Classical Music 99 Items

Feldman's last composition, »Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello«, was completed in 1987; although its instrumentation largely corresponds to that of »Piano and String Quartet«, with one instead of two violins, it differs in almost every other respect from the composition written only two years earlier: Here, Feldman makes every effort to integrate the piano into the string section, and the basic formal components of the composition are no longer staves, but individual bars.

The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are some of the most frequently performed and recognizable solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–23, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for cello solo without bass).

Due to the works’ technical demands, étude-like nature, and difficulty in interpretation because of the non-annotated nature of the surviving copies, the cello suites were little known and rarely publicly performed until they were revived and recorded by Pablo Casals in the early 20th century. They have since been performed and recorded by many renowned cellists and have been transcribed for numerous other instruments; they are considered some of Bach’s greatest musical achievements.

Yo-Yo Ma performed the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites in its entirety – nearly three hours! – in London at The Proms concert to more than 5,000 people. And the reviews were fantastic: “Without doubt, we were in the presence of a great musician, and a great man. One to file in the concerts of a lifetime.”– BBC Music Magazine“
The cellist’s grand interpretation at Prom 68 would have left the composer astonished and incredulous.”– The Guardian

Yo-Yo Ma won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his performance of The six Cello Suites in 1985.

Malcolm Pardon (Roll The Dice) is back into the fold for his second solo album, "The Abyss". The album, which will be released on Leaf, is a meditation on the taboos that surround mortality in our culture, looking past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance. It"s also highly melodic and very beautiful.Malcolm has enlisted some remarkable creative talent around the project, including photographer Chris Shonting, designer Peter Ström and film-maker Oskar Wrangö.

Ludovico Einaudi returns to the piano, this time alone, for his first solo piano record of new material in 20 years, since I Giorni in 2001. Underwater was written with "songwriting, not composing. A fresh approach" in mind, which can be heard in its memorable melodies. Ludovico says "a song is like a breath, it needs nothing more. The album is a place to freely reflect, a place without boundaries."

Sealed copy!

Malcolm Pardon (Roll The Dice) is back into the fold for his second solo album, "The Abyss". The album, which will be released on Leaf, is a meditation on the taboos that surround mortality in our culture, looking past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance. It"s also highly melodic and very beautiful.Malcolm has enlisted some remarkable creative talent around the project, including photographer Chris Shonting, designer Peter Ström and film-maker Oskar Wrangö.

2017 pressing

Gold Vinyl. The first vocal album by beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru - profound and deeply moving home cassette recordings made amidst political upheaval and turmoil. These songs, recorded between 1977-1985, are different from anything previously released by the artist. Rich with the sound of birds outside the window, the creak of the piano bench, the thump of Emahoy's finger on the record button, they create a sense of place, of being near the artist while she records. Emahoy dreamt of releasing this music to a larger audience before her passing in March of 2023. We are proud to release this music, in collaboration with her family, now, in what would have been her 100th year. LP comes with a 16-page booklet full-color booklet. Gold cover first edition, pressed in both black and gold vinyl editions.

Limited to 666 copies, randomly inserted color! Deluxe Gatefold LP with exclusive scholarly liner notes by Alvin Lucia! Full dynamic range 2022 remasters direct from the first generation analogue master tapes! Limited to 666 copies – 222 (randomly inserted) ‘Revelation Red’ LPs / 222 (randomly inserted) ‘Mark Of The Beast’ Splatter LPs / 222 (randomly inserted) ‘Final Night’ Black LPs! Behold...

The dark, etheric carnival of broken Nashville delights - Deathly Oracular Visions, Cuckolds, Wastrels, Chain Gang Laments and Fiery Apocalyptic Fever-Dreams. Sometimes grim, often beautiful - this extraordinary collection of knowns and unknowns, battered Opry legends and forgotten backwoods-poets and preachers features tales of Tenement Tragedies, Vengeful Vegetation, Proselytizing Playground Philosophies, Windswept Abandonment and Deathbed Confessions. Originally waxed in often penurious amounts, these Troubled Troubadours sing of Fatal Infidelities, Aching Hypocrisies, Deep Dark Depressions, Penal Punishments, Flaming Prophecies and Rapturous Revelations.

Years in the making – ‘Hillbillies In Hell’ (13) presents 16 timeless tribulations - a Lovecraftian clutch of Ancient Terrors, Sinful Seductions, Grinding Poverty, Debilitating Disfigurement, Hell's Eternal Maze of Hardships and God's Blazing Light of Redemption.

A misty shroud of marginal 45s - some of these sides are impossibly rare and are reissued here for the very first time. All for your cautionary listening pleasure.

•see Little Richard Miller witness THE Fire Came Down! •hear Dee Mullins declare I AM THE Grass! •attest to Eddie Noack's brutal final fate in Barbara JOY!

American Pulitzer Prize winning composer and sound artist Ellen Reid is set to release "Big Majestic", an album of music written for her acclaimed GPS-enabled work of public art, "Ellen Reid Soundwalk", that reimagines urban parks as interactive soundscapes.

toechter is an all-female trio operating from Berlin. toechter’s 2nd full-length album »Epic Wonder« sees its classically trained members blend elaborate string arrangements with ethereal indie pop and delicate rhythms. Katrine Grarup Elbo, Lisa Marie Vogel and Marie-Claire Schlameus exclusively use analogue sound sources (such as violin, viola, cello, and their voices), which were then electronically processed.

Named after the Greek god of the wind, toechters 2022 album »Zephyr« exhaled deeply with concurrently invigorating and confusing sounds. »Epic Wonder«, their second album, was created in the spring and summer of 2023. Playing with forms and contours, the music sounds like the awakening of something new. One seems to be listening to an ongoing conversation, an exchange about what music could be, where it wants to go and how it contributes to our view of life. It all rests on a simple premise:

»Every sound you hear in our universe comes from us. The string trio is the core of toechter, the starting point of all our work.«

Fantas is the epic opening track on Caterina Barbieri’s acclaimed 2019 release Ecstatic Computation. The original Fantas laid out a magical path of patterns leading the listener on a journey into the sound itself. Fantas Variations maps out eight new potentials sprung from this initial path as constructed by a diverse mix of artists lending to a wide spectrum of new works extrapolated from the original work. For this project Barbieri invited friends and long time collaborators from a variety of musical backgrounds to create a more sustainable and inclusive landscape in terms of stylistic, geographical, gender and generational balance. The results are a diverse array of approaches and instrumentation which blur the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic.

Fantas Variations embraces a platform for mutual exchange and support between like-minded artists, where active and collective re-imagination is prioritised over the traditional model of remixes, which is often strategic, functional and more passive.

Longtime friend and collaborator Kali Malone rearranged Fantas to a slowed-down, austere and eerie version for two Organs. Evelyn Saylor created a piece for a vocal ensemble consisting of her, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin and Annie Garlid, joining forces to express the choral, psychedelic and vitalistic nature of the piece. Barbieri’s former guitar professor at the Conservatory in Bologna, Walter Zanetti, composes Fantas for electric guitar, by translating every single gesture of the original electronic piece into a personal, nuanced and detailed interpretation. Bendik Giske’s reinterpretation for Saxophone and Voice captures the atmospheric essence of Fantas and its psychic meteorology. Longtime collaborator and along with Barbieri the other half of the outfit Punctum, Carlo Maria, resynthesizes Fantas for Tr808 and Mc202, bringing a more club-oriented dimension of the piece to life whilst unveiling the sonic continuum between rhythm and pitch through a sensitive timbral approach. Jay Mitta’s Singeli reinterpretation of Fantas transpires with pitched-up percussion and turbo-fast polyrhythmic patterns unleashing the frenetic, shifting, transformative matter within the piece to a higher plain of euphoric dance. Baseck’s variation is a rave fantasia, where the prismatic trance of the original is channeled into fierce, uncompromising hardcore, whilst Kara-Lis Coverdale’s take is a phantasmagoria for piano that gently, yet inexorably, captures the relentlessness chimerical qualities of the original, unveiling its spectral backbone.

Wrwtfww Records is proud to announce the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada’s solo album from 1999, Tree of Life, available on vinyl for the first time ever in a new audiophile mix by the Japanese percussionist herself, and in full half-speed-mastered glory. The 180g LP comes in a heavy sleeve with a beautiful design by Kohei Sugiura. Tree of Life is also available in CD (digipack) and digital formats.

Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity.

The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios, with half speed cutting for the vinyl version, to ensure an audio presentation aligned with the Japanese pioneer’s vision.

This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, both available on Wrwtfww Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass.

Reflections is a recording of Sufjan Stevens' sixth collaboration with acclaimed ballet and dance choreographer Justin Peck. Originally composed for World Premiere and performances (May 17-26, 2019) by Houston Ballet, the piano duet was recorded at Oktaven Studios by Ryan Streber and performed by pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick. Reflections is imbued with Stevens' memorable and emotionally resonant melodies and arrangements and continues to establish Stevens as a contemporary composer.

Cover with stickers, otherwise VG+

Obliques presents Poème symphonique. Electronic music composer Jonathan Fitoussi revisits Symphony No. 1 “Titan” by Gustav Mahler as part of a world creation commissioned by Radio France. Concert recorded live in the large auditorium of La maison de la radio on November 18, 2023, Paris. Limited Edition clear vinyl LP - No Digital

Mit diesem Album bin ich nach meiner jahrelangen hauptsächlich elektronischen Produktionsweise noch einen Schritt weiter gegangen. Es ist diesmal rein akustisch, Klavier und Kontrabass. Daher auch der Name des Albums: "Off", alle Schalter stehen auf aus. Im Mittelpunkt steht mein Klavier, ein dänisches Kleinklavier der Firma Brødr. Jørgensen aus dem Jahre 1964. Ich habe es restauriert und teilweise prepariert, immer mit Filz, nah und intim aufgenommen. Ich habe versucht, alles so natürlich wie möglch einzufangen, um den Charakter dieses einzigartes Klaviers zu unterstreichen. Durch seinen organischen Klang und sein Eigenleben, sind ein paar unverwechselbare Stücke entstanden. Einige davon sind improvisiert, andere über die Zeit gewachsen.

Another first-time-on-vinyl release from Koko, Ballads For Bass Clarinet (previously a Japan-only CD) comprises a couple of waltzes, a blues, a Monk-ish suite-like piece, a free-ish drums and clarinet interlude, and finally an elegy to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

David Murray leads on bass clarinet, managing to go both deep and soaringly high; it sometimes sounds like two different instruments are being played. Backed by John Hicks (piano), Ray Drummond (bass) and Idris Muhammad (drums), Murray’s quartet is tight and the recording superb, with a warm and intimate sound.

Highly recommended.

180g vinyl, limted to 200 copies, including download code.

The corona pandemic slowed life down. No more gigs, clubs closed, festivals canceled. For me the chance to try new things and find a new way to make music. Without the club context, I was free in my mind. Making music right out of myself was a liberating feeling. I could do what had been dormant in me for a long time. There were attempts now and then, but in the end I couldn't get rid of the feeling of always doing techno. Nice too, but not everything for me. Many inspirations of my music come from artists such as Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, Yann Tiersen, Martin Kohlstedt, Poppy Ackroyd and many others, as well as nature, forest and city noises. And often from the instruments themselves. I switched my setup in the studio from the electronic to a minimalist instrument setup, just piano, double bass and a Moog synthesizer. I also like the background noise that comes from an instrument, like the hammers and dampers on the piano, the fingerboard and bow noises of the double bass. So I tried a lot of recording techniques and microphones until I found the sound I was looking for. After a few recordings, a number of pieces came together that went well together. I decided to finish it as an album. Some of them are one-takes with the associated imperfections, others are recorded and arranged layer by layer in the studio. I also used field recordings. A warm summer rain was the starting point for "Rain". The album will be released in May 2021 as a limited vinyl edition and digitally on my newly founded label "Feldeffekt".

Cover with ring wear. Vinyl close to VG+

still sealed. Cover has slight ring wear.