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Given the character, drama, and strength of Ornstein’s music, a recording of his collected cello works has long been overdue. Ornstein himself considered these works to be among his most significant. In a conversation with Vivian Perlis he remarked, “Some day, if you get a chance, you really ought to study those Six Preludes for Cello and Piano. I believe, frankly, that it’s probably one of the best pieces of music that I’ve written, one of the soundest. I think if any music is going to last, I have a feeling that may be it.” Of the many works he composed for cello and piano, surprisingly, only the first Cello Sonata from 1919 and the Six Preludes from 1930 have ever been recorded. This is the first time that all of these works, four of which are world-premiere recordings, appear together on CD. - Label website

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This upload is the third release from Mode's Cage series that I've posted (the other two being 'Orchestral Works 2' and 'Roaratorio') and for my next several uploads, the Cage series is what I'll be focusing on. Starting with this release: a collection of Cage's choral works! For some reason or another, this disc is apparently hard to come by nowadays. For shame, too, because the music is beautiful. The first track, Four², is a personal favorite of mine; this is Cage at his most droningly meditative! 'ear for EAR (Antiphonies)' and 'Five' follow along this vein, as well. 'Four Solos', another standout, descends into downright eeriness at times, while 'Living Room Music' is quite catchy with its layers of repetitive speech over simplistic percussion. All I can say is that hopefully Mode will release a Choral Works II in the future!

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We were with Luc in early July 2005, when he was working with Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven and Vincent Royer on what would become his last recorded piece: a new version of Tautologos. We were there, insisting, filming the whole session. Luc: "The tape is 21 minutes long and there are three rules" and the piece got woven, piano and viola breaking down, starting anew in the opposite direction, discreetly stepping out, bandoneon, DX7, building themselves back as the night crept in. The air displacement of books being closed every two and a half minutes...the musicians in the darkness of the studio, absorbed, counting, Luc in the control room, not seeing the scene, simply focused on listening "while making mostly silence..." - Guy Marc Hinant, album booklet

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What is it that makes the Studies for Player Piano so important? To begin with, they manifest an incredibly thorough inventive and creative realization of countless new possibilities in the areas of rhythm, tempo, texture, polyphonic perception, and form, all of which will provide exciting challenges to composers, theorists and listeners alike for many decades to come. But more than this, the extraordinary quality and variety of his "investigations" are truly remarkable. On the one hand, there is enough in these pieces in the way of systematic intellectual organization to satisfy the most mathematically abstruse "constructivist". On the other hand, there is enough lyrical freedom, rhapsodic invention, and sheer fantasy to warm the heart of the most outrageously romantic "intuitionist". The music is at times austere, dry, cold-as-ice; at other times warm, passionate, explosively exuberant. And yet one has no sense of stylistic inconsistency or esthetic contradiction here. It is rather that these Studies explore a very wide range of formal and expressive realms. - James Tenney, album booklet

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"The third annual Shiraz arts festival was held that same year at Persepolis. In keeping with the 2500th national anniversary celebrations, the Shah commissioned Greek composer and computer music pioneer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) to write a piece of music exalting ancient Persia's aristocratic religious culture. Selecting Xenakis to author such a work could not have been more symbolically appropriate given the Shah's desire to modernize Iran. A central figure in the development of computer composition and contemporary music, this half-blind former architect, WWII resistance fighter and associate of Le Corbusier evolved a new approach to music, most notably one which employed mathematical probability functions ('Stochastics') as a compositional methodology. A staggeringly influential figure in twentieth century music, Xenakis' importance rangs alongside that of Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage." Album booklet

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"In his preface to A Finnegans Wake Gazetteer, Louis Mink says that the time for naïve enjoyment of Finnegans Wake is past. He says that now we are obliged to continue the scholarly unravelling of its mysteries. And an editorial in a magazine published at the Centre Pompidou says that the most urgent and important art work to be done now is to come to an analytical understanding of the art of the twentieth century. I don't agree. I think that we can still at unexpected moments be surprised by the beauty of the moon though now we can travel to it. And I think that the artists of the twentieth century who resist our understanding are the ones to whom we shall continue to be grateful. Besides Joyce there is Duchamp. And Satie whose work, though seemingly simple, is no less difficult to understand than that of Webern. Somewhere in the Wake Joyce says 'Confusium hold'em!' I hope that Roaratorio will act to introduce people to the pleasures of Finnegans Wake when it is still on the side of poetry and chaos rather than something analyzed and known to be safe and law-abiding." - John Cage, album booklet

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"Duality, contradiction, choice, freedom, anarchy - these are the themes animating John Cage's two Etcetera works. Multiplicity and mirrors are everywhere - multiplicity of performing options, multiplicity of ensembles, multiplicity of conductors. Tape music and live music; standard and unconventional notation; repetition and non-repetition. Each piece contains contradictory elements and the elements of each piece find their reflections in the other - sometimes corresponding, sometimes changing into their opposite. There is constant foot traffic on stage; the several conducted groups and soloists play simultaneously against each other. The sounds on the pre-recorded tapes which play throughout both compositions - made in the environment in which the pieces were written - become the sonic environments in which the live music is played." - Stephen Drury, album booklet

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The seven works presented here come mostly from Feldman's early period, dating from the late 1940's to the late 60's, and are considered by many to be "minor" Feldman. However, four of the works had never seen release before this album, making it a highly worthwhile listen for Feldman fans! The recording is somewhat dry and quiet, which is nothing that a good pair of headphones can't handle!