Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.
It's 1940s and Dizzy Gillespie's big band are at their absolute peak! Listening to this record makes me wonder why there ever became such a thing as jazz snobbery. This music doesn't sound like the domain for snobs. In fact it showcases jazz in a crucial and innovative place. Here we are in this place where swing and be-bop have long ago cross polinated eachother (one needed to have the other anyway:we all know in what way",you've got Dizzy whose at once both a great intellectual musician as well as being able to make it move. And here you have him playing with these…well nowadays you'd have to call them all stars such as Dexter Gordon, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, Cozy Cole, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Clarke…the list goes on like that and BIM BAM BOOM you've got big band be-bop!
A renaissance artist for our times, Lera Auerbach is internationally renowned as a composer whose exquisitely crafted, emotional, and boldly imaginative music reaches a global audiences. Her 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano is a cycle of compact but ‘meaningful and complete’ works that follows the key scheme of Chopin’s 24 Préludes, while exploring stark contrasts that range from primordial darkness to naïve innocence. Using a highly original tonal language with clear references to classical traditions, this pioneering work fully represents Auerbach’s ability to put music at the service of a broader expression of human need and fallibility.
Antonín Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances are some of the greatest treasures ever composed for piano four hands. Prior to their publication, Dvořák’s fame had been limited to Prague, where he was based. On publication, however, the dances were a resounding success, propelling the composer almost overnight onto the international music scene. This success was the result of a series of strange and happy coincidences. In 1874, Dvořák, who was no longer a young man, applied for and was granted the State Scholarship for Artists by the Ministry of Education in Vienna.