Ondes

Discovering a virtuoso first album by Vincent Mussat.

Ondes is an ode to the living! Ondes is to go to sea in a multidisciplinary show with a gifted captain who keeps the troops awake on the foam of the days.

From its inception with landmark works like Edgard Varèse’s Ionization (1929-31), Amadeo Roldán’s Ritmicas (1930), or John Cage’s First Construction (In Metal) (1939), the percussion ensemble has been associated with innovations in rhythm—with driving, pulsating, and complex explorations of the domain of time.

Though Dutilleux began composing at an early age and undertook the rigorous course of study at the Paris Conservatoire, culminating in the much sought-after Prix de Rome in 1938 with a cantata, he regarded his Piano Sonata of 1946-1948 as an Opus 1. This attitude was characteristic of a remarkably fastidious and self-critical composer who dedicated his life to composition – and the nurturing of young composers – and yet whose published output is influential out of all proportion to its size.

Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979) is unquestionably an essential figure in 20th-century music. A pioneer in microintervallic music, heir to the thinking of Scriabin, he left a number of works in third, quarter, fifth, sixth and even twelfths of tones. His theoretical, organological and compositional research opened the way for other composers who, in turn, devoted their work to music in micro-intervals, which is probably, as says Alain Bancquart, the music of the future.

The work of the French composer Olivier Messiaen in General and his Turangalila Symphony in particular have now long been considered milestones in musical history. The symphony’s premiere in 1949 was conducted by a 31-year-old Leonard Bernstein. He was standing in for Serge Koussevitzky, who had commissioned the work for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This recording by the Tonkunstler Orchestra and Yutaka Sado, who was once Leonard Bernstein’s assistant in Vienna, joins many other productions on the in-house label the orchestra founded in 2016.

Der französische Saxophonist Pierre-Stephane Meuge präsentiertMonodien, eine faszinierende musikalische Reise durch ein Jahrhundert der Monologe in verschiedenen Stilen, unterbrochen durch den universellen Bezug zu JS Bach und gespielt auf verschiedenen Saxophonen.

An important new recording, ‘The Spirit of Love’, featuring chamber music and songs by British composer Alisa Dixon (1932-2017), will be released on the Resonus Classics label on 22nd August.

These contemplations and improvisations were partly inspired by an instrument called an Ondomo — a recreation by Naoyuki Omo of the Ondes Martenot, one of the earliest electronic instruments developed in 1928 by Maurice Martenot (Ondes Martenot translated as ‘Martenot’s waves’). For this set of recordings, Alan gravitated back to his primary instrument, the piano, for many of the improvisations, allowing the various background colours to inform the process. The result is an album of great beauty and invention, rich in sonorous textures and equally rich emotional resonances.