Xenakis Ensemble

Virtuoso cellist Rohan de Saram's new album features four works which have come to the forefront of repertoire for solo cello from the modern era: Arnold Bax's Rhapsodic Ballad is his only solo piece for this instrument. Likely the most often performed of his earlier works, Ligeti's Sonata for Solo Cello has for over a decade been used as a test piece for the Rostropovich Competition in Paris. Dallapiccola's composition was written for the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassado. It is a substantial, powerful work, and an early serial composition of the composer, full of colourful effects and humour.

Magnus Lindberg burst onto the contemporary music scene in the 1980s with his early work Kraft (as in "power", and not the American food conglomerate and inventor of Velveeta cheese by-product substance), an avant-garde spectacular that took the "sound mass" procedures of Berio or Xenakis and wedded them to an explosive rhythmic energy. He's broadened his style since then, taking in tonal elements and even the occasional tune, but the rhythmic vitality remains, and his coloristic gifts, his ear for ever new and remarkable instrumental sound combinations, have only increased. Aura is a four-movement symphony as indescribable as it is a joy to hear. Dedicated to the memory of Lutoslawski, the piece shows its composer similarly possessed of a vibrant, communicative personal musical language. Although it plays continuously for about 37 minutes, newcomers to Lindberg's sound creations should start with the finale, a sort of dance that begins with simple tunefulness before finding itself in a sort of riotous minimalist hell. It's hugely fun, as is the entire work.

Exploring 20th-century repertoire – both acknowledged masterpieces and new discoveries – this 14-CD anthology reflects the diverse aesthetic strands of Pierre Boulez’s programming over the course of his ground-breaking and influential career. These Erato recordings, made between 1966 and 1992, feature composers otherwise absent from Boulez’s discography – Xenakis, Donatoni, Grisey, Dufourt, Ferneyhough, Harvey and Höller – and the first CD release of the interpretation of Stravinsky’s incantatory Les Soucoupes in the version for female voices and four horns.

Franz Schubert - Symphonien 1-8, Dialog & Eplilog - Jonathan Nott & Bamberger Symphoniker (2011) {6CD Set, Tudor TUD301610}
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© 2011 Tudor Recording | TUD301610
Classical / Orchestral / Romantic

Starting in 2003, Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony pursued the ambitious project of recording Franz Schubert's symphonies Nos. 1-8, and the SACDs were individually released later that decade to considerable critical praise. This 2011 set of six SACDs brings together the four albums with the symphonies, plus two collections of modern compositions inspired by Schubert's music. Nott's conducting tends to be on the fast side in Schubert, and the Bamberg Symphony is sometimes a little uneven in sound quality. But by and large, they demonstrate a great understanding of Schubert's styles, both in his Classical and Romantic veins, and acquit themselves with enthusiasm and brilliance.

Just in from the always beautifully presented Die Schachtel label, a two-CD and DVD package housed in a linen slipcase devoted to unheard recordings by the legendary Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, a group whom it's always been frustratingly hard to pin down on disc or LP despite their powerhouse line-up. The GINC was a performer/composer ensemble with revolving members active from the mid-'60s to the mid-'80s; the recordings and film collected here are from what is arguably their greatest and most innovative era which spanned the years 1967-1969, when the core group consisted of Franco Evangelisti, Ennio Morricone (yes, that Morricone), Roland Kayn, Mario Bertoncini, Ivan Vandor, and John Heineman. Usually mentioned in the same breath as another great electro-acoustic improvising ensemble, AMM, who were navigating similar terrain to that of the GINC, each member brought their own composing and improvising sensibility to bear on a collective effort that is never less than totally engaging. They performed a totally unique melange of free improvisation, with white noise, analog electronics, extended technique, and a knowledge of composition that encompassed centuries worth of developments, from the Renaissance on up to the latest innovations of Stockhausen, Cage, or Xenakis. The DVD features a 45-minute-long black and white film of a performance given by the group at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome in 1967. [MK] (Reissued 2006)

Canadian-born French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras has been the featured cello soloist for the Ensemble InterContemporain for some time and appeared in this role on DGG's 1992 recording of Pierre Boulez's the Ligeti Cello Concerto with that ensemble. Queyras, however, doesn't just make contact to new music through composers who come through IRCAM, but also seeks it out on his own; Harmonia Mundi's 21st Century Cello Concertos combines three such commissions from composers Bruno Mantovani, Philippe Schoeller, and Gilbert Amy.