Arp Was Stimulated by Water (Sea, Lake and Flowing Waters Like Rivers), Forests" (1986).

Artist:	STOCKHAUSEN, KARLHEINZ
Title:	Tierkreis, Zodiac
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6659

"As part of the celebration of Karlheinz Stockhausen's 75th birthday, Wergo is proud to release an exceptional new recording of Tierkreis and Zodiac, under the direction of Mike Svoboda. 'Zodiac' is one of Stockhausen's most beautiful and accessible compositions. He created several different arrangements, allowing each interpreter to create his or her own version by using special formulas. With regard to the first of his two realizations on this recording, Svoboda says,'I approached the composition the way jazz musicians approach a standard: take inspiration from the melody and harmonic sequences and then express themselves spontaneously and very individually.' In his second realization, Svoboda gave the musicians just a few structures and asked them to improvise freely on Stockhausen's melodies. These two versions of one of Stockhausen's most important works are a fitting tribute to this controversial master of contemporary composition."

Artist:	LUCIER, ALVIN
Title:	Nothing Is Real...
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6660

Performed by Matthias Kaul (percussion, voice & piano), recorded 2001. "The focus of the pieces by composer Alvin Lucier on this Wergo CD is the phenomena of resonance -- sympathetic vibration -- in many variations. 'Time and again, I find myself having to pare away any musical gestures in a work in order to uncover the true idea in a piece,' says Lucier. The composer knows which ideas he wants to liberate. But the process of causing the environment to resound is always a collaborative, interactive project. It needs someone who is creatively engaged, even obsessed, to make Lucier's music of ideas a music of the ears. Percussionist Matthias Kaul is just such a person, and this new disc, Nothing Is Real..., will open up many ears to Lucier's compositional brilliance."

Artist:	HENZE, HANS WERNER
Title:	Ein Landarzt, Das Ende Einer Welt
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6666

"At the beginning of the 1950s, Hans Werner Henze wrote two radio operas for the former North West German Radio. The genre was developed in the 1930s and comprises a form of opera without visual elements and hence without a stage. Under such circumstances, the plot has to reach the listener's ears by other means -- by making the text exceptionally easy to follow, and by means of acoustic special effects like echo or sound collages. Featured works on this disc are the oppressive, surrealist Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor) with texts by Franz Kafka and the scathing satire of Das Ende einer Welt (The End of a World), written by Wolfgang Hildesheimer. In this recording of Das Ende einer Welt, Henze himself plays the role of the narrator. In addition to a huge cast of singers and performers, the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln is conducted by Marcus Stenz." Packaged with 92 page libretto.

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Studies and Solos for Piano
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6670

Composer: Conlon Nancarrow; Performed by the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo. Features mostly early works: "Studiies for Player Piano (1949-60), "Three Canons for Ursula" (1988), "Tango?" (1984), "Three Two-Part Studies" (1940s), "Prelude" (1935), "Blues" (1935), "Sonatina" (1945). "The Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo -- plays works by Conlon Nancarrow, one of the most unusual and yet most influential American composers in the history of twentieth century music. In addition to works originally written for piano two-hands there are transcriptions for piano four-hands of works written for two hands, as well as eleven 'Studies for Player Piano' transcribed for piano four-hands on this wonderful CD. It turned to be a magical event to listen to these sometimes romantic or jazzy, abrupt or wild, but always deeply original pieces full of wit and surprises. [...] The two ladies understood it perfectly, to bring the mechanical element to light but with incredible charm and a furioso technique."

Artist:	SCELSI, GIACINTO
Title:	Suono Rotundo
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6672

"Scelsi would have celebrated his 100th birthday in January 2005. This disc is an homage to the great composer, and brings us closer to understanding his art by taking up his principles of self-effacing improvisation and dressing them up in individual clothing. It is a living homage in the sense that it tries to get close to Scelsi, but only to play freely in a very personal way. The three well-wishers are Michael Kiedaisch (percussion), Stefano Scodanibbio (double bass) and Michael Svoboda (trombone). Mike Svoboda remarks, 'The improvisations should sound like composed music, with well-rounded form, a clear concept and balance. We played an improvisation, and then we pursued a promising idea.'"

Artist:	RILEY, TERRY/ SCODANIBBIO, STEFANO
Title:	Diamond Fiddle Language
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6675

"On this CD, the European avant-garde meets American minimalism; an 18th-century double bass teams up with a 21st-century synthesizer; jazz and Indian raga and extended techniques are inextricably linked. Recorded over a period of a year and a half in three separate locations around the globe, this album highlights two musician-composers and distills their concertizing, touring, and refining the intricacies of their collaboration. Terry Riley and Stefano Scodanibbio have mastered their instruments to the point of transcending them, so that it would be simplistic to define their work together as duets for contrabass and keyboards. Each of them coaxes such a complex range of timbres and hues and textures from their instruments that it's hard to believe such a variety of sounds is created by only two men. Much connects Terry Riley and Stefano Scodanibbio: both are equally comfortable with improvisation and classical notated music; both enjoy the exploration of tuning systems, harmonics, and the world of overtones, and use them to create new worlds of sounds. Together they take us beyond our perceptions of instrumental boundaries." Recorded 1998-2000, Riley sings the words of Pandi Pran Nath on one track.

Artist:	BERIO, LUCIANO
Title:	Canticum novissimi testamenti, A-ronne
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6678

"The mutual passion they shared for the sound of language was the basis for the long and fruitful collaboration between writer Edoardo Sanguineti and composer Luciano Berio. Sanguineti was the leader of the Italian avant-garde movement of the 1960s and formerly, a Communist senator in the Italian parliament. He remains one of Italy's most respected thinkers, teaching literature at the University of Genoa. Sanguineti considers Berio's Canticum novissimi testamenti and A-Ronne to be the most successful musical settings of his texts. In his obituary for his friend, Sanguineti wrote in 2003: 'For me he embodies purely and simply how music can be planned and thought today.' A-Ronne begins with the biblical assertion that the word stood at the beginning of all things and concludes with the line 'in the end is my music.' In Canticum novissimi testamenti Berio traces the subtle nuances and shifting moods of the poem with elegantly homogeneous sound from eight singers and eight winds."

Artist:	BUCHHOLZ/LYDIA KAVINA, BARBARA
Title:	Touch! Don't Touch! Music For Theremin
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6679

New recordings from 2005, featuring premiers of various compositions for Theremin. performed by the world renowned Lydia Kavina & Barbara Buchholz. "The Theremin, invented by Russian Leon Theremin, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It is unusual in that it requires no physical contact in order to produce music and was, in fact, the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. The instrument consists of an array of circuitry including two antennas around which the user moves his or her hands to play. After a flurry of interest in America following the end of the Second World War, the Theremin soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play. Since the release of the film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey in 1994, the instrument has enjoyed a resurgence in interest and has become more widely used by contemporary classical and popular musicians. On Touch! Don't Touch! Barbara Buchholz and Lydia Kavina pick up the thread of Theremin history with new compositions. The disc features works by eight German and Russian composers who were commissioned to write pieces for two Theremins and instrumental ensemble."

Artist:	GUBAIDULINA, SOFIA
Title:	Am Rande des Abgrunds/De Profundis/Quaternion/In Croce
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6684

"To celebrate Sofia Gubaidulina's 75th birthday, Wergo ofers this new CD of the composer's chamber music. Joining Julius Berger and Stefan Hussong, two well-known interpreters of new music, are Sofia Gubaidulina and her colleague, Viktor Suslin. In Am Rande des Abgrunds Gubaidulina and Suslin play aquaphones -- instruments which resemble water-filled censers with strange decorations. Their sound is rich in overtones and quite unusual, and contrasts sharply with the shimmering sound of the strings. These unusual instruments are an expression of the composer's eagerness to experiment, actively and consciously grappling with the sound worlds of the cultures of Africa and East Asia."

Artist:	CAGE, JOHN
Title:	Solo For 'Cello
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6693

"The works for violoncello solo recorded and compiled on this CD by Friedrich Gauwerky are reference works for John Cage's unusual way of composing. Apart from the tones, Cage also helped to put the varied forms of silence on the musical map. '59 1/2 Seconds,' one of his time-length pieces, ranks among Cage's most radical 'graphic' compositions. Stars become notes or noises in 'Atlas Eclipticalis' -- again without a score. 'Variations I,' written for any number of people using any sort and number of sound-producing means, Cage's composition reached the outmost limit on the way to absolute indetermination. But, if one hears 'Etudes Boréales' for cello solo, however, one experiences that it is a piece whose status can only be compared with J.S. Bach's cello compositions."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Quartets and Studies - Arditti Quartet
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	WER 6696CD

Performed by Arditti Quartet, 2005 recordings. "Conlon Nancarrow (b. 1912) is undoubtedly one of the most original figures in American music. In the late 1940s, he turned to the instrument with which his name later became synonymous: the player piano. But Nancarrow also wrote a number of compositions for conventional instruments, which are likewise concerned with the organization of musical time and which in technical terms are among the most difficult works in modern literature. This repertoire is tailor-made for the enterprising Arditti Quartet, heard here in a propulsive reading of the 'String Quartets' Nos. 1 and 3 (1942; 1987). As a further attraction, this is the first recording of the string arrangements of the 'Studies for Player Piano' Nos. 15, 31, 33 and 34 (originally composed between 1955 and 1969) and of the 'Trilogy for Player Piano' dating from 1987."

Artist:	HOSOKAWA, TOSHIO
Title:	Deep Silence
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6801

"'Music,' says Toshio Hosokawa, 'is the place where notes and silence meet.' This identifies his aesthetic concept as a genuinely Japanese one. It is found both in Japanese landscape painting and is the music, such as the courtly gagaku, in which audible sound always stands in relation to nonsound, i.e. to silence. In their rhythmic proportions Hosokawa's compositions are oriented around the breathing methods of Zen meditation, with their very slow breathing in and very slow breathing out: 'Each breath contains life and death, death and life.' Mayumi Miyata (sho -- the instrument of the universe or of tradition) and Stefan Hussong (accordion - the human or contemporary instrument) are among the most important interpreters of Hosokawa's music which here is framed by four traditional gagaku pieces."

Artist:	SATIE/MIKE SVOBODA, ERIK
Title:	Phonométrie
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	WER 6806

"The output of Erik Satie (1866-1925), when placed alongside that of his contemporaries, can seem rather meager. His popular 'Gymnopidies' (1888) are beguiling, but as compositions, they are no match for the works of a 'colleague' like Claude Debussy. Satie's disinterest in compositional technique clearly sets his music apart and lends it an unmistakable 'low-tech' charm. Ex-Chicagoan Mike Svoboda decided to revisit Satie's fascination with the phenomenology of sound ('phonometrics') and with the limitations of musical form and performance practice. For this intriguing and well-filled program, he cleverly arranged some of Satie's miniatures -- 'Gnossienne No. I' (1890), 'Sports et Divertissements' (1914), 'Ludions' (1923) -- and juxtaposed them with his original compositions created in the spirit of the visionary Parisian 'phonometrist' and forerunner of John Cage."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Studies for Player Piano Vol. 1-5 (complete)
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	5CD
Price:	$66.00
Catalog #:	WER 6907

"This set brings together all five volumes of Nancarrow's prize-winning player piano recordings in one deluxe, slipcase package. With their dazzling acrobatic complexities, well beyond the technique of any human, Nancarrow's works are both amazingly beautiful and strangely unsettling. Wergo's recordings were made in 1988 at Conlon Nancarrow's Mexico City studio, using the composer's own custom-altered Ampico reproducing piano. The 140-page booklet includes numerous unpublished photographs, an essay by producer Charles Amirkhanian and a probing musical analysis by James Tenney." This set replaced the now deleted individuals sets that were previously issued by Wergo (60165, 60166, 6168). Priced as 5 CDs for the cost of 3 (in Wergo terms), so a bit more attractive than the original versions in that sense.

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Artist:	SUBOTNICK, MORTON
Title:	Silver Apples Of the Moon
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 2035

Artist:	XENAKIS, IANNIS
Title:	Palimpsest/Epei/Dikhthas/Akanthos
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6178

Artist:	SATIE/JOHN CAGE, ERIK
Title:	Socrote/Cheap Imitation
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6186