Edgar Varèse

Edgar Varèse is regarded as one of the pioneers of New Music, and with good reason. His piece “Ionisation” was the first-ever composition written exclusively for percussion ensemble to be performed in a traditional concert hall setting; and he explored and searched intensely for sonic experiences. Varèse integrated first the world of sounds, then electronic instruments into traditional orchestras, thereby opening a door to a new awareness of listening. His work substantially influenced those generations of composers that came after him: a link between the beautiful, the exciting and the musically unfamiliar. The 2009 Salzburg Festival dedicated its “Kontinente” series to this brilliant New Music pioneer – and we are delighted to present these excellent recordings to you! (Col Legno)

Here is a collection on the indie Wounded Bird Records that was once one of the linchpins of the Columbia Masterworks LP catalog, yet it has never been issued by anyone on CD: The Varèse Album. Issued in 1972, CBS's The Varèse Album was in itself a reissue, consisting of the albums Music of Edgar Varèse (1960) and Music of Edgar Varèse, Vol. 2 (1963), both featuring pickup groups led by Robert Craft and the first volume including Varèse's own realization on tape of Poème Electronique (1958). In 1972, The Varèse Album was thought to contain near to all of the works of Varèse, and since then that short catalog hasn't expanded by much.

From the outset of his recording career, Maurizio Pollini has championed modern music – in benchmark accounts of Bartók, Boulez, Manzoni, Nono, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern, to which can be added his later recordings of Debussy and Berg. Here are his complete recordings of 20th-century music, brought together on a specially-priced 6-CD set for the first time.

James Tenney - Pika-Don - Maelström Percussion Ensemble Conducted By Jan Williams (2004) {Hat Hut Records hat[now] ART 151}
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© 1997, 2004 Hat Hut Records | hat[now] ART 151
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Percussion

Tenney has often characterized himself as a kind of “tone scientist”, that is, one working on an almost microscopic level with the primary materials of sound in order to expand our knowledge of its properties (what makes it what it is) and perceptual identity (how we respond to it). To do so, he has composed music that isolates the components of sound production into their most basic acoustic phenomena; music that explores and illuminates the subatomic pitch relationships within the harmonic series; music that combines these pitches into complexes motivated by systematic patterns or chance procedures.

Various Artists - A Guide to Musical Instruments, Vol. II: 1800-1950 (2013) {8CD Box Set Ricercar RIC104}
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© 2013 Ricercar / Outhere Music | RIC104
Classical / Viennese School / Romantic / Early 20th Century Music

This second volume of the Guide to Musical Instruments explores the history of musical instruments in the period from 1800 to 1950. Its purpose is both to discuss improvements and transformations of instruments dating from before 1800 and to investigate all the novelties thought up by instrument makers during this era. All these developments took place in a context in which the process of instrument making moved from artisans’ workshops to commercial firms which became veritable factories, typical of the ‘age of industrialisation’. The majority of the musical examples are recordings of individual instruments that allow us to hear timbres often lost under the weight of the orchestral mass.This second volume of the Guide follows the same principles as the first.

Various Artists - Archives GRM, INA 30th Anniversary (2006) {5CD Set, INA-GRM ina c 1030}
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© 2006 INA-GRM | ina c 1030
Modern Classical / Electronic / Musique Concrète / Experimental / Electroacoustic

For the 30th birthday of INA, the GRM has decided to present in this CD box some of his archives. INA - GRM (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel - Groupe de Recherches Musicales) in Paris, France, is the pioneering organisation of electroacoustics, acousmatics and musique concrète, with a history going back many decades, as active today as ever, recording and releasing a long string of historically important, but also new and innovative, electracoustic works, while also engaging in research into new techniques and teaching. The Acousmonium of the GRM is utilized giving renowned concerts of electroacoustic music.