Label: ARS PRODUKTION SACD 38003
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Sonata for Violoncello & Piano Op.40
Sonata for Viola & Piano Op.147 (Version for Cello & Piano)

Friedrich Kleinhapl, violoncello

Andreas Woyke, piano
Because of my emotional relationship to music and cello-playing, with a particular stress an beauty of sound, I always felt at home with the romantic style. But working an Bach’s Solo Suites showed me the limits of this relationship, as Bach’s music requires a more analytical approach.
Through the encounter with Claudia Abbado in the Gustav Mahler Orchestra I started to give my attention to twentieth-century music. This music represented far me a totally new made of expression which was emotionally incomprehensible and required mare technical thinking.
Eventually, my conceptions of sound and aesthetic also reached their limits. Because of the ever increasing offers to play new works by contemporary composers, new techniques were needed, which totally contradicted my ideas of what a cello should sound like. And I felt their effects.
The result of all these efforts and develo0pments was an increasing interest far the new and the other and the wish far expressiveness and richness of colour.
Dmitry Shostakovich’s music appears to me to combine all these energies. For me, the overflowing richness of his expressive world is a reflection of the whole spectrum of the mental components that make man what he is: from absolute ecstasy to complete apathy, from extreme fear of death to wild exuberance, from humour and irony to sarcasm and from deep tenderness to brutality. - Friedrich Kleinhapl

Label: BAYER SACD 100328
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String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110 (arranged for String Orchestra by R. Barshai)
String Quartet No. 10, Op. 118 (arranged for String Orchestra by R. Barshai)

Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn/Ruben Gazarian
Dmitri Shostakovich (1905-1975) turned to the genre of the string quartet in 1938. The string quartet became his expressive medium for compassion and sorrow, rage and despair, as well as for compositional examples of economy, for the most extreme limitation of the means with the greatest heightening of expression and drama. Shostakovich wrote his eighth string quartet C-Minor Op. 110 in just three days between the 12th and 14th of July 1960 in Dresden. He also spoke of it as an “autobiographical quartet“: As in his symphonies, the object of the expressed despair is ultimately also the situation in his own country, which had severely influenced his own path in life through the terror, persecution and repression. His tenth string quartet, A Flat Major Op. 118, was created just four years later and is also distinguished by tragedy and satire. Rudolf Barshai, one of Shostakovich’s fellow students, arranged these two string quartets for string orchestra. Since then, they have been known as Chamber Symphony Op. 110a and Op. 118a. Shostakovich was familiar with these versions of his quartet and authorised them.

Label: BIS SACD 1206
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MAURICE DURUFLE: Requiem, Op. 9 (1947)
GABRIEL FAURE: Requiem, Op. 48 (1887-91, version with organ by Mattias Wager)

Miah Persson, soprano; Malena Ernman, mezzo-soprano; Olle Persson, baritone; Mattias Wager, organ
Swedish Radio Choir/Fredrik Malmberg
Musical settings of the Mass for the Dead have a tendency to dwell on the dramatic high points of the day of judgment and the trumpets of doom (Dies irae and Tuba mirum) – partly for the reason that they really are dramatic high points. With their respective Requiems, Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé wanted to express something different, something, which Fauré himself described as a ‘trust in eternal rest’. Indeed, when hearing the description of his work as ‘a lullaby of death’, Fauré approved of it. It is the eternal light and peace wished for in the Mass that both composers infused their Requiems with (to the point of actually omitting the more doomladen passages). These qualities are certainly part of the palette of the magnificent Swedish Radio Choir – the favorite vocal instrument of many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. The choir’s previous disc on BIS (BIS 1157) consisted of works by Schnittke and Pärt and their performance was described as being ‘of commanding, awesome brilliance…with a virtuosity and commitment that are astounding’ (Int. Record Review) and ‘refulgently passionate’ (BBC Music Magazine). On this disc, the choir, directed by Fredrik Malmberg, is joined by three of Sweden’s foremost singers – all of them represented on previous BIS recordings – as well as organist Mattias Wager, who has also supplied the organ arrangement of Faurés orchestral score.

Label: BIS SACD 1482
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975): Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op.8; Piano Trio No.2 in E minor, Op.67
ALFRED SCHNITTKE (1934 – 1998): Piano Trio (1992 – arrangement of String Trio, 1985)

Kempf Trio: Freddy Kempf, piano; Pierre Bensaid, violin; Alexander Chaushian, cello
The highly emotionally charged works on this disc were all three composed during periods of emotional upheaval in the lives of their creators. Shostakovich's father died in the aftermath of the turbulent years of the revolution, and a year later, in 1923, he himself was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Sent to Crimea to recuperate, the sixteen-year old music student fell in love with the daughter of a Moscow professor, and began to compose his First Piano Trio, a passionate work representing a vital stage in his development towards the First Symphony. Twenty-one years later, in the midst of the 2nd World War, Shostakovich completed his Piano Trio No.2. This extraordinarily painful work, was born out of the appalling sufferings of his fellow-countrymen, but also reflects the loss of his closest friend, the writer Ivan Sollertinsky, who died unexpectedly while Shostakovich was working on the trio. Also marked by a close encounter with death, Schnittke's only Piano Trio originated as a string trio. Composing it to mark the centenary of Alban Berg in 1985, Schnittke 'avoided his trademark stylistic confrontations and direct quotations, preferring subtle allusions to the world of the Viennese classics, especially Schubert’, to quote David Fanning’s informative liner notes. Soon after completing the trio, Schnittke suffered the first of a series of massive strokes, but in 1992 he revisited the work, dedicating the version for piano trio to his doctor, Alexander Potapov, 'who saved my life twice'. On a previous disc, the Kempf Trio has released two other Russian piano trios – by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov – in performances described as 'fiery, cogent, intelligent and wholly compelling' (Evening Standard) and 'a triumph' (The Strad). In the present, no less impassioned and passionate program, we hear the swan song of this fine ensemble, which was recently dissolved.

Label: BIS SACD 1483
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Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
This disc marks the return of Mark Wigglesworth’s Shostakovich cycle. The series continues with the excellent Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, with which Wigglesworth has enjoyed a longstanding and successful relationship. The fruits of this collaboration are obvious in this recording of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony - a work which the conductor in his own liner notes describes as ‘a poem of suffering’, quoting the composer. Although written at the turning point of World War II, and to the open disapproval of Stalin’s propaganda machine, the symphony is far from jubilant. Instead, the themes Shostakovich explored - albeit in deepest secrecy - were the pain and the terror, which the Russian people had experienced during the pre-war years. Mark Wigglesworth’s previous Shostakovich interpretations have been highly praised for being “gripping”, “moving” and “compelling”. With the present work - containing what is “possibly the most terrifying music Shostakovich ever wrote” according to Wigglesworth himself - the emotional temperature is no lower, and is brought even higher through the great power and clarity of the SACD Surround Sound format new to this series.
Previous installments in the Shostakovich cycle, all with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, are (Please note these previous titles are NOT SACDs):
Symphony No. 7, ‘Leningrad’ (BIS 873)
Symphony No. 5, 6, 10 (BIS 973/4)
Symphony No. 14 (BIS 1173)

Label: BIS SACD 1543
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Jan-Hendrik Rootering, bass
Netherlands Radio Choir
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
‘The majority of my symphonies are tombstones’ - these words by Shostakovich are quoted by conductor Mark Wigglesworth in the liner notes to his fifth disc of Shostakovich’s Symphonies on BIS. Symphony No. 13, subtitled ‘Babi Yar’, is a case in point. Shostakovich explicitly stated that he wanted the Symphony - and in particular it’s first movement - to be a monument over the 100,000 Jews slaughtered at a ravine called Babi Yar outside of Kiev in 1941. Not just a monument, however: the Symphony was also intended as an indictment against the anti-Semitism that had been brought to its height during the Nazi era, but which also flourished in post-war Soviet Union, with the result that Babi Yar and other atrocities were kept secret by the authorities. This silence was deeply upsetting to Shostakovich, and when he read Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem Babi Yar, he decided to set it to music. ‘I cannot not write it!’, he said to a friend. Shostakovich had originally only intended to set this one poem by Yevtushenko, but deciding to create a larger-scaled work he chose four more texts for what was to become a symphony in five movements. As Mark Wigglesworth writes, these poems ‘reveal a huge kaleidoscope of Russian events, emotions and ideas.’ In the realization of this kaleidoscope, Wigglesworth has the support of bass soloist Jan-Hendrik Rootering, the men of the Netherlands Radio Choir, and - of course - the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, with which the previous installment in this series, Symphony No. 8 (BIS-SACD-1483), was recorded, to critical acclaim. The reviewer of BBC Music Magazine put it in the following way: ‘Mark Wigglesworth … stretches the playing of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic to its very impressive limits and remains the finest Shostakovich interpreter of his generation’, describing the result as "a performance which always gives us the full measure of this traumatic masterpiece."

Label: BIS SACD 1553
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975): Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43 (1935-36)

Netherland Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
As conductor Mark Wigglesworth relates in his own liner notes, when Dmitri Shostakovich began working on Symphony No.4, his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk had been a sensational success and the composer was the musical golden child of the Soviet Union.
Soon after Stalin himself went to see the opera, however, and immediately wrote an article in the newspaper Pravda that described the twenty-nine year old musician as an enemy of the state. Suddenly Shostakovich's life was turned upside down, but he remained unbowed – much later in life he is reported as having said: ‘Instead of repenting I composed my Fourth Symphony.’ The work was finished in May 1936, but during rehearsals for the first performance Shostakovich suddenly withdrew the symphony. Various reasons for this have been put forward, but an undisputed fact is that life in Soviet at the time was characterized by an almost universal fear brought about by the oppression exercised by the state, a fear that Shostakovich certainly shared: ‘ It was a low that wiped out my past. And my future. The terrible pre-war years. That is what my symphonies, beginning with the Fourth are about.’ The manuscript score of the work was lost during the war, and it was not until well after the death of Stalin that the orchestral parts were rediscovered. The Fourth Symphony was finally performed on December 30 1961, exactly twenty-five years later than originally intended. The present disc is the seventh in Mark Wigglesworth’s complete cycle of Shostakovich’s symphonies and the fourth to feature the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. This partnership has gone from strength to strength, with their Symphony No. 13 (‘Babi Yar’) described as ‘probably the most convincing to have appeared in the West’ in International Record Review, and the coupling of Symphonies Nos, 9 and 12 being designated a benchmark recording in BBC Music Magazine. They now take on this huge work – it calls for an orchestra of 125 musicians and has a duration of well over an hour – that came to form a watershed in a great composer’s life and output.

Label: BIS SACD 1563
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Symphony No.9 in E flat major, Op.70 (1945); Symphony No.12 in D minor, ‘The Year 1917’, Op.112 (1961)

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
Among the many discs released during last year's Shostakovich anniversary, one that received particular notice was Mark Wigglesworth's recording of Symphony No. 13 'Babi Yar' with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra]. In the International Record Review the performance was hailed as 'probably the most convincing Thirteenth to have appeared in the West', while the French magazine Diapason commented on how the various facets of the composer was brought out: 'the scathing humor, the sense of the grotesque, the satiric spirit and the secret messages ... in sum, a vivid and true vision'. Mark Wigglesworth, described in the BBC Music Magazine as 'the finest Shostakovich interpreter of his generation', has already recorded seven of the composer's fifteen symphonies for BIS, beginning this great project with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and continuing with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra – a collaboration which began with the 2005 release of Symphony No.8, in what The Sunday Times described as ‘a fine performance of deep understanding.’ The team now returns with their renditions of Symphonies Nos. 9 and 12. As Mark Wigglesworth observes in his own liner notes, these two works posed serious problems for their creator. Following on the heels of his two great war symphonies, the Ninth was generally expected to be a celebration of Stalin and the imminent victory over the Nazis. Shostakovich wanted to avoid any such programmatic interpretations and therefore came up with what Wigglesworth describe as ‘a pure and perfect, almost neoclassical work’. 16 years later, Shostakovich was commissioned to write a work commemorating Lenin and the 1917 Revolution.

Label: BIS SACD 1583
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975)
Symphony No.11, ‘The Year 1905’, Op.103 (1957)

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
Described in the BBC Music Magazine as ‘the finest Shostakovich interpreter of his generation’, Mark Wigglesworth began his cycle of Shostakovich’s symphonies with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, continuing since 2005 on the other side of the English Channel with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Previous volumes have all been warmly received by reviewers, who among the ten symphonies released so far have discovered a ‘Fourth that makes a terrific impact’ (Daily Telegraph), a Tenth ‘to rival the very best’ (Gramophone), a Twelfth which is ‘simply masterly’ (Scherzo, Spain), ‘probably the most convincing Thirteenth to have appeared in the West’ (International Record Review), and ‘one red-hot Shostakovich Fourteen’ (ClassicsTody.com). The cycle as a whole has been described as having the ‘particular characteristics of high seriousness, fine detailing and a certain fierceness of articulation’ (Gramophone) as well as benefiting from engineering which is ‘outstanding in its naturalness, brilliance, and impact’ (ClassicsToday.com). On the latest instalment in this series, Wigglesworth and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra perform the composer’s Symphony No.11 ‘The Year 1905’, commissioned by the Soviet authorities in order to commemorate the events on the so-called Bloody Sunday, in January 1905. This massacre of peaceful demonstrators by the tsar’s Imperial Guard inflamed popular feeling, thus contributing to the 1905 Revolution and laying the foundations for the Revolution of 1917. In the symphony these historical aspects come to light through the movement titles (‘The Palace Square’ etc.) and in Shostakovich’s use of several revolutionary songs throughout it. It has nevertheless been suggested that the emotional impetus for the composer may actually have been the use of Soviet tanks to put down another, more recent popular uprising, that which took place in Budapest in 1956. In his own liner notes Mark Wigglesworth discusses this possibility, concluding that ‘Shostakovich writes about emotions and states of mind, rather than specific dates … That is why his music remains both timeless and topical.’

Label: BIS SACD 1638
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LUCIANO BERIO (1925 – 2003): Solo for trombone and orchestra (1999, rev. 2000); IANNIS XENAKIS (1922 – 2001): Troorkh for trombone and orchestra (1991); MARK-ANTHONY TURNAGE (*1960): Yet Another Set To (2004, rev, 2005)

Christian Lindberg, trombone
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Peter Rundel
Starting with the disc The Virtuoso Trombone (Bis 258), recorded in 1983, Christian Lindberg has been the main protagonist of some 35 discs on the BIS label. But the present disc is surely destined to count as one of the most important. It brings together three of more than 80 concertos that have been dedicated to Christian Lindberg during his unparalleled career. One of the first of these was actually Troorkh (the title derived from trombone + orkhestra) by Xenakis, the result of an encounter in 1985 between the budding trombone soloist and the firmly established and highly regarded composer. Lindberg asked Xenakis for a concerto and got an emphatic ‘No’ for an answer – only to receive the score 6 years later. (In order to perform the demanding work, Lindberg then had to undertake a rigorous stamina-building program lasting two years!) Berio’s SOLO was the result of a collaboration between the composer and Lindberg which included a role especially written for Lindberg in the opera Cronaca del Luogo. SOLO and Troorkh are two of the works that Christian Lindberg has performed most frequently all over the world, but this is the first time he commits his interpretations of them to disc. The last piece on the program is Yet Another Set To by Mark-Anthony Turnage, a work that fully exploits Lindberg’s unique talents, requiring both virtuoso precision, the freedom of jazz delivery and a range of sounds from extrovert projection to intimate lyricism. Written in Turnage’s highly personal and yet accessible idiom it is a work which Lindberg himself describes as ‘one of the most electrifying works I have played’. Lindberg is partnered by the Oslo Philharmonic in fine shape, conducted by Peter Rundel, who collaborated with Lindberg in the first performance of the revised version of Turnage’s concerto performed here.

Label: BIS SACD 1809
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DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE (ca. 1637 – 1707)
Toccata in F major, BuxWV156; Praeludium in A minor, BuxWV153
Ciacona in E minor, BuxWV160; Te Deum Laudamus, BuxWV218
Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BuxWV220; Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BuxWV221
Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV148; Toccata in D minor, BuxWV155
*Nimm von uns, Herr, Du treuer Gott, BuxWV207
*Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BuxWV196; *Magnificat Primi Toni, BuxWV203

Masaaki Suzuki playing the Klapmeyer Organ of St. Nicolai Church, Altenbruch and *the Wilde-Schnitger Organ of St. Jacobi Church, Lüdingworth
As the composer that Johann Sebastian Bach at the age of twenty walked more than 400 kilometres in order to meet, Dietrich Buxtehude holds a place of honor in the history of music. Luckily, an important portion of his music, mainly vocal works and organ pieces, has also survived. Having spent his childhood and early years in Helsingborg and Elsinore, on either side of the strait that divides Denmark and Sweden, Buxtehude was recruited as organist by the congregation of the great Marienkirche in the wealthy Hanseatic city of Lübeck. On the basis of this, as well as the challenges posed by his organ compositions, it is safe to assume that he was a virtuoso on his instrument. He would also have been a connoisseur of fine organs – the finest of which at the time were to be found in Northern Germany. Two such magnificent instruments still exist in the small towns of Altenbruch and Lüdingworth, some 130 kilometres west of Lübeck, and on them Masaaki Suzuki here performs a varied selection of Buxtehude’s organ works. This ranges from brief chorale preludes to the magnificent Te Deum laudamus and the celebrated Ciaccona in E minor. Although he is most widely known for his on-going, highly praised series of Bach’s cantatas on BIS, Masaaki Suzuki in fact began his professional career as a church organist at the age of twelve, later studying the instrument both in Tokyo and in Amsterdam. For BIS he has previously recorded Bach’s Organ Mass (‘an organist of distinguished musicianship and superior technique’ wrote the American Record Guide) and organ works by Sweelinck, a disc which upon its release was recommended by Gramophone and described in International Record Review as containing ‘performances which are compelling in their stylistic integrity and uncompromising musicianship.’

Label: CANTATE SACD 58025
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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 - 1791): Marcia in D major KV 408/1 (383c); Adagio in C KV 356 (617a); Versette in G KV 154a; Fuga á tre in G KV 443 (385l); Gigue in G KV 574; Versette in D KV 154a; Marche funebre in C minor KV 453a; Andante in F major KV 616; JUSTIN HEINRICH KNECHT (1752 - 1817): Kleines Oboenkonzert in B; Choralvorspiel “Nun danket alle Gott”; Mehrstimmige Fantasie für die volle Orgel in A major; THEODOR GRUNBERGER (1756 - 1820): Aus “Neue Orgelstucke, nach der Ordnung unter dem Ambte der Hl. Messe zu spielen” (B major); JAN KRITITEL KUCHAR (1751 - 1829): Andante in A minor; Pastorale in C; LEOPOLD MOZART (1719 - 1787): Adagio und 6 Variationen in F major; ABBE GEORG JOSEPH VOGLER (1749 - 1814): 6 Petites Preludes pour l’Orgue in D major; CHRISTIAN HEINRICH RINCK (1770 - 1846): Introduction “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”; Thema und Variationen (I-IX) “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman; Finale “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”

Christian Brembeck, organ
From the point of view of musical history, the eighteenth century was informed to a great degree by transitions. When around the middle of the century the Baroque era reached a last climax in the masters Bach and Handel, the gradual transition to the sensitive style, to Sturm und Drang (wonderfully manifest, for example, in the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach) was no longer to be stopped. From about 1780 this renewal ultimately led into the period of the „Viennese Classic,“ and continued until well past the turn of the century. As the most significant characteristics of the new style, one might mention the outstanding importance of the melodic line, its invention, and its intended expression. “Expression” was even newly defined on the basis of three interlocking fundamental ideas: the gallant, the sensitive, and “Strum und Drang.” The concept of the gallant style, originating from seventeenth-century French lute music, was also taken up in Germany around the middle of the eighteenth century, whereby the style of the music had disposed of the contrapuntally thought-out Baroque ideals. Two- to three-part homophonic movements, tonally transparent, in clear formal structures (sonata form, rondo, variation schemes) now predominated. As a rule, the charm of this music is provided by the use of playful-gracious melodies, elegant embellishments, finely crafted motivic work, frequent use of passages in thirds, the sometimes exquisite-colorful sonority, and an emphasis on the upper voices. The Abbey Church Neresheim (Swabian Alb) is Balthasar Neumann’s last work and represents a solitary culmination of late-Baroque sacral architecture. The move from the old church into the newly built chapel began in 1782. On 6 August 1792 a contract for the construction of an organ for the west choir loft of the Abbey Church was made with the Swabian organ builder Johann Nepomuk Holzhay (1741-1908). In its present form, the organ of the Abbey Church Neresheim can be considered one of Europe’s most magnificent organs from the time of Mozart.

Label: CANTATE SACD 58028
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JEAN-FRANCOIS DANDRIEU: Rondeau (D major); THEODORE DUBOIS: Toccata in G major (Organ); ANTONIO VIVALDI: Pastorale; TOMASO ALBINONI: Concerto in B flat major; MICHEL-RICHARD DELALANDE: Concert de Trompettes in D major; Symphonie de Noels; MICHEL CORRETTE: Noel Allemand (B flat major)(Concerto about “Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich”); JOHANN CRUGER: Three Chorals (Wie soll ich dich empfangen; Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland; Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen); JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier (Soprano/Organ); Dein ist allein die Ehre (Final Chorus from Cantata BWV 171); GEORG FRIEDRICH HANDEL: Daughter Zion (Timpani/Organ); Daughter Zion (Soprano/Organ); Music from the Oratorio “Semele”
Plus: Organ Music for Christmas; Silent Night (Soprano/Organ); Hört der engel helle lieder

Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort
Peter Schumann, organ; Mathias Muller, timpani; Max Muller, boy soprano
Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort (The Pfeiffer Trumpet Consort = PTC) was founded by the brothers Joachim, Martin, and Harald Pfeiffer in 1985. They were soon joined by Dale Marrs, who has decisively put his stamp on the musical style of the group. Mathias Muller, tympanist, joined in 1992. Through Peter Schumann, organist, the group's musical home has always been the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) in Heidelberg, Germany. Most of the works performed by the Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort, famous, as well as less-well-known pieces, are presented in new, festive arrangements, most of which (with the exception of a few original compositions) have been revised and adapted by members of the ensemble. These arrangements are unique in their style. It is always easy to recognize the concern for combining Baroque trumpet artistry with modern playing techpiques. In addition to the original trumpet parts, the Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort tries to include as many of the other instrumental parts as possible, and thus to consider the musical compositions in their entirety. The possibilities of modem trumpets combined with the splendid sound of the instruments transform familiar compositions into a new listening experience.

Label: NEOS JAZZ SACD 40808
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WORLD PREMIRIERE RECORDINGS!
ELLLIOTT SHARP (*1951): Ripples From The Bang (2007)
BERNHARD LANG (*1957): Paranoia (2007)

Artists: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, text & vocalist; Philip Jeck, turntables; Hans Koch, reeds; Bernhard Lang, keyboard, electronics; Elliott Sharp, guitar, electric bass, electronics; Fredy Studer, drums, percussion
BERNHARD LANG ON "PARANOIA"
Paranoia is a sequence of eight semi-improvised blocks that were extracted from the sketches to Act III of the music theatre work Der Alte vom Berge and developed further. Three text groups are used:
– "Justifications", a cut-up from Internet researches on paranoia as a political function.
– The "CIA Protocols Of Political Assassination", a collection of various strategies for political murders.
– The contents page of the American magazine "Paranoia".
The improvisations are based on scratched loops and "damage beats", which make reference to the turntable art of Phil Jeck and the films of Martin Arnold as well as to my series of compositions Differenz/Wiederholung. Both parts lie above the loop scenario as contrapuntal rap poetry. The work was inspired by the book Conspiracy Nation: The Politics Of Paranoia In Postwar America (ed. Peter Knight): paranoia as a new feeling in our lives, paranoia as a political instrument.
ELLIOTT SHARP ON "RIPPLES FROM THE BANG"
Ripples from the Bang is a set of reflexions on causality. The perception we each have of a chain of events remains extremely personal and varies greatly, sometimes being dependent on factors beyond our individual vision. These events may be a personal journey, a state of war, or a cataclysm of cosmic scale. The score that allows the musicians to surf the sonic fall-out produced by the big bang includes through-composed parts, algorithmic strategies, graphic performance directions, pre-prepared electronic sound files, and improvisations.

Label: NEOS SACD 10713
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Idyllen und Gerrillen for four hands, Op. 76 (1998); The Grasshopper for the left hand (and…), Op. 112 (2006); From the cycle Lévantiques, Op. 64 (1997): Bêtes nostalgiques, Le vent du Transylvanie, Rock ‘n’ roll des Bogomiles; Sonata No. 4, Op. 60 (1996); Les barricades mystérieuses – reloaded (2006)

Dan Dediu, piano; Valentina Sandu-Dediu, piano
Dan Dediu, born in Braila/Romania, in 1967, attended the music school in Bucharest from 1981 to 1985 and then studied until 1989 at the conservatory there with Stefan Niculescu and Dan Constantinescu. He supplemented his studies with Francis Burt, at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, and with a scholarship from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung in Hamburg and the Alban Berg Stiftung in Vienna. In 1991 he received first prize at the George Enescu International Composition Competition; that same year he became assistant professor for composition and form at the National University of Music in Bucharest. In 1994 he was visiting professor at Queen’s University of Belfast and attended a course in computers for music at IRCAM in Paris. In 1999 and 2001 he was artistic director of the International Week of New Music Festival in Bucharest. Since 1990 Dan Dediu has been a member of the Romanian Association of Composers, since 1992 of the national group of the ISCM. In 1998 he became professor and in 2000 chair of the composition department at the National University of Music in Bucharest.