The legendary DG Avantgarde vinyl series (1968-1971) is turning 55! In order to celebrate this occasion, the series is now released on 21 CDs for the first time. The Avantgarde series serves as a historical document for a time of radical change in musical thinking and the breaking of artistic boundaries. The question "What is music?" confronted many of the composers and musicians involved in the series, and the anti-authoritarian spirit of the 1960s and 1970s was a palpable influence. Deutsche Grammophon's Avantgarde Series reflects all the currents that thus arose, without aesthetic demarcations and across genres and instrumentations: large orchestral works stand alongside chamber music and solo forms, electronic music and improvisations.
This release is one of a series by the Taipei Chinese Orchestra on which the group collaborates with Western musicians. All are interesting, but this one has the dual attraction of involving Dame Evelyn Glennie, the deaf Scots percussionist who was a longtime denizen of RCA's roster. After that came to an end, it is indeed good to hear her under the care of even better SACD engineers from the Swedish label BIS, working here in Taipei's Zhongshang Hall. In the opening Concerto for percussion and Chinese orchestra of Yiu-Kwong Chung, written for Glennie, her percussion arsenal results in the production of many layers and subtleties of sound, all faithfully reproduced here.
Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra - New Sounds In Brass. The Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra is a professional concert band. It is widely considered as one of the world's finest, only to be rivaled by the Dallas Wind Symphony in the recent years.