Please note Mode's new PO Box address:

Mode Records
PO Box 1262
New York NY 10009 USA


MODE ARTISTS IN CONCERT:
More tour dates coming soon.


UPCOMING RELEASES (2008):
For more information about all upcoming releases, click here.
Please note that all dates are approximate and subject to change.

CREDIT CARDS
Mode is pleased to announce that we now accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Please forward your credit card number along with the expiration date.       



RECENT REVIEWS:

Bernadette Speach
Reflections
Mode 105

Some composers are easy to pigeonhole while others resist simple categorization. Count New York-based composer Bernadette Speach among the latter.

Speach's oeuvre of the last fourteen years or so can best be described as New Tonalist with a penchant for jazzy verticals and a Downtown affinity for patterned material and loose unfolding. Her music also contains experimentalist touches such as extended techniques and indeterminacy. And there's significant influence of the hushed output of her primary teacher, Morton Feldman, and pieces such as John Cage's piano solo Dream.

The best selections here maximize Speach's finely honed ear for sonic beauty -- most all this music can be characterized as languid, winsome, luscious, and fragile -- while downplaying their lack of structure and tendency to stop rather than end. Fortunately, several of these items, including Chosen Voices (1991) for toy piano and prepared guitar as well as the solo piano entities Angels in the Snow (1993) and When It Rains, Lleuve (1995) are short enough to coast by on their lovely exteriors. The longer the opus, the more noticeable the problem, however -- Trio des Trois (1992) for viola, cello, and piano, and especially the sprawling Women Without Adornment (1995) for voice, reciter, and mixed trio would have all benefited greatly from clearer structure and closings that convince. The latest work encountered here, Viola (2000) for that instrument and piano, fortunately shows some attempts to think architecturally, tracing some narrative curve aspects.

The string quartet les ondes pour quatre (1988) seems from an earlier period. Here, patterned material is layered thickly, outlining a spiky harmonic language. Absent the fetching surface of later listens, it pleases least.

Performances are good. From the sizable list of executants, one should single out the Arditti String Quartet, guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer, violist Rozanna, and pianists Speach and Anthony DeMare for their evocative playing. Production is fine and sound quality is exemplary.
--- David Cleary, Living Music Journal, Fall 2006-Spring 2007


Gavin Bryars
The Marvellous Aphorisms of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years
Mode 177

While Gavin Bryars is best known for his long-form compositions ("The Sinking of the Titanic," Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet), he also played a significant role in the early development of British free improv, playing bass in the trio Joseph Holbrooke with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. He left the trio, which was far from any level of fame, to focus on composing and on this CD the New York label Mode presents four of those early pieces in updated interpretations.

"The Squirrel and the Ricketty-Racketty Bridge" was written for Bailey, who included it on his 1971 Solo Guitar Volume 1 and also played on a 1978 quartet version with Bryars, Brian Eno and Fred Frith (released on Eno's Obscure label). The piece calls for at least one guitarist and two guitars and here is performed by New York-born Seth Josel, who now lives in Berlin. The primary difference between his and previous versions is in the electronics; where earlier versions were rough and textural, played on hollow-body instruments, Josel's electric version is comparatively pristine. While the clean sustain of his guitars brings out the counterpoint of the composition - an ascending and descending 12-note run with hammered, harmonic interruptions - the same quality robs the piece of its meat. The players' struggles with the instruments and the listeners' struggles to follow the piece's logic are lost - which depending on taste might make it more enjoyable or just dumb it down.

"1, 2, 1-2-3-4" was also released in a previous version on Obscure. The piece calls for a group of musicians playing the same set of music, but following different arrangements on headphones, rather than playing "together." The 1975 version was a sort of slow, plaintive jazz piece, with the differing intervals creating accidental dissonances that may have sounded stranger thirty years ago than they do in the age of sampling and digital music. The growing ambiguity in the work is similar to the hazy approximations of melody Bryars was exploring around the same time with the Portsmouth Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra comprised of people who didn't know how to play their respective instruments.

For the new version, Josel and saxophonist/session leader Ulrich Krieger, along with piano, bass, drums and a second guitar, use a half-hour Beatles medley as the recorded source. The familiarity of the riffs and the tendency to try to sing along mentally make this an entirely different piece of music. On record it's a good bit of jumbled fun, but at the ensemble's Nov. 8, 2007 performance of the same material at New York's Roulette, it proved to be tough going; watching them perform made it harder to suspend the belief that they should be playing "together," which may be truer to Bryars' intentions.

Likewise, watching the performance of "Made in Hong Kong" - a piece scored for mechanical toys - robbed it of the mystery it carries on record. The scattered percussion of hopping toys, paired with electronic beeps and voices, is more successful in the abstract, removed from the visual cues of its sources. The fourth piece of the CD and concert was the most effective: "Pre-Mediaeval Metrics" is a pulse piece based on rhythms in Latin poetry, rendered here by multi-tracked saxophones and guitars. With all the lovely blur and clutter of the other pieces, the fifteen minutes of "Metrics" come off as positively austere.
--- Kurt Gottschalk, www.allaboutjazz.com, December 14, 2007


Gavin Bryars
The Marvellous Aphorisms of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years
Mode 177

When listening to the work of British composer Gavin Bryars, it's tempting to think you've awakened on some mirror earth-planet where time and pitch operate in other dimensions.

The 67-year-old composer, who wrote the odd but transfixing "The Sinking of the Titanic," is well-known for collaborations with the likes of opera director Robert Wilson, choreographer Merce Cunningham and artist Christian Boltanksi. This CD offers Bryars' early works, from 1970 and 1971, and they are some of his most intriguing compositions.

On "The Squirrel and the Ricketty-Racketty Bridge," Bryars has written a series of repeating two note intervals for two electric guitars. The music here comes at the listener as a weaving pattern of notes. At times this work recalls the returning arpeggios of Philip Glass, at others the repetitions form a larger pattern that gives the music its unique shape. But that pattern is one that can only be gleaned if heard all the way through.

By far, the best track on this CD, for the way its sound seems to bend out of a black musical hole, is "Made in Hong Kong." This 10-minute exploration has Bryars calling for the use of sound making toys like rattlers, robots, toy trains and jack-in-the-boxes. Listening to this mesmerizing clockwork arrangement of overlapping sounds is much like sitting in on a petite symphony whose music is filled with a David Lynch-like sense of color, mystery and malevolence.

In "1-2, 1-2-3-4" Bryars takes a medley of Beatles songs, including "Helter Skelter," "A Day in the Life," and "Fixing A Hole" and reconstructs them by varying tempos played on piano, electric guitar, bass, drums, saxophone and other instruments. Here the music recalls the wit and experimentation of John Zorn, except this music owns a strange world-weariness.

Less fetching is "Pre-Mediaeval Metrics," a vapid 15-minute amalgam of struck chords for saxophone, tom-tom, electric bass and 12-string guitar.

It's amazing how cutting-edge this music still sounds now, even after 30 years. Perhaps this is the greatest charm of this CD, which is highly recommended for those with a musical adventurous streak or fans of the experimental.
--- Edward Ortiz, The Sacramento Bee (California), November 2007


Gavin Bryars
The Marvellous Aphorisms of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years
Mode 177

Op de sepiakleurige cd-hoes staat een man in de tuin de lens in te loeren: Willempie-helm op, snorretje, vliegeniersbril, verkreukeld jasje met daaronder half verborgen een tas. De man met de helm is componist. En niet zo maar een, maar Gavin Bryars. De verwantschap die Bryars (1943) voelt met de lijfelijkheid van popmuziek, is duidelijk af te lezen in zijn levensloop. Zo was de Engelse componist in zijn studentenjaren werkzaam als jazzbassist en gold hij als pionier op het gebied van de vrije improvisatie. In het begin van de jaren zeventig speelde hij in het ensemble van Steve Reich en in het Scratch Orchestra van Cornelius Cardew; om ten slotte in de jaren negentig het ’Jesus’ Blood’ te maken, een smartlap die zelfs door Tom Waits werd gecoverd. Op deze cd niet de zoetgevooisde Bryars, maar de vroege, experimentele componist. In ’1,2,1-2-3-4’ luisteren de spelers individueel over de koptelefoon naar een cassettebandje (modern!) met popnummers, en proberen daarmee mee te spelen. Gevolg: een meerstemmigheid aan Beatles-liedjes die buitengewoon verfrissend klinkt. Heel actueel klinkt ’Pre-Mediaeval Metrics’, een werk waarin de computer (ook modern in 1970) een reeks streepjes en puntjes heeft uitgespuugd op papier, die de spelers ritmisch moeten interpreteren. Alles zeer consciëntieus gespeeld door onder meer Ulrich Krieger (slagwerk) en Seth Josel (elektrisch gitaar).
--- Anthony Fiumara, Trouw, zaterdag 27 oktober 2007


Roger Reynolds
Watershed IV
Mode 70

Composer Roger Reynolds has explored the spatial aspects of music throughout most of his more than 30-year career. Early works, such as his 1968 Ping and Traces, combined multichannel tape with instrumental performance, while the VOICESPACE series, begun in 1975, marked the beginning of a more rigorous exploration of spatial hearing and the exploitation of quadraphonic (and larger) sound systems. By selecting that most familiar of sounds, the human voice, as his primary compositional material Reynolds was able to focus more acutely on the psychoacoustic and subjective effects of spatial location and sound movement. His 1975 monograph "Explorations in Sound/Space Manipulation" still stands as a useful insight into the aesthetics and techniques of spatial composition.

As Professor of Music at University of California, San Diego and founding Director of the Center for Music Experiment (now the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts) Reynolds has participated in and benefited from several generations of music technology research. Earlier work was produced entirely by analog means, but since the late 1970s digital sound processing has been the standard. VOICESPACE III (Eclipse) and IV (The Palace) were realized using mainframe computer systems for sound editing, spatial processing, and reverberation. Today the tools are physically smaller, more affordable, and computationally quicker. Computer music has moved into the realm of real-time process.

TRAnSiT
Reynolds is presently participating in a major research project in spatial audio, dubbed TRAnSiT (Toward Real-time Audio Spatialization Tools). This group consists of Peter Otto, Miller Puckette, Reynolds, Josef Kucera, and Timothy Labor; its stated concerns are spatialization paradigms, their real-time implementation, portable and reconfigurable systems, industrial and commercial applications. Their computer platform of choice is Silicon Graphics, running cmusic and Miller Puckette's MAX/fts software. This system supports both real-time performance interactivity and extensive non-real-time audio processing, with up to eight channels of audio I/O. The principal projects to date have been Reynolds's Watershed IV (an interactive work for solo percussion and six-channel surround sound system, performed by virtuoso Steven Schick) and The Red Act Arias (for 8-channel computer sound, orchestra, and singers). These works, along with Eclipse, Roger Reynolds's collaboration with intermedia artist Ed Emshwiller, are documented on the new WATERSHED DVD.

WATERSHED - the DVD
WATERSHED (Mode Records 70) is the first music DVD-Video disc which fully exploits the potential of that format, integrating 5.1 surround audio with performance video and intermedia imagery, menu-driven navigation and on-line program notes. The disc is a joint project of the UCSD TRAnSiT group and AIX Media Group of West Hollywood (Mark Waldrep, proprietor).

The musical portion of the disc contains audiovisual recordings of two complete works, the title piece Watershed IV (1995) and the multimedia piece Eclipse, (1979) as well as an audio-only excerpt from the computer part of The Red Act Arias (1997). This is supplemented by video interviews with collaborators Roger Reynolds, Steven Schick, and Peter Otto, demonstrations of the interactive computer technology used in the realization of Watershed IV, as well as program notes and credits. As an additional bonus, those with a computer DVD drive can access and print out large portions of the Watershed IV score, encoded as pdf files.

The audio portion is available either as 5.1 surround (AC-3 encoded) or as high resolution stereo. In the case of each of the three pieces the 5.1 mix is actually a reduced adaptation of the original channel format. Watershed IV, Eclipse, and The Red Act Arias were originally created in six-, seven-, and eight-channel surround, respectively.

Both Watershed IV and Eclipse also have a video component. In the case of Watershed IV this derives from the multi-camera shoot which documented the première performance. Multiple camera angles are selectable by the viewer at intervals throughout the piece. The visuals for Eclipse represent a distillation of the film, video, and computer imagery from collaborator Ed Emshwiller's original multi-image environment.

Watershed IV
Watershed IV is aptly named - it represents Reynolds's first foray into real-time spatialization control and points the way to future explorations. It employs a spatial processing system developed by the TRAnSiT team, consisting of a Silicon Graphics (SGI) computer running custom-designed software and a digitally controlled audio matrix from Level Control Systems (LCS).

The direct sound of the instruments and the reverberation return from a digital reverb unit are mixed and distributed through the LCS matrix to a six-channel speaker system. Four of the speakers are arrayed in an equally-spaced panorama across the stage with the percussion setup at the center, while the additional two speakers serve as left and right surrounds. Certain of the microphone signals from Steve Schick's panoply of percussion instruments are routed to the audio inputs of the SGI computer, where they are used to trigger a set of preprogrammed spatialization effects.

The specific type of spatialization changes throughout the piece: Sometimes the sound of the percussion is projected into various sound spaces (with varying degrees of reverberation and at different apparent relationships to the listeners), sometimes the listeners themselves seem to be in the performer's position at the center of the percussion kit, and at other times individual instruments are heard to be flying around the room.

Eclipse
Eclipse was a collaboration between Roger Reynolds and media artist/computer graphics pioneer Ed Emshwiller, created on the occasion of the 1980 First Intermedia Art Festival in New York and presented in the main gallery of the Guggenheim Museum. The original version was designed to fully exploit the museum's enormously tall central atrium, with its helical ramp. Emshwiller's projected images fairly filled the space and Reynolds's music was similarly projected through a seven-channel speaker system which took advantage of the museum's height. The music, which features the voices of bass baritone Philip Larson and soprano Carol Plantamura, was later remixed in a four-channel version for subsequent scaled-down performances.

The Red Act Arias
The Red Act Arias in its entirety is a 47-minute composition for narrator, orchestra, chorus, and 8-channel computer processed sound. The WATERSHED DVD includes an extract of the computer part, featuring massive panning of the layered sounds of fire and water, implemented by Reynolds's assistant Timothy Labor using the cmusic "space" unit generator. The work was commissioned by the BBC Proms Festival and was premièred in 1997 at the Royal Albert Hall in London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Singers, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The next stage in The Red Act project is JUSTICE, a theatrical work for soprano, actress, percussionist, computer processed sound, and real-time computer spatialization. It will be created with director Tadashi Suzuki and premièred at the 2nd Theatre Olympics in Shizuoka, Japan in May 1999.

The WATERSHED DVD provides an instructive model to those who would pursue composition of multichannel music. The three works represented on the disc are highly individual and distinct from each other. Each was realized with different technical means and each evolved from its own generative metaphor. Most important, the spatial element is integral to the conception of each piece and is not simply imposed as a final production effect. For Roger Reynolds this is expressed as a synergy between background (he holds degrees in both Engineering Physics and Music Composition), thirty years of experience working with spatialization issues, and the considering of each particular situation in light of a variety of tools. As in all art making, there is a kind of "alchemy" going on wherein the totality of the composer's knowledge and experience boils down to produce a richly nuanced and authentic result.
--- Richard Zvonar, Surround Professional, February 1999


Iannis Xenakis
Music for Strings
Mode 152

Unlike most of his avant-garde contemporaries, Iannis Xenakis did not avoid using strings. And, as Michael Struck-Schloen points out in his informative booklet-note, string timbre provided a direct aural equivalent to the graphic depictions of sound Xenakis used as an alternative to conventional notation. The precedure is vividly demonstrated by Syrmos (1959), with the listner compelled to find a path through dense but exhilarating thickets of tone. It could have been written last year, let alone half a century ago - whereas Analogique A+B (1959) feels wholly of its time, with neither the string component nor its electronic transformation arresting enough to make the amalgram more than a technical exercise.

One of Xenakis's achievements was in evoking a recognizable (thought never traditional) sonic context, against which sound could express itself in directly musical terms. Thus we get the Homeric landscape of Arouta (1971) with its heightened interaction between violent gestures and an even more intense silence, and the transcendental virtuosity of Theraps (1976) - its succession of powerful images redefining the double-bass persona. While not lacking impact, the final piece reflects the creative impasses Xenakis arguably had reached by his last decade. The pungent chordal sonorities of Voiles (1995) and intricate layers of sound compromising Ittidra (1996) feel arrested in time: defiant more out of desperation than conviction.

Much to respond to, then, in these assured performances by Ensemble Resonanz (John Eckhardt a bassist of stature), recorded with an ideal combination of clarity and spaciousness. How about a second disc of string music to feature Shaar, Xenakis's masterpiece in the medium?
--- Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone, September 2006


John Cage
The Piano Works 7
Cage Chess Pieces. Sonatas and Interludes. Rieti Chess Serenade.
Margaret Leng Tan
Mode 158

Cage composed his seminal collection for prepared piano, Sonatas and Interludes, between 1946 and 1948, a time when he was investigating Hindu philosophy but before he adopted aleatory as his guiding creative principle. Sonatas and Interludes is, therefore, a scrupulous notated score, both in terms of the notes and chords that constitute its mellifluous flow, and the positioning of every nut, screw, pencil and eraser that creates its unique blend of timbres. Yet although Cage left nothing - as it were - to chance in this score, and room still exists for interpretative choices, Margaret Leng Tan's new recording will come as a real surprise, especially to those who think they know the work. Prepare to be startled by the very opening chords, with the use of the soft or una corda pedal: it is quite unlike any other recording of this music I have heard. Tan's pedalling - specifically notated in the score - gives her version a unique sonic image, quite different to other celebrated modern accounts, say, by Joanna MacGregor (SoundCircus), Aleck Karis (Bridge) or - my favourite prior to this newcomer - Boris Berman (Naxos).

In Tan's hands, the musical perspective in Cage's music suddenly acquires an extra dimension or layer of colour that one does not hear in rival accounts. True, the warmer, fuller sound may mask, relatively speaking, some of the drier textures one is used to, but these differences are akin to those between the Javanese and Balinese gamelan orchestras whose sound world Sonatas and Interludes so magically evokes. However, this is a revelatory account for its musical qualities as well as the timbral, as cursory listenings to, say, Sonata V, the central pair of Interludes or the conjoined pair of Gemini Sonatas (XIV and XV) which have real but understated majesty.

The disc boasts further novelties in the recovery of Cage's Chess Pieces, transcribed by Tan (who writes about the work in the booklet) for piano from a painting Cage exhibited in The Imagery of Chess exhibition in New York in 1944-5. At almost 8 minutes duration this delightful piece is a significant addition to Cage's oeuvre and indeed to American piano music of the 20th century. It is paired with the briefer and blander Chess Serenade composed for the same exhibition by Vittorio Rieti.
--- Guy Rickards, International Piano, September/October 2006


Frances White
Centre Bridge: electroacoustic works
Mode 184

Princeton-based composer Frances White has been working in electro-acoustic music since at least 1985; her works have been widely anthologized in collections of electronic and computer music, but Mode's Centre Bridge appears to be the first omnibus on CD devoted exclusively to her work. While the chronological compass of the five pieces included span a decade-long period from 1992 to 2001, there is a strong sense of continuity between all of these pieces. Rather than viewing the situation in metaphorical terms of composing computer music like being a Picasso with two billion colors on her palette, as the inference has been made elsewhere, White favors perhaps about two dozen colors that she applies rather sparingly and with a great deal of patient refining. An avid gardener, White draws inspiration from both manmade and natural sources; the tones generated by a "singing bridge" that runs between Pennsylvania and New Jersey or in populating a musical work in that manner that the bulbs she plants populates her garden.

Of the five selections, only Walk through "Resonant landscape" No. 2 is purely electronic; White is somewhat fonder of supplementing her electronic pieces with parts for live instruments, and often the human players are used merely to sustain tones or enter and exit at certain times. "Even though they have just a few notes in them," White has said, "I think of these pieces as being quite virtuosic," and she is right. White's music is not only virtuosic in the way it makes players wait until just the right moment to sound, but also it is very generous to musicians when they are asked to step forward from that role for a bit. Listen to how magisterial and full-throated Liuh-Weh Ting's viola is during her brief solo on Like the lily, or in her more substantial turn in A veil barely seen, or the way the double bass works in the overall texture of Centre Bridge (dark river).

Frances White is so committed to maintaining the balance of her careful, painterly and landscape-like constructions might lead some to complain that there are no "people" in her music. Not to put words in Frances White's mouth, but it calls to mind a comment made by Dutch documentarian Bert Haanstra early in his career, "I can handle nature, but I've not yet learned to handle people and their problems." On the other hand, White's devotion to atmosphere and color has won the attention of a different filmmaker, Gus van Sant, whose film Paranoid Park won the Sixtieth Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007; it utilized Frances White's music rather extensively. Frances White's works on Mode's Centre Bridge is diverting in that the elements of the music, though underplayed in their presentation and relatively gentle sounding in comparison to those common to most "computer music" add up to a result that is provocative and challenging, creating its own rules.
--- Dave Lewis, All Music Guide, September 2007


John Cage
The Works for Piano 4
Mode 106

Margaret Leng Tan is widely regarded as the foremost living exponent of Cage's piano music, and it doesn't take much listening to see why. Art tells, whatever the repertoire. This is a musician from whom many of the world's big league pianists could learn a lot. Her finger-sensitivity is perhaps unique in its fantastic breadth, subtlety and control. Her rhythm is phenomenally acute, and her mastery of tone colour is matched by her imagination in using it. But the most striking aspect of her Cage recital on Mode [MODE 106] is its expressiveness, its emotional immediacy.
--- Alexander Letvin, PIANO magazine, The Pianist's Record Shelf,
      July/August 2004


Aldo Clementi
Works with Guitar
Geoffrey Morris, guitar/ELISION ensemble/Carl Rosmann, conductor
Mode 182

Maybe if you are born with a name like Clementi you find yourself retracing old, old steps. Certainly Aldo of that ilk writes music that has a shadowy existence, music that sounds like a shred of something long lost. The dislocated canon is his preferred form. Unlike most canons, which rather depend on the voices paying attention to one another, Clementi's have their lines adrift. Parts come and go, perhaps at their own speeds, generally slow, and make harmonic sense only within themselves, the general harmony being a haze. Not much of his music has been recorded, which would make a whole cd devoted to him (Mode 182) specially interesting even without the participation of ELISION, whose presence is a recommendation all itself.

Where these players are normally white hot (as on a recent Richard Barrett disc) here they have to be wan cold, and they do it very well. The repertory centres on the guitar, whose tones - fragile, gentle, evanescent - suit the nature of Clementi's music, and the guitarist - Geoffrey Morris - is one who understands that, with this composer, soft stumbles are the way to go, and yet that they have to be finely measured and executed. Fantasia su frammenti di Michelangelo Galilei is almost unbearable in how phrases are deflected from their destinations as one of them unthinkingly interrupts another. Everything here comes from an early seventeenth-century lute book, whose pages are flipped to convey a very Clementian sense of dull uselessness. The same sense, and the same unhurried pace, may be found in Otto variazioni (2002), which is the most recent piece on the album and is dedicated to Morris. In a nice production moment, the last note of this solo composition is repeated as the first of C.A.G., where the guitar is joined by vibraphone, flute and violin. Contrary to what one might guess, this has nothing to do with Cage, or with cages (easily evoked by the traps in which Clementi's music blithely finds itself); rather, the letters are those of the notes to be found in the name of Clementi's colleague (and another composer whose music should be more available) Camillo Togni. The letters, transposed and inverted, waft in the air. They do not know where to go. They wait for silence.
--- Paul Griffiths, Words and Music (online), July 2007


Alvin Lucier
Ever Present
Mode 178

Sonic Union Arts vet Alvin Lucier articulated an arch, insidious type of confrontation with his most acclaimed piece, "I am Sitting in a Room," which gradually turned a simple, tape-recorded text into jarring abstraction. But, he's also accomplished at straight-up confrontation, as well. Both approaches are well-represented by the five compositions for acoustic instruments collected on Ever Present, each of which examine Lucier's long-held interests in room acoustics and/or the relationships between rhythmic patterns, close tunings and spatial phenomena. Except for "Silver Street Car for the Orchestra" (1988), an in-your-face triangle solo that explores timbre and dynamics, the pieces were composed between 2000 and 2003, which suggest that Lucier's 70s won't be a genteel autumnal decade. "Piper" (2000) is performed by bagpiper Matt Welch, who exploits the acoustics of the performance space by slowly moving through it, building occasionally detuned long tones to create surreal, Doppler-like effects. The remaining pieces are more subtle, but no less radical. Scored for four kotos, "Fan" (2003) uses slowly ascending pitches and decreasing tempi to create mesmerizing shifting rhythmic patterns. "947" (2001), a solo written for flutist Jacqueline Martelle, achieves similar effects through the use of long and bent tones. "Ever Present" (2002) has a sly delicacy, as the long tones produced by saxophonist Armbruster, flutist Erik Drescher and pianist Akiko Okabe hover languorously, resulting in progressively powerful harmonics. It is a stunning, elegant piece of music.
--- Bill Shoemaker, Point of Departure, 2007


John Cage
One¹¹ with 103
Mode 174 (DVD)

Recommended
Here John Cage joins the elect company of 20th-century musical mavericks - Harry Partch, Sun Ra, Frank Zappa, and Mauricio Kagel - who translated a singular musical vision to film without resorting to a typical biographical or concert documentary. Recently released on a fine DVD by Mode Records, One¹¹ and 103 is a 90-minute black-and-white meditation on the waxing and waning of light: Candle-like apertures appear, expand, then recede from view while Cage's orchestral work 103 simmers with sustained strings and occasional punctuations from oboe, trumpet, tympani, and other instruments.
--- Christopher DeLaurenti, Seattle Film Festival, May 27, 2007


John Cage
One¹¹ with 103
WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne/Arturo Tamayo
Spoleto Festival Orchestra/John Kennedy
Mode 174 (DVD)

DVD OF THE MONTH - GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE
A little light music; this atmospheric film could have emerged only from Cage

The 90-minute film of One¹¹ was the major project of Cage's final years and was completed just three months before his death in 1992. When asked why he took on something new in the medium of film, Cage said he jumped at the opportunity because there wasn't much time left. Sadly he was right.

The music is a seamless garment of continuous sustained sounds, with some individual notes picked out, in the style of Cage's late "number" pieces. There's a choice of two soundtracks that are independent, of course, from the visual images but nevertheless uncannily appropriate. Cage said the film has "no plot, no characters, nothing", hoping it would "give pleasure without having any meaning whatsoever". He wanted it to be "free of politics, economics and even of oneself". The documentary material with the DVD shows that the film was elaborate to make: there are 17 scenes requiring 1,200 cues with 20 light-changes each - all indicated in charts for the technicians derived from Cage's usual chance methods. The camera is the soloist.

These details don't explain the remarkable quality of these uniquely pure visual images, studies in light ranging from total black to total white. No colours. The play of lights brings up slowly moving circular objects eerily reminiscent of distant moons transmitted from outer space posing the eternal questions of existence. At times the scenario suggests cloud formations viewed from a plane. Cage's formulae for removing personal taste have paradoxically produced mesmeric images that only he could have devised.

Cage himself is interviewed but understandably seems tired compared with the sparkle of his younger self. But what a splendid project carried out with dedication by all concerned.
--- Peter Dickinson, Gramophone, April 2007


George Crumb
Black Angels and Makrokosmos III
Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Solistes du Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic,
    Juan Pablo Izquierdo.
Mode 170

Technique: 8.5/10
Belle construction, avec une spatialisation très intéressante des sources, enn largeur comme en profounder. Grande transparence et belle dynamique.

Les deux premiers livres de Makrokosmos avaient été gravés avec success par Toro Can pir L'Empreinte Digitale (Diapason d'or, cf. no 503). Music for a Summer Evening (1974) constitue le troisième volrt d'un cycle qui en compte quatre à ce jour, avec Celestial Mechanics pour piano amplifié à quatre mains. Si la seule nomenclature (deux pianos amplifies et percussions) lance déjà un clin d'oeil appuyé à Bartik, c'est bien l'ensemble du cycle qui s'élève en homage à la plus grande influence que Crumb se reconnaisse, reprenant l'écriture pour percussions où Hongrois l'avait laíssèe dans la célèbre sonate. Ce Makrokosmos III avait déjà été grave chez Bridge, Bis ou Nonesuch, et surtout par l'Ensemble New Art chez Col Legno (Diapason d'or, cf. no 466). Si ces derniers versaïent avec bonheur dans l'épure, en homage au ceremonial mystique conçu par Crumb, la présente version privilégie hédonísme sonore et expressionnisme, parti pris soulignant l'imaginaire fécond du compositeur (ululements de Wanderer Fantasy, résonances lugubres de The Advent). L'équilibre entre pianos et percussions, privilégiant fréquemment ces dernières, rend ici plus largement justice à l'extraordinaire palette que Crumb avait convoquée sans jamais tomber dans l'anecdotique: quelque soixante-dix instruments différents (cymbals, crotales ou cloches-tubes) au service d'un << drame cosmique >> conjuguant l'énigmatique à l'illustratif.

Quant à Black Angels, Juan Pablo Izquierdo insiste sur le fait que cette nouvelle version pour quatuor, orchestre à cordes, percussions et voix ne constitue pas un << arrangement >>, la musique de Crumb étant simplement distribuée à un effectif plus important. Si l'on peut préférer la version originale pour quatuor, que nous avoins saluée dans la version du Quatuor Miro (Bridge, Diapason d'or), la présente realization offer une savoureuse amplification des effets, une etonnante diversité de plans sonores (Lost Bells) tout en préservant la densité et la virtuosité instrumentale de la pièce.
--- Nicolas Baron, Diapson Magazine, Juin 2007


George Cacioppo
Advance of the Fungi
Mode 168

Mention was made above of New World's Music from the ONCE Festival 1961-1966 box, and those wise souls who invested in a copy will remember George Cacioppo (1926-1984) as one the lesser known members of the ONCE group (the list also includes Donald Scavarda, Bruce Wise, Philip Krumm and George Crevoshay). The release of six Cacioppo works on Mode is good news indeed, then, even if four of them - Time On Time in Miracles (1965), Advance of the Fungi (1964), Two Worlds (1962) and Bestiary I: Eingang (1960), already featured in the New World box (in any case, these smart new readings by the Ensemble 2e2m and the Atelier de Musique Contemporaine du CNR de Versailles make for an intriguing comparison with the archive recordings from Ann Arbor). The disc also includes Mod 3 (1963), for flute, percussion and double bass, and Holy Ghost Vacuum or America Faints (1966), a wonderfully lugubrious 26-minute exploration of the electric organ recorded by the composer himself back in 1966.

In the characteristically thorough liner notes, which also include an affectionate profile of Cacioppo by Gordon Mumma, Gerard Pape describes Cacioppo's music as "the missing link between American 'sound-based' music of the 1960s with [sic] the 'sound-centred' musics of Giacinto Scelsi and his disciples, the French spectral composers Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey." Leaving aside the woolly terms "sound-based" and "sound-centred" (which were discussed in these pages last month), and the rather debatable assertion that Murail and Grisey were Scelsi "disciples", Pape does have a point. Cacioppo's music is intensely focused on the inner workings of sound, and avoids fast moving displays of technical virtuosity à la Boulez in favour of slow, spacious writing. But his music owes much to Varèse too, and the mastery of the melodic line and sensitivity to the interval has more in common with early 20th century music than with the often uneven semi-improvised fantasias of Scelsi. Cacioppo's vocal writing is also excellent (not something that can always be said of the Italian), for both solo voice - Janet Pape's work on Time on Time and Bestiary is gorgeous - and chorus, in the sombre title track. George Cacioppo's career as a composer was brief, and his life was dogged by health problems which led eventually to his death, but he left us with some of the most elegant and original American music of the post-War years, and it deserves to be much more widely known and performed. Make sure you check this out.
--- Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic Review, December 2006


Chaya Czernowin
Pnima...ins Innere
Opera in 3 Acts
Soloists with the Munich Chamber Orchestra
    with Johannes Kalitzke, conductor
Mode 169 (DVD)

This is a work of extreme modernity and complexity, which I found completely baffling seeing and hearing it at its premiere in Munich 2000.

The existence of this filmed recording is to be greatly welcomed, and at our third viewing of Pnima...ins Innere its strange logic began to make sense. Chaya Czernowin (b.1957) sought to convey the isolation between a crazed Holocaust victim and his small grandson across the gulf of the generations to depict the post-war German situation, taking a viewpoint of the children (and here grandchildren) of those who suffered directly, in whatever guise they were cast, all finding it hard or impossible to either or escape the collective horrific experience.

Czernowin opted for a wordless representation, with singers, instruments and electronics to support visual images surrounding a bleak room in which, through three scenes the boy and his grandfather are first close but almost unaware of the other's presence; next he tries but fails to understand his grandfather's 'message'; finally creates his own internalised holocaust.

Rarely, and in this case (as with Pierre Audi's quite difficult production of Rameau's Zoroastre) we advise preliminary viewing of Chaya Czernowin's explanation of her concept to Brian Brandt (the moving spirit behind mode records - good to see him on screen!).

As with the amazing Earle Brown DVD (mode 179) the documentary extra here is a model of unforced, unedited exposition, and it certainly gave me a new and helpful orientation towards an 'opera' which made an enormous impact at the Munich Biennale.
--- Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers, June 2007


Chaya Czernowin
Pnima...ins Innere
Mode 169 (DVD)

Das Ereignis der Münchener Musiktheater-Biennale 2000 war die Kammeroper Pnima… ins Innere von Chaya Czernowin. Die Komponistin, 1957 in Israel geboren, widmet sich darin einem für ihre Generation unbewältigen Thema: der schmerzhaften Erforschung und Vergenwärtigung des Holocaust. Die Elterngeneration, die ihn noch erlebte, hat die Erinnerungen in der Tiefe ihrer Psyche versenkt. Als Vorlage wählte die Komponistin einen Text von David Grossmann, der selbst der "Zwischen Generation" angehört und die Spurensuche im kollektiven Gedächtnis in ein subtil gestaltetes Gespräch zwischen einem alten Mann und einem Kind kleidet. Bei Czernowin sind es stumme pantomimische Rollen; die stimmlichen Äußerungen, hochexpressive vokale Aktionen, kommen vor vier Sängern, die außberhalb des Bühnenraums sitzen.

Dem Regisseur Klaus Guth und dem Bühnenbilder Christian Schmidt gelang bei der Uraufführung eine suggestive Umsetzung dieser psychologisch komplexen Dialogstrucktur. In der beklemmenden Leere ihres Bühnenraums hauster der Schrecken, und die auf das Bühnenbild projizierten Videos ließen den stets nur angedeuteten Albtraum mit der heutigen Relaität verschwimmen.

Die endrucksvolle Münchener Aufführung ist nun bei der kleinen New Yorker Firma Mode Records, bekannt für ihre CDs mit Gegenwartsmusik, auf DVD erschienen. Die Produktion des Bayerischen Fernsehens wird ergänzt durch ein aufschlussreiches Gespräch mit der Komponistin Werk und Aufführung.

Als Dokumentation eines thematisch bedeutsamen und künstlerisch überaus gelungenen Bühnenwerks ist die Veröffentlichung unbedingt zu begrüßen. In der Machart zeigen sich jedoch die Grenzen eines Verfahrens, das eine abgefilmte Bühnenaufführung eins zu eins auf DVD bannt. Das ist nicht dem Label anzulasten, sondern der Aufzeichnung aus dem Jahr 2000, die mit weitgehend statischer Kamera und Bühnenraum aus der Zuschauerperspektive fixiert. Das hat zwar den Vorteil der Konzentration auf das Bühnengeschehen. Aber das im Saal suggestive Dämmerlicht und die gewollten Unschärfen der Projektion wirken sich auf dem Bildschirm auf Dauer wie eine technische Unzulänglichkeit aus. Zu viele Details gehen im Halbdunken der statischen Totale verloren.

Das Wer ware für eine genuine Fikmproduktion hervorragend geeignet. Die raffinierte Überlagerung von Bühnenrealität und Projektion ruft geradezu nach einer Montage am Bildschirm. Doch geht das leider nicht, da in der Originalaufzeichnung, die offensichtlich nicht viel kosten durfte, beide Ebenen schon miteinander verschmolzen sind. Auch die aussagestarke Musik hätte eine optische Unterstützung verdient, etwa mit Zwischenschnitten auf die Gesangssolisten; jetzt fristet sie bloß das Dasein eines Soundtracks. Aber das sind leider Wunschorvorstellungen, denn die Produktionsbedingungen gerade in der neuen Musik lassen diesen Aufwand nicht zu. Da kann man froh sein, wenn es zu einer Theaterdokumentation wie in der jetzigen Form kommt. Trotz aller Einwände sollte man sie sich unbedingt ansehen.
--- Max Nyfeller, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, März-April 2007


Iannis Xenakis
Xenakis Percussion Works
Steven Schick, Red Fish Blue Fish
Mode 171/173


Iannis Xenakis's music is elemental, antiRomantic, architectural, ritualistic, dispassionate. It is also deeply poetic, its emotional power vast, as the nine works recorded here testify. For ensemble, there's the raw, aggressive drama of Persephassa (1969) and the static, beautiful Pléïades (1978). For solo percussionist, there are the complex, thrillingly technical challenges of Psappha (1975) and Rebonds (1989). Perhaps most impressive of all, there's the ritual drama of Kassandra (1987), where the voice of Philip Larson conveys an increasingly furious frustration. All is driven by the energy and musicianship of Steven Schick, who plays the solo pieces and directs the six percussionists of Red Fish Blue Fish.
--- Stephen Pettitt, The Sunday Times, 11 February 2007


Iannis Xenakis
Xenakis Percussion Works
Mode 171/173

"It is not an exaggeration to say that for many contemporary percussionists, learning how to play has meant learning how to play the music of Iannis Xenakis," declares percussion master Steve Schick in his introduction to this triple CD set of the great Greek composer's complete percussion music. Ever since Xenakis's friend and mentor Edgar Varèse scandalized a New York audience in 1933 with his percussion ensemble work Ionisation, the profile of the onetime subservient percussionist has risen. John Cage and Lou Harrison's 1940s works stepped the percussion project up a gear; Karlheinz Stockhausen's Zyklus (1959) gave percussionists a meaty one-off display piece. But no other composer defined a fresh syntax and potential-fuelled modus operandi for percussion music like Iannis Xenakis.

This set is much needed. In the Xenakis Primer I wrote for The Wire 259, I expressed doubts about his percussion works, but I now see that my quibbles were caused by recorded performances which sometimes haven't made the grade, and which have suffered from dubious fidelity. Mode never deal in anything less than impeccable sound and, alongside Schick himself, the San Diego percussion ensemble Red Fish Blue Fish play with a devotion to detail and inner fire.

Writing for percussion is a daunting challenge for any composer. An authentic engagement with the character and DNA of percussion takes time to accomplish, and too many pieces deal in splashes of decorative colour or register as stiffly notated transcriptions of Buddy Rich solos. Xenakis sidestepped both issues by simply deciding they weren't of significance to him.

The earliest work he wrote for persuccion was Persephassa in 1969 (could there be more perfect Xenakis title?), and already he was writing with certainty about how he wanted percussion to sound. Stretching out over a near 30 minute canvas, Persephassa is written for six percussionists, each of whom sits in what Xenakis defines as their own "sieve". At the start of the work the sieves provide each player with their own rhythmic terrain, and allow Xenakis to create infinitesimal degrees of rhythmic displacement. The opening passage dances in your head with the force of dense polyrhythmic boulders plunging down a mountainside, each part proudly proclaiming its own independence while enigmatically jammed into the whole.

A key intrigue in all Xenakis's percussion music in his strategic doublebacking between rhythm and pitch; here he incorporates swirling sirens and whistles into the flow. If the sirens might sound like they're referencing Varèse, actually their feral microtonal inflections relate more to the trademark string glissandi of an early Xenakis orchestral work like Metastaseis.

Both his later percussion sextets, Pléïades (1978) and Okho (1989), were originally conceived for Les Percussions De Strasbourg and find Xenakis going ever deeper into the percussion zone. Pléïades splits the ensemble up into skins and keyboard percussion, and includes a section for the self-invented 'sixxen', a 19-note microtonal metal keyboard instrument designed to highlight the clashing harmonic overtones between notes. The overtones generate shimmering waves over the ensemble, and never have they been captured with greater clarity on CD, Okho adds the brittle tones of djembes - West African hand drums - to Xenakis's palette.

By the time of Okho Xenakis's contribution to the percussion repertoire was unassailable. The same year he also produced Rebonds, which has been recorded many times previously.

Familiarity makes it easy to take it for granted, but Schick's performance is a reminder of its nuanced subtleties and power. Pitched drums are locked into a dialogue with chattering woodblocks. At the start, Xenakis provokes the two into a testy, dissonant irrational rhythmic relationship that sets up enough tension to power the music onwards through its ten minute duration.

An earlier solo piece, Psappha (1975), is more problematic, as Xenakis tosses percussionists the impossible challenge of playing up to 25 'hits' a second at the climactic point. According to Schick, some players have concocted multiple-headed sticks to help them cope, but Xenakis's aspirations for performers to stretch beyond the possible has historical precedent in Beethoven's cello writing in his Grosse Fuge and the 20-fingered mutant hand presumably required to play some of Ives's block chords on the piano. Schick quotes pianist and Xenakis specialist Aki Takahashi: "If Xenakis's music were truly 'impossible', why (are) so many of us playing it?"

Xenakis continues to be a central figure because, like other 20th century 'outsider' such as Satie, Ives and Varèse, he dealt in material and not with idiom or style. The extraordinary falsetto vocal writing he devised for his voice/percussion duo piece Kassandra (1987) is unheralded and yet rooted in something deeply humane. Similarly, Dmaathen (1977) for oboe and percussion at first sound like curious, snake-charming music. Then mallet percussion and oboe refract their material through each other - gestures become elongated, and instrumental textures are obligated to buckle into obstreperous multiphonic screeching, so that macro meets micro. Two scores for harpsichord and percussion - Komboï (1981) and Oophaa (1989) - are fastidiously worked through so that their rhythmic and pitch qualities fuse to create a 'third' hybrid instrument. It's a fitting analogy - harpsichord, that most ancient of Classical hardware, running up against Xenakis's mind-expanding exploration of the possibilities of percussion.
--- Philip Clark, The Wire, January 2007


Iannis Xenakis
Percussion Works
Red Fish Blue Fish/Steven Schick
Mode 171/173

Steven Schick's recent book The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams is an extraordinary example of musical writing that comes from inside the action. Now comes the action itself, almost tangibly felt in the sound that pats, purrs and wallops out of a three-record set of percussion music by Xenakis (Mode 171/73). Included are the two solo pieces, four duos (Xenakis wrote twice for the unexpected coupling of harpsichord and percussion) and three works for percussion ensemble. Schick plays the solos and takes part in two of the duos (not those with harpsichord, which he relinquishes to colleagues); the ensemble pieces are performed by the group he has trained, red fish blue fish, playing without him.

One surprise emerging from the collection is that Xenakis turned to percussion only during quite concentrated periods. After the lone Persephassa, written in 1969 for Les Percussions de Strasbourg to release over the ruins of Persepolis (during the brief time when the Shah's government financed a festival there), the composer produced four varied percussion works between 1975 and 1981 (the solo piece Psappha, another sextet for the Strasbourgeois - Pléïades - and two duos) and a further four in the late eighties (including Rebonds for solo drummer and Okho for three). Schick, in his excellent notes, observes a move from colourful to homogeneous set-ups, and yet even when Xenakis calls for a great variety of instruments, as he does in Persephassa, the sound is uniform for long stretches. Perhaps it has to be, given that, as Schick also observes, Xenakis's percussion music reawakens the ritual use of such instruments, a use that depends on pattern repetition (a constant here, from Persephassa onwards) and on signalling (which requires there to be distinctive timbre characters that can be identified as callers and responders), as also on strong pulsation. The solo pieces have all these qualities as much as the sextets do. In Psappha, variegated instruments seem to be signalling to each other, moving the music on towards the final home-run for pounding drums and clanging bells. Rebonds is more a declamation.

Schick is superb in both these pieces. His sense of timing is acute, whether expressed in phrasing or in how, unforgettably, Rebonds A gradually runs out of steam. It is the shapeliness of sound and rhythm - the presence of the body in the slap of a hand on a drum (something Schick's students emulate in Okho) or the flow of a gesture - that makes these performances almost visual in their effect. Schick is also excellent in the extraordinary Dmaathen, where he has to encourage, support and applaud the virtuoso strangeness of the oboe part - strikingly enunciated by Jacqueline Leclair - which is made of multiphonics, a harmonic clean as flute tone and elemental (perhaps only elementary) tunes.
--- Paul Griffiths, Words and Music (online), July 2007


Iannis Xenakis
Percussion Works
Red Fish Blue Fish/Steven Schick
Mode 171/173

PERFORMANCE
SOUND

Howard Goldstein is amazed by a revelatory Xenakis set

Xenakis, of all the 20th century's radical rethinkers of musical parameters, managed to keep the strongest link with music’s traditional ritualistic associations. This is perhaps most obvious in his percussion music, collected here in stunningly played and recorded performances by Red Fish Blue Fish, the resident percussion ensemble at the University of California, San Diego, directed by Steven Schick.

Persephassa (1969) marked the beginning of the composer's exploration of music's temporal dimensions with the same scientifically rigorous yet musically gripping approaches previously applied to pitch and form. Here six players encircle the audience; even in two-channel, Mode's engineers give us enough spatial cues to appreciate the final section's accelerating vortex of rhythmic layers (realised here with some discreet overdubbing) and sliding whistles (human and inhuman at the same time).

Every performance of Psappha (1975) is unique, given the freedom of choice allowed the soloist with regards to instrumentation. Schick's evenness of touch and mastery of pacing make it hard to believe that one person is playing these absurdly complex interlocking timbral and rhythmic patterns, reminiscent of a one man gamelan orchestra.

Gamelan-like structures and sonorities also permeate Pleiades (1978), where the harrowing sound of 'Sixxen', metallic plates in sets of 19, microtonally tuned to each other, produce a shimmering glaze of overtones, at times almost producing the glissandos so important to Xenakis's theories of the relationship between pitch and time. Glissandos also abound in the vocal part of Kassandra (1987), whose prophecies are dramatically intoned in falsetto by baritone Steven Larson, and punctuated by the discordant strum of the psaltery. Here Xenakis's ritualistic side finds its most natural outlet in one of his frequent encounters with ancient Greek culture, in this case the Oresteia. Texts and translations would have been nice here; the general omission of title translations, instrumentation lists and other 'nuts and bolts' information is the only blot on this otherwise exemplary issue.
--- Howard Goldstein, BBC Music Magazine, February 2007


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

MODE publica una fascinante versión de las Sequenzas de Berio a cargo de un auténtico Dream Team de intérpretes Secuencias para grandes intérpretes S equenzas de Luciano Berio (1925-2003) supone desde luego uno de los ciclos sonoros más extraordinarios del siglo XX, un suntuoso y colorista mosaico que iba a enriquecer con su belleza y hondura la literatura instrumental de nuestra época. Son catorce estas Sequenzas, con algunas variantes que elevan el número a dieciocho, escritas entre 1958 y 2002, reunidas todas por primera vez -junto con sus piezas para un solo instrumento, con la única salvedad de las pianísticas, que requerírian al menos otro disco-en la presente y magnífica integral en cuatro compactos preparada por el sello MODE. De hecho, la grabación de la serie ha llevado más de una década de esfuerzos -lo que dice mucho sobre la entidad y envergadura del proyecto-, contando con el consejo del mismo Berio en lo referente a la elección de los intérpretes. Era éste, desde luego, un capítulo particularmente importante al conceder el compositor italiano un papel fundamental al virtuosismo, y más en concreto al «virtuosismo de la sensibilidad y la inteligencia», puesto que «sólo los mejores solistas son capaces de tocar con vasta perspectiva histórica y de resolver los conflictos entre las exigencias creativas del pasado y el presente, utilizando su instrumento como herramienta de investigación y expresión». No podía, entonces, disponer de mejores traductores de su estética sonora y de su pensamiento que los ahora reunidos: nada menos que Irvine Arditti (violín), Rohan de Saram (chelo), Stefano Scodanibbio (contrabajo), Garth Knox (viola), Stuart Dempster (trombón), Jane Chapman (clavecín), Isabelle Ganz (mezzo), Aki Takahashi (piano), Jacqueline Leclair (oboe); Susan Jolles (arpa) o Carol Robinson (clarinete), entre otros, lo cual significa muchos de los nombres más granados de la escena interpretativa del momento.

Berio definió sus Sequenzas como «fragmentos construidos a partir de una secuencia de campos armónicos de la cual se deducen otras funciones musicales altamente características». Dicho en otras palabras, una serie de solos instrumentales, de duración hasta cierto punto breve, que constituyen un amplio repertorio de recursos armónicos, dinámicos, tímbricos, tonales y, a la par, desde luego, un muy vasto catálogo de tratamientos interpretativos que, en varios casos, llevan al límite las posibilidades sonoras de los diferentes instrumentos. Y es que el ciclo en conjunto está recorrido por la búsqueda de la polifonía, extrayéndola y si es preciso arrancándola de estructuras de suyo monófonicas, explorándola por medio incluso «del instrumento más monódico de la historia, la flauta». Para ello deberá recurrir por ejemplo al contraste entre notas principales y secundarias, al contrapunto sugerido de varias líneas cromáticas, a la dialéctica entre nota y ruido, a la repetición de módulos como telón de fondo a secciones aparecidas sólo una vez, al cambio constante de registros y de comportamientos acústicos. Pero tan amplio repertorio de técnicas no debe hacernos perder de vista algo desde luego fundamental, como es la espléndida sensualidad, abigarrado colorido y soberbio lirismo que desprende este, por otra parte, riguroso universo musical. Cada pieza puede entenderse así como un retrato, una instantánea sonora de las capacidades y potencialidades del violín, el arpa, el piano, el clarinete, el oboe o el acordeón, por ejemplo, sin olvidar por supuesto esa voz humana siempre tan cargada de connotaciones para Berio. Se percibe, además, algo de ensoñación, algo furtivamente onírico en los variados paisajes sonoros creados por los diferentes intrumentos, como si se hubiera dejado vía libre a su expresividad más poética, violenta o delicada, carnal o meditabunda, como si arrastrados por un impluso improvisatorio ellos mismos decidieran revelarnos sus secretas interioridades, todo ello, digámoslo de nuevo, a pesar de la poderosa lógica constructiva que gobierna cada una de las Sequenzas.

Todas estas versiones, por su alto nivel de calidad, por el compromiso extremo que demuestran los intérpretes, requerirían sin duda un comentario pormenorizado, pero habremos de contentarnos con mencionar sólo unas cuantas. Paula Robison aporta aliento y aleteo arrebatador a la complejísima Sequenza I para flauta; Susan Jolles extrae energías insospechadas de su arpa, utilizada a veces como vigoroso instrumento de percusión en ese territorio siempre cambiante que es la Sequenza II; Isabelle Ganz demuestra su sensibilidad y sentido del dramatismo en Sequenza III para voz femenina; Stuart Dempster pone en pie una ingente cantidad de recursos sonoros en esta casi humorística Sequenza V para trombón; la digitación de Garth Knox alcanza velocidades endiabladas en los extenuantes tremolos de Sequeenza VI para viola; Irvine Arditti se aplica con genio en las vertiginosas figuras de Sequenza VII para violín; Seth Josel exhibe un amplio catálogo de recursos y una significativa comprensión armónica en esa maravilla que es Sequenza XI para guitarra; Steffan Husong explora con intenso lirismo las sonoridades del acordeón en Sequenza XIII; Rohan de Saram está rítmicamente explosivo en Sequenza XIVa para violonchelo; Steffano Scodanibbio imparte una auténtica lección sobre el tema «sonoridades inhabituales» en Sequenza XIVb para contrabajo. A riesgo de agotar al lector, vale más dejar aquí esta lista de nombres, si bien hay en esta integral otras espléndidas interpretaciones. En fin, decir para terminar que estamos ante una integral por completo insoslayable para cualquier oyente aficionado a la mejor música de nuestros días, sin más calificativos.
--- Javier Palacio, Diverdi, August 2006


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

I have listened to colour - chains, muscular, aggressive
I have touched your rough, rigid resonances.

Written by Italian author Edoardo Sanguineti to preface "Sequenza II" for harp, that dedicatory line aptly encapsulates all of the Sequenzas, an astounding anthology of works written between 1958 and 2002 for solo performers by Luciano Berio (1925-2003). Enshrining then-new extended techniques-tame, mild-mannered instruments like the flute and the bassoon become a miniaturized jungle of quiet murmurs, clicks, wraithlike chords, and electronic tones - the Sequenzas reveal unthinkably new timbres while catapulting performers towards terrifying heights (as well as speeds) of virtuosity.

Two new multi-disc sets collect the complete Sequenzas and offer a superb, if not superior, alternative to the 1998 Deutsche Grammophon (DG) edition, which understandably lacks the final "Sequenza XIV" composed in 2002. A detailed comparison of the DG, Mode, and Naxos releases may someday devour someone's doctoral dissertation, however a cursory comparison of the famed "Sequenza III" for woman's voice reveals much about all three collections.

Written in 1965 for his ex-wife mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, "Sequenza III" hurls several disparate sound-worlds into a singular orbit: standard operatic technique, everyday speech, and Fluxus actions, all condensed into episodic and jarring shifts in timbre reminiscent of Anton Webern. Berio embeds Markus Kutter's text ("Give me a few words...to sing...") in laughter, humming, tongue-clicks, yodeling, trills, and breathy exclamations; live, "Sequenza III" becomes a show-stopping aria that draws upon almost every aspect of the human voice. Tellingly, the score teems with specific directions, including "giddy," "muttering," "bewildered," and "dreamy."

Cathy Berberian's classic 1967 recording of "Sequenza III," reissued on CD by Wergo in 1991, remains the central document. Despite audible edits (listen for the suddenly diminishing, dialed-in echo) and a gentle room tone lightly dusted with hiss, Berberian's performance is a tour de force. Berberian radiates a warm, vivid presence rooted not only in analog tape compression, but in a careening, meteoric intensity reminiscent of high-wire operatic arias and close-miked old blues recordings. Luisa Castellani, who also worked closely with Berio, gives a similarly passionate performance on the DG set; her mouth cavity tones resonate with greater precision, yet her finger snaps don't quite come off and her initial muttering feels too mechanical. Unlike the Wergo recording, the DG, Mode, and Naxos sets have a wider dynamic range and depth of field, thus conferring a realistic sense of distance, as if the stage is a few feet away and the auditorium empty, pristine.

Like Berberian, Isabelle Ganz on Mode heeds the score's opening direction, "tense muttering/walking on stage." On the Wergo disc, Berberian's voice emanates from the far right channel; DG has Castellani rising slightly in volume but not palpably enough to convey a sense of emergence or even mere motion. Soprano Tony Arnold emerges too, but the Naxos recording's plummier reverb has a curvature that sometimes dilutes the intensity of her performance; some quieter segments the such as the lip-flapping tremolo near the end sound submerged. Arnold does dazzle though, especially with short bursts of frenetic wheezing, as if her vocal cords were shivering and rasping together.

Of all four singers, Ganz finds the best balance, conveying the words while keeping the intensity of the work's non-verbal aspects aflame. Bettering even Berberian, Ganz manages to blast " a few words before, to be..." while retaining the full sense of the words, a remarkable, spine-chilling feat.

So which collection is better? Overall, both Naxos and Mode sets contain performances ranging from good to great. The budget-priced Naxos release has no frills: short liner notes, and, excepting soprano Tony Arnold, boasts few "name" performers. Mode enlisted several new music all-stars-Irvine Arditti, Stefano Scodanibbio, Carol Robinson, Stuart Dempster, Rohan de Saram - and added a fourth disc of seldom-heard solo works. I appreciate Mode's inclusion of Edoardo Sanguineti's optional prefatory spoken texts on separate tracks. Alas, on disc 3, the spoken intro bleeds into (but doesn't overlap) the track for "Sequenza XIII." Unless you're in shuffle mode, it's unnoticeable. For thoroughness and extras, Mode has the edge and is the first choice, though you can't go wrong with either edition. Essential.
--- Christopher DeLaurenti, Signal to Noise, September 2006


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

...you can't do better than a four-CD set released last year on Mode Records. The performances are extraordinary across the board. The performers include some stars of contemporary music, such as violinist Irvine Arditti and violist Garth Knox, and two of the players -- trombonist Stuart Dempster and cellist Rohan de Saram -- are the original dedicatees of their respective works. Mode has also included alternate arrangements and a host of Berio's other solo pieces, as well as excellent, detailed notes.
--- David Weininger, Boston Globe, March 30, 2007


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

With two brand-new complete recordings of Luciano Berio's Sequenzas currently staring at you from the shop shelves, we felt it would be a good idea to do a direct comparison. This is of course an uneven match, since the 3 CD Naxos release only covers the 'b' versions of VIIb for soprano saxophone, and IXb for alto saxophone. Mode has all of the alternatives and the complete canon of other solo works by Berio on 4 CDs, so as already noted by other reviewers, completists will most likely go for this 4 CD set. True completists will in fact want both, but that's another story. The Naxos box is in a conventional jewel-case with notes in English and German, players biographies in English only. The Mode set has each CD in its own paper sleeve, a nice chunky book with plenty of information in English, German and French with glossy black and white pictures of the performers in action, and a cardboard box to hold it all together.

One other aspect of the Modus set is the texts which precede each Sequenza. Edoardo Sanguinetti began writing verses for the Sequenzas in 1994, but had already collaborated with Berio on a number of projects from as early as around 1960. Enzo Salomane's deep, resonant voice is a wonderful vehicle for these texts, but the desirability of their inclusion in this way is debatable, even with English translations in the booklet notes (not translated into German or French by the way). I have nothing against texts written on music, and the composer's artistic synergy with Sanguinetti is a matter of record. Having them read at the top of a recording has however the tendency to lend programmatic weight to a work which may not even have been intended by the composer - it may be there is programmatic weight, just not necessarily expressed by that particular text or manner of delivery. If a composer really wanted such things then he would write or select them himself, and probably include them in the score with instructions on options for performance. They are nice enough texts, and have an alliterative resonance and rhythm in the original Italian which is undeniably poetic. Presented with (giving allowances for the translation, and chosen more or less at random); "my capricious frenzy was once your livid calm/my song will be the slowness of your silence", would you be able to guess to which of the Sequenzas this refers? Paste it in front of any of them and we find our suggestible selves nodding in sage agreement with the writer's sentiments. Each text is thankfully given its own track marking, so it is possible to programme them out of an airing of these recordings if desired.

Much of Berio's music, the Sequenzas included, inhabits a world of inner drama which interacts with the outside world in a surreal fashion. It's the kind of drama which confronts and subverts within the mind, entering and rummaging around in the subconscious and then rearing up in front of you like a giant balloon clown when you least expect it. The relationships of perspective between the player and his/her instrument, and between the player and the audience, are in state of constant distortion and flux. This is summed up in a way by that single word 'why' in Sequenza V for trombone. The 'wha' of the mute being moved over the bell of the instrument is given an added declamatory significance after that moment, and a musical conversation or monologue - real or imagined, ensues. Each of the Sequenzas benefits from being seen performed live for this reason as well. The theatrical actions of the musicians as they negotiate Berio's music is another important element which is missed by any recording, although the physical movement involved in Sequenza II for harp does come across to a certain extent in the Naxos recording. In other words, an imaginatively produced but unpretentious DVD version next, please.

So, dear reader, you are still standing in the record shop, busting for a pee or dying for a pint and still wondering which version in which to invest. One is priced at about £13 for three CDs, the other over £40 for four - help! This is very much an uneven playing field, so if budget is a prime consideration I can say now that you will not be disappointed with the Naxos set. In many instances the recordings have a larger stereo soundstage and more depth in the recorded sound, and are certainly placed in a more resonant acoustic, which does reduce the hothouse effect of having the musician a few metres from your chair rather than being in the prime spot in a concert hall.

I do not propose doing detailed comparisons of every piece, so I shall restrict myself to the aspects of certain recordings or performances which, to my mind, stand out as significant. The element of swings and roundabouts has occasionally left me unable to choose, one way or another.

Sequenza I for flute. Honours about equal for this audition-torture work known to flautists all over the world, but where Naxos present Nora Shulman in resonant splendour, Mode's Paula Robison has to make do with what sounds like a large bathroom. The same goes for Sequenza II for harp, and I much prefer Erica Goodman's (Naxos) tuning, articulation, variety in colour and low 'dong's.

Sequenza III for voice is of course a core work in this collection. Both performances are very good, and personal taste plays a huge role in such a piece. Isabelle Ganz (Mode) is a mezzo-soprano with quite a silvery sound at times - the break in her voice very occasionally making her sound like your mad grandmother. Tony Arnold (Naxos) is a soprano, and has to my ears the advantage of being able to reach down from easy highs, rather than push upward from a lower basic range. Ganz is a little more gritty in her 'acting', having a little more depth in this aspect of her performance. Arnold more smiling and flighty, showing some restriction in the lowest notes, but with a schizophrenic inhalation 'gasp' which would have you running for your life.

Sequenza IV for piano is given a more sympathetic acoustic from Mode this time, and Aki Takahashi is just that much more convincing than Boris Berman, who is very good, but whose antimetrics sound merely uneven at times, rather than being engraved in glass.

Sequenza V for trombone receives excellent performances on both releases, but I find Stuart Dempster's (Mode) 'why' over-eggs the pudding, attempting to load the word with too much gaping wonder for my taste. Alain Trudel is more subtle - his 'why' is a strange, plaintive question, but raises more goose-bumps as a result.

Sequenza VI for viola is a bit of a scrub by any standards, but Garth Knox (Mode) is intense almost beyond endurance, certainly beyond comfort. The Naxos recording gives the player a little more acoustic breathing space. Steven Dann attacks the work with similar verve, but the clarity of the moments between repeated notes is a little less obvious.

Sequenza VIIa for oboe is a kind of fantasy around a single note, which is held 'by any other instrument' offstage throughout the piece. Where the Naxos 'note' is a single sine-wave like sound, the Mode recording has a note with texture and the human element, three singers holding the note and breathing 'invisibly'. The spatial effect adds a fascinating extra quality to this intense and dramatic work.

For Sequenza VIII for violin the Mode set has the benefit of the legendary Irvine Arditti, who was central in gathering the musicians for these recordings. Repeated notes, and the filigree gestures and dissonant double-stop intervals which are Berio violinistic fingerprints create a kind of melting-pot of modern technique and style with acknowledgements of ageless tradition. Arditti frequently sounds like two violinists, which means the contrapuntal effects are coming across at their best. This is ground on which it is hard for any other violinist to compete, and while Matej S(arc plays brilliantly I don't quite get the same Berio 'feel'. The notes are all there with S(arc, but Arditti knows how to draw out the personality in the idiom; the Italian voices muttering under the floorboards, as well as creating an incomparable performance.

Sequenza IXa for clarinet is mellifluous and elegant through the playing of Joaquin Valdepeñas on Naxos, helped once again by that rich church acoustic. Carol Robinson has a slightly wider range, more introverted in the soft, lyrical passages, and with a little more bite and attack when things become more hairy.

Sequenza X 'for trumpet in C and piano resonance'; rather than pushing the technical demands of the instrument, extends the acoustic effect of resonance by having selected sympathetically vibrating strings on a piano respond to notes from the trumpet. With Naxos' acoustic already being quite resonant, the effect of the strings is present, but not nearly as dramatic as on the Mode recording. You can hear William Foreman (Mode) changing his direction of play, pointing his trumpet into the piano on certain notes. You also sense vague movements from the poor silent pianist, whose skill and touch with the keys and pedal are doomed to anonymity in both releases. Foreman's 'doodle' tonguing is more convincing than Guy Few's on Naxos, but both have a wide palette of colour, articulation and dynamic.

Sequenza XI for guitar is stunning on both versions, Pablo Sáinz Villegas (Naxos) coming in a spectacular but no less expressive two minutes shorter than Seth Josel (Mode), who spends more time on the more introspective passages.

Sequenza XII for bassoon is one of the longest of all of the Sequenzas, having come about as the result of a close collaboration with bassoonist Pascal Gallois. Berio was clearly fascinated by the 'voice' of the bassoon, expanding at length on its variety of character, from jolly eccentric to grumpy old man through soulful drunk or unfortunate beast, or indeed whatever image is created in your mind's eye. I like Ken Mundy's (Naxos) rounded and beefy tone, and his ability to circular breathe as good as silently, but both performances and recordings have valuable qualities. Noriko Shimada has a microphone placement which picks up the multiple fingerings on one note more clearly, and her playing produces richer overtones, making for a more 'bassoony' sound.

A tag end of Enzo Salomane's voice bleeds a little carelessly into the track of Sequenza XIII for accordion on the Mode version. This minor productional blip takes nothing from Stefan Hussong's marvellous playing however, as micro-windows open into the various worlds into which Berio gives us glimpses - tango, jazz, even some moments which suggest a church harmonium. The piece's lyrical character has a slightly less 'legato' character with Joseph Petric on Naxos, and while technically good, is a less revelatory experience for the imagination.

Sequenza XIV was written for Rohan de Saram, cellist with the Arditti Quartet, and is one of the last pieces Berio wrote before he died. Rohan de Saram inevitably has the edge on anyone else recording this piece, having worked closely with Berio on the work, and performing the premieres of this and the subsequent revisions made between 2002 and 2003. The percussive sounds derive from De Saram's Sri Lankan origins, and his performance is filled with poetry and lyrical expressiveness, as well as having all of the dynamic 'kick' the piece demands. Turning to Darrett Adkins on Naxos, I at first wondered if he was playing the same piece. All I can say is that a player attempting this work is likely to need some kind of masterclass on some of the techniques involved, as many of the intended effects do not come across in at all the same way in the Naxos recording. Adkins is good, but De Saram is as good as definitive.

As far as direct comparisons go, there only remain the two saxophone works on the Naxos set. Sequenza VIIb receives an excellent performance by both Wallace Halladay (Naxos) and Ulrich Krieger (Mode), but the sustained offstage note in both is a characterless sine-wave, and in Krieger's case a note with which the player seems not to be in tune for big patches of the piece. Sequenza IXb is a toss up between rich resonance and a mellow, rounded sound (Naxos), or what sounds like artificial resonance imposed on a dry studio taping (Mode) - there is a definite discrepancy between the 'booth' acoustic and halo of resonance which is helping the sound. Both players, Halladay again for Naxos and Kelland Thomas for Mode are excellent, though I find Halladay more dramatic and varied in his big space, Thomas' version sounds more like a skilled read-through.

So, have you been keeping score? I make it Naxos 5, Mode 8 where it comes to clear wins, with three score-draws. The weakest parts of the Mode set are the recordings of some of the earlier Sequenzas and the saxophone alternatives, Naxos falls down where players are have a less distinctly 'Berio' character, or are less authoritative. The Naxos set has the benefit of a single, pleasantly resonant recorded location, which can however have the effect of 'smoothing out' the extremes of Berio's message. Mode's recordings are almost invariably more detailed and confrontational, but inevitably a bit of a mixed bag. The jewels in their crown are of course the recordings by Rohan de Saram of all of Berio's work for solo cello, and to my mind the violin of Irvine Arditti and accordion of Stefan Hussong to name just a few. Even where the recording are less appealing the performances are always good, and most are superb. I have to agree that, having now heard both sets, and currently having my ears and mind stimulated by wonderful work on the Sequenza XIVb for double-bass and a myriad of other less frequently aired solo works, I would find it hard to rest easy with the Naxos set alone, good though it is. It looks like you are going to have to bite the bullet, stop jingling the loose change in your pocket and get out your credit card...
--- Dominy Clements, musicwebinternational.com, February 2007


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

There have been several recordings of Berio’s amazing corpus of virtuoso instrumental solos (plus one for voice), but none is as complete as this four-disc set, which includes various Sequenza transcriptions by Berio and others. It is fascinating to compare Sequenza VI, for viola (Garth Knox), with the version (VIb) made by the cellist Rohan de Saram before getting his own Sequenza (XIVa) in 2002, the year before Berio’s death. This was in turn adapted for contrabass (XIVb) by Stefano Scodanibbio: these last three are first recordings. Spoken verses by Berio’s frequent collaborator Edoardo Sanguineti precede each Sequenza. Nine other short items are included.
--- Paul Driver, The Sunday Times (London), 24 September 2006


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

Let me start with a childhood memory. Once upon a time in the 1970s, when there were only two RAI TV channels to watch and "culture" hadn't yet become a word from a foreign language, Italians could, if they so desired, enjoy a late night new music series hosted by Luciano Berio, something unimaginable today. Fast forward to 2005 and I find myself horrified reading an article in an English "progressive" magazine that puts the Maestro from Omegna in the same bag as lightweights like Roberto Cacciapaglia and Franco Battiato (the latter much hyped these days, but essentially a fraud, having invented a whole "experimental" career by travelling paths that had already been well trodden years before by illustrious forerunners, before returning to his squalid Italian pop-song origins when he ran out of ideas to "borrow"), so that non-experts might conclude that Berio is a sort of father figure to the musical genres the rag in question calls "the strangest type of spaghetti." This gorgeous 4-CD box should once and for all open the eyes of anybody who still associates Berio with fourth-rate copycats, or those who have probably heard about his music only in a peripheral way ("Cathy Berberian's husband", "Steve Reich's teacher"), and help them understand why this man is an authentic and rare Italian treasure as far as modern art is concerned.

Berio chose the name "Sequenza" because these pieces, composed from 1958 through 2002, were "built from a sequence of harmonic fields from which the other, strongly characterized musical functions were derived". To quote Sabine Feisst's liners, "the Sequenze became seeds for a variety of new works", but the process of transformation and cross-pollination was two-way (as it was in the work of Ives and Mahler too, not to mention Frank Zappa's "conceptual continuity"). A case in point is Sequenza IXa for clarinet (here masterfully rendered by Carol Robinson) which derives from Chemins V, a work Berio withdrew shortly after its premiere. This Mode set represents the very first time in which all the Sequenze (even the "posthumous" ones, notably Stefano Scodanibbio's excellent transcription for double bass of the cello Sequenza XIV) and the works for solo instruments have been gathered together in a single release. Listening to the whole thing in one go is difficult but not impossible, as Berio's articulately bright writing highlights both the strengths and the less explored nuances of every instrument while maintaining an evident intelligibility, a consequence of the composer's interest in popular traditions and themes he often loved to mix with more experimental and serial techniques. Virtuosity is a necessity, never mere technical showing off; according to Berio's instructions some of these scores should be played sempre molto flessibile, quasi improvvisando ("always very flexible, almost improvising"), a good example being the majestic Fa-Si (tackled by Gary Verkade on the pipe organ). The performers, a veritable Who's Who of great soloists including Irvine Arditti, Stuart Dempster, Rohan De Saram, Isabelle Ganz, Ulrich Krieger, Seth Josel and Aki Takahashi (to name but a few), contribute with heartfelt passion to the success of the project. Each Sequenza is introduced by actor Enzo Salomone reciting verses by Edoardo Sanguineti, one of Berio's closest friends and collaborators.

Let's try to sketch a path through this huge compendium. Sequenza VI for viola features a scintillating performance by Garth Knox, who executes the "formal study on repetition" with muscular brilliance, in a fabulous cross between Paganini and Jon Rose. A cycle of ten chords progressively expands until the twelve-tone chromatic field is reached, with outrageous tremolos leading to a more tranquil melodic exploration (which must come as enormous physical relief for the player). Sequenza VII for oboe was written with the help of its dedicatee Heinz Holliger, who presented Berio with a lot of alternative and extended techniques used in the "virtual polyphony" which was one of the composer's stated objectives when working with monophonic instruments. Jacqueline Leclair applies her own touch of magic, sustained by a female vocal drone whispered in the background in another high-intensity moment of truth. Sequenza X for trumpet in C (played by William Forman) is a poignantly lyrical exploration of natural reverberation elicited by the trumpet's waves from an amplified piano (the soloist is asked to play directly into the instrument), with seriously dramatic results. Sequenza XII for bassoon (another wonderful reading by Noriko Shimada) is, on a purely emotional level, one of the most exquisite listenings on offer here, its fantastic slow glissandi an impressive example of the virtuoso circular breathing needed to play this score. Gesti, which Feisst rightly describes as "a classic in contemporary recorder literature", is indeed a fantastic concoction of instrument and voice interpreted with furious enthusiasm by Lucia Mense, while Chanson pour Pierre Boulez for cello, composed for its dedicatee's 75th birthday, starts with Rohan De Saram playing a slow line that after a while mutates into a Tony Conrad-like beneficial electrocution, a short yet engrossing pleasure, not to mention a great birthday present. Sequenza XI for guitar is a showcase for Seth Josel's extraordinary digital dexterity, as every conceivable form of guitar-related fingering and technique derived from both flamenco and classical traditions is applied with as much vigour as surgical precision. Although it's one of the longest tracks on offer, listening to its wood, flesh and metal is a pure joy, and not only for guitarists. The "folk" element that characterized many phases of Luciano Berio's career is to the fore again in Stefan Hussong's accordion playing on Sequenza XIII, which is one of the most accessible tracks, along with Sequenza IV for piano (Aki Takahashi). The spectacular theatre of voices performed by Isabelle Ganz in Sequenza III is typical Berio / Berberian matter, but noteworthy for its avoidance of the insufferable (at least for this writer) technical gadgetry usually associated with the female voice in contemporary music (much of which, ironically enough, was instigated by Berberian herself). Ganz's rendition is just superb - and surprisingly sober, giving the work a real touch of class.

Listening to veritable masterpieces such as these one gets a true sense of fulfillment. It remains a mystery to me how presumably experienced listeners can still be seduced by and give credence to marginal phenomena like those mentioned at the beginning of this review. After many rewarding hours spent with The Complete Sequenzas, my rage at how things work in the music world grows more and more. At least I can console myself with the thought that Luciano Berio never read that particular article, and that he's probably smiling with irony in the hereafter.
--- Massimo Ricci, www.paristransatlantic.com, October 2006


Luciano Berio
Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Various Artists
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)


Every time a set of Berio's Sequenzas appears on disc it seems to make new claims for completeness. A Naxos set, featuring Canadian instrumentalists, was released earlier this year and was the first to include all 14 of the works that Berio composed before his death in 2003; this latest one, a compilation of recordings made over more than a decade, also includes a number of Berio's other small-scale works for solo instruments, as well as all the arrangements of the Sequenzas for other instruments that he sanctioned. Each Sequenza is preceded here by a reading of the verses that the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, a friend of Berio, wrote for each piece, and there are important documentary recordings - especially those of the trombone Sequenza V and Sequenza XIV, which are performed by the instrumentalists for whom they were written: Stuart Dempster and Rohan de Saram respectively.

With musicians such as Irvine Arditti, Garth Knox, Paula Robison and Aki Takahashi also involved the level of virtuosity on these discs is staggeringly high; anyone interested in Berio's solo pieces, perhaps the most important instrumental music in our time, should explore this collection.
--- Andrew Clements, The Guardian, Friday August 25, 2006


Luciano Berio
The Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163 (4-CDs)

Despite shifting trends and changing tastes in post-modern era contemporary music, Luciano Berio remains one of the most respected figures among composers active in the last half of the twentieth century. Berio's series of Sequenzas, however, are viewed as his main contribution to solo instrumental literature, sort of like Hindemith's instrumental sonatas except that Berio didn't manage to cover all the bases in terms of instruments. This has led some artists to make adaptations of certain Sequenzas for their particular instruments, and Berio cast his blessing upon some of these efforts. All of the original Sequenzas, which had arrived at the number 14 by the time Berio died in 2003, plus all approved arrangements and all short, non-pianistic solo works by Berio, appear in Mode's exhaustive Berio: Complete Sequenzas and Solo Works. Students wishing to prepare a Berio Sequenza for a recital should stop here first.

Although Naxos managed to speed out a similar collection a little ahead of this one, it's really not in the same class with the Mode - the label spent more than a decade recording this set with artists that Berio himself favored. Many of the performances are downright amazing, for example Aki Takahashi's mind-bending performance of the Sequenza IV for piano and Kelland Thomas's smoky, soulful reading of Sequenza IXb for alto saxophone, just to mention a couple. All of the interpretations are first rate, as is the annotation, photographs and sound, which retains a surprisingly consistent quality from track to track, as this 4-disc set was recorded all over the map over a long period of time. Poet Edoardo Sanguinetti reads a short poetic prologue to each Sequenza, as sanctioned by the composer, and while the readings, in Italian, are charming and set the scene for each piece in an elegant way, one is grateful that they are presented as separate tracks, so one only need to re-sequence to listen to the music without them.

So why does Berio persist in a post-turn-of-the-century era where everything created in the last century is subject to review? Because the Sequenzas, while fully composed, sound like improvisations and have the quality of flexibility. Expert performers prefer this having such capability over pieces where the effort has gone into the front end, deriving from some strategy that is not in itself worked out in an interesting way. Berio's music has a good chance of retaining currency within the future, and Mode's Berio: Complete Sequenzas and Solo Works represents the gold standard in paving the way for his legacy.
--- David N. Lewis, All Music Guide, July 2006


Luciano Berio
The Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163

A Set of Defiant Works, Two Ways, Both Difficult Naxos and Mode release Luciano Berio's "Sequenzas"

LUCIANO BERIO did not necessarily conceive his "Sequenzas" to be heard together as a cycle. Virtuosic and intense works for solo instruments (including voice), they make for compelling though not easy listening. But they seem to be heading toward a kind of monumental memorialization, like that of Beethoven's piano sonatas or the preludes and fugues of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier."

Three years after Berio's death, two complete recordings of the "Sequenzas" - 14 works (with variants), written over nearly five decades - have come onto the market: one, on four CD's, from the independent label Mode; the other, on three CD's, from the budget label Naxos. They join a set that has been considered definitive, a recording by members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, released by Deutsche Grammophon in 1999. But the new ones have at least one clear advantage: the final "Sequenza," for cello, which Berio wrote only in 2002.

Disparate as they are, the "Sequenzas" have things in common. One is a kind of self-consciousness about the act of creating music in the specific language of a given instrument, often with reference to specifics of the instrument's history and performance. Many of the pieces proceed from a note or two, starting with defiant, repeated statements of a tone (like the Eighth, for violin) or winding their way around a sustained sound from without (like the 10th, for trumpet and piano resonance). Berio's concept of the term "sequenza" was that each piece would derive from a sequence of harmonic fields, a derivation that can clearly be heard.

Yet whether they assail (like the Sixth, for viola, which opens with a figurative grabbing of the listener's lapel) or lull (like the melodious Ninth, for clarinet), the pieces tend to follow a similar dramatic arc through spasms of activity back into quiet resignation. Berio wrings this drama from each instrument with a formidable range of technical means: special tonguings or bowings or beatings on the soundboard and, often, sounds that carry the performer to the brink of speech.

The Fifth, for trombone, which casts the player as a lugubrious clown, puts in his or her mouth a summarizing word, "Why?" This is a crowd of distinct voices, demanding attention, that taken together can wear on the senses. And since each piece rises and falls on individual performance, it is difficult to judge them as a group.

The Mode set, to be sure, offers a sense of having been officially sanctioned. The project took shape after performances at the 92nd Street Y of all the "Sequenzas" (then 13) for Berio's 70th birthday in 1995. Berio guided the choices of performers, and two of them (Stuart Dempster, the trombonist, and Rohan de Saram, the cellist) are the original dedicatees of the works for their instruments.

This set also aspires to be definitive, collecting every alternative version of each piece (the Sixth rearranged for cello, the Ninth for alto saxophone) as well as Berio's other works for solo instruments, like "Gesti" for recorder and "Psy" for double bass, which one might term "Sequenzas Lite." An unexpectedly appealing feature is the inclusion of short spoken verses that the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, a collaborator of Berio's, wrote to accompany each "Sequenza": pithy and illuminating, they act like a sorbet to cleanse the palette between each rich course.

But the Naxos set has advantages even beyond its considerably lower price, like an elegant, even melting rendition of the clarinet sequenza by Joaquin Valdepeñas. The measure of a performer's success lies in the difference between merely executing the notes and internalizing them.

There is no single right approach. Mr. Dempster, not surprisingly, brings out a prodigious level of articulate nuance in "his" trombone "Sequenza." Yet Alain Trudel, on Naxos, turns that "Why" into the statement of a frightened cartoon, which, at least momentarily, seems exactly what Berio intended.
--- Anne Midgette, The New York Times, 25 June 2006


Luciano Berio
The Complete Sequenzas and Works for Solo Instruments
Mode 161-163

"For you I have multiplied my voices, my vocabulary, my vowels..." Although Italian author Edoardo Sanguineti wrote that dedicatory line for Sequenza VIII, it aptly describes all of the Sequenzas, an astounding series of works for solo instruments written between 1958 and 2002 by Luciano Berio. The Sequenzas reveal unthinkably new timbres, codify new instrumental techniques, and push performers to terrifying heights (as well as speeds) of virtuosity. Monophonic (one-note-at-a-time) instruments like the flute and the bassoon become a miniaturized orchestra of quiet murmurs, clicks, wraithlike chords, and quasi-electronic tones.

Two new recordings, Berio: Sequenzas I-XIV (Naxos) and Berio: Sequenzas & Solo Works (Mode), collect the complete Sequenzas and offer a superb, if not superior, alternative to the pricey 1998 set on Deutsche Grammophon, which lacks the final Sequenza XIV composed in 2002. A detailed comparison of all three sets could consume a doctoral thesis; briefly, the Naxos and Mode discs contain performances ranging from really good to great. The budget-priced Naxos release has no frills, short liner notes, and, excepting soprano Tony Arnold, boasts few "name" performers. Mode enlisted several new music all-stars - Irvine Arditti, Carol Robinson, Stuart Dempster - and added a fourth disc of solo works. Also, I appreciate Mode's inclusion of Edoardo Sanguineti's optional prefatory spoken texts, all indexed on separate tracks. You can't go wrong with either set. Essential.
--- Christopher Delaurenti, The Stranger, Jun 1 - Jun 7, 2006


Amy Rubin
Hallelujah Games
Hallelujah Games; Whose America?; Trifocals; Cry of the Mothers; Journey; Chant; Obsession; Two Train Toccata; Aftermath; Windows; Mallet Cycles
Amy Rubin (piano); William Trigg (marimba); Christine Schadeberg (soprano); Kathleen Nester (flute)
Musicians Accord
Artistic Quality: 7
Sound Quality: 8
Mode 79

New York composer-pianist Amy Rubin writes chamber music spiked with blues, jazz, African drumming patterns, and Latin dance rhythms. Sometimes she packs too many idioms into one piece. "Cry of the Mothers", for example, vacillates between a plaintive jazz ballad and a Latin dance. "Hallelujah Games" for marimba and piano is inspired by the drumming patterns Rubin learned in Ghana (not surprisingly, it resembles Steve Reich's Ghana-influenced hocketing music), and the "games" involve performer choices. As pianist on this album, Rubin proves herself to be the best advocate of her own music. Her intricate passagework spins out like a nimble improvisation, and her playing sometimes manages to wield more power than the compositions themselves. Soprano Christine Schadeberg, flutist Kathleen Nester, and marimba player William Trigg join her as magnificent partners. Rubin's music is appealing and often playful, and if she occasionally veers toward sentimentality, she's not the first composer to succumb to tonal ardor when expressing political concerns.
--- Sarah Cahill, www.classicstoday.com


Amy Rubin
Hallelujah Games
Christine Schadeberg, Amy Rubin, Musicians Accord
Mode 79

Just how important is stylistic continuity? Not very, when you're Amy Rubin, and you're good at just about everything. Hallelujah Games, the opening work in the identically named release from Mode, is a bang-on post-minimal post-pop essay for marimba and piano. While the piece is meant to address "the ongoing effects of colonialism in Africa," it is no surprise that the sounds bespeak of her familiarity with Reich's muse: the music of Ghana.

Whose America?, on the other hand, has an earlier African/New Yorker melding in mind. These texts "The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to her Daughters Sold into Southern Bondage," "Brother of the Ku Klux Klan," and "Grandma's Song" mine a updated vein of African-American music which inspired George Gershwin.

Trifocals for flute, clarinet, and bassoon, and Journey for flute and piano are new-music marriages with Caribbean and Turkish music respectively, with emphasis on the new-music. Rubin's short piano works tell of soulful jazz, languid Satie, a cetain almost-cinematic romanticism, and classical dignity. In Two-Train Toccata, Rubin leaves us with a nice minimalist neoclassic puzzle:

Train X leaves San Francisco heading east at a speed of 95 miles an hour. Train Y leaves New York going west a s speed of 110 miles an hour. Where and when will they pass each other?

Is this likely, given that speeds tend to be faster in the West? And what about mountains? Assuming no stops, perhaps the next day in Nebraska… would be a long haul of a piece, that. This is a worth journey that can occupy tracks beside Glass, Honegger, Reich and Villa-Lobos.

Rubin winds up close to where she began, with a brief marimba two-player piece entitled Mallet Cycles. Like Reich, here's another composer who finds that marimba and minimalism go hand in hand, hands on sticks, and hands-down handily.
- Elizabeth Agnew, 21st Century Music, April 2000


From The Mode News Archive:

AKI TAKAHASHI plays Iannis Xenakis (mode 80)
Aki Takahashi has garnered tremendous praise for her disc of the complete piano works of Xenakis, including being honored by French music magazine Diapason's prestigious "Diapason d'or" award. Full reviews will be posted on the mode 80 web page.


Composer KAIJA SAARIAHO (mode 91) was awarded the 2000 Stoeger Prize by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her recent opera, L'amour de Loin received its premiere to acclaimed reviews in Salzburg this August. Saariaho's new disc of chamber music on Mode performed by the superb Belgian ensemble Champ d'Action is available now.


MORTON SUBOTNICK was one of the honorees at this year's ASCAP Concert Music Awards ceremony held at Lincoln Center on May 25th. Mode is currently working with Subotnick on the release of his interactive DVD Gestures, which allows you to compose your own work at your computer, based on the sound materials on the DVD. The DVD will also feature his classic A Sky of Cloudless Sulpher as well as his own, fixed version of Gestures in surround sound.

Subotnick has been getting a great deal of press in the past months, regarding his composing career, and his recent Gestures piece, including features/interviews in The Wire, Tower PULSE!, and even fashion magazines! Subotnick explained how the interactive Gestures works in July's PULSE!: "There are two modes. One is what I call the 'DJ Mode,' where a person can access different moods through different kinds of gestures, change their moods all over the place and access music, which is all over the place. The other mode is the more 'conductorly mode' where you make a first gesture and then that takes you to a piece of music which is most like the gesture you did-like going to the record cabinet and pulling out the record you want to listen to. It'll be a complete piece. If your gesture is a smooth, tender one, maybe 15 percent of the piece will be wild; but the rest of it will be smooth and quiet and tender. All the gestures you make from that initial point on are in the form of conducting it: making it more intense, louder/softer, higher/lower, bringing in voices."


IRVINE ARDITTI plays John Cage
Arditti has now recorded ALL of Cage's works for solo violin as well as violin and piano (with Stephen Drury) for Mode. These will be released on 4 separate discs in fixed periods over the next couple of years. The next release, of both possible versions of TWO4 (with the sho performed by Mayumi Miyata and with piano performed by Drury), will be issued in October on mode 88.


NEW SCELSI SERIES ON MODE
Mode is excited about its new series devoted to the intriguing Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi. Among the first wave will be :

• a disc of piano music by Canadian pianist Louise Bessette (mode 92, due in November). This is the first volume in what is projected to be the complete traversal of Scelsi's piano works. Other performers in the piano series will include Aki Takahashi,
• a disc of orchestral works along with excerpts from the Canti di Capricorn with The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic conducted by Juan Pablo Izquiredo (their follow-up to the tremendous Xenakis/Varese disc on mode 58), and
• a disc of works of solo clarinet along with duos for flute and oboe, performed by clarinettist Carol Robinson (also on the Nono disc, mode 87) along with oboist Kathy Milliken (also on the Skempton disc, mode 61) and flutist Clara Novakova. Ms. Robinson's performances are authoritative because she had the unique experience to work with Scelsi on these pieces.

• Elliott Carter: Piano Quintet; Quintet for Piano and Winds; Fragment for string quartet (with Ursula Oppens and The Arditti Quartet); and Syringa (with Ensemble Sospeso conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky). The disc will also include a video interview with Carter, Ursula Oppens and Irvine Arditti led by Sospeso's Joshua Cody. (96/24 audio; plus surround sound option for the Piano Quintet)


• Lydia Kavina, Theremin. Follow up to her successful first disc (Music from the Ether, mode 76), the DVD will contain music featured in her recent Lincoln Center debut program. Ms. Kavina is joined on the disc by Ensemble Sospeso conducted by Charles Peltz:
  Percy Grainger: Beatless Music for 6 theremins
  Olga Neuwirth: Suite from "Bahlaams Fest"
  Miklos Rozsa: Suite from "Spellbound"
  Howard Shore: Suite from "Ed Wood"
  Christian Wolff: Exercise 28 for theremin, french horn, violin and double-bass
  The Neuwirth, Shore and Wolff pieces were created especially for this event. (96/24 audio, surround sound option for the Grainger, video interviews with Kavina, Shore and Wolff).


• Morton Subotnick: Gestures; A Sky of Cloudless Sulpher (please see Subotnick article above for more information). (Interactive DVD-ROM plus both works presented in surround-sound, and video interviews).