In stock
CD
Christian WOLFF
“A complete anthology of solo and duo violin pieces”
Black Truffle is pleased to announce its second release from New York violin duo String Noise (Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris), following on from their self-titled double-disc collection of compositions by Alvin Lucier (BT061). Here they present A Complete Anthology of Solo and Duo Violin Pieces by legendary American experimental composer Christian Wolff. The youngest and in some ways most radical of the composers of the New York School (alongside Brown, Cage, and Feldman), Wolff has ceaselessly rethought his approach throughout the seven decades of his composing career, moving from early experiments in radical reduction through indeterminacy, improvisation, and leftist political engagement to reach the limpid lyrical fragments of his most recent music.
Beautifully recorded across two days by Ryan Streber with Wolff in attendance, String Duo’s complete anthology of Wolff’s work for violin solo and duo covers the entirety of the composer’s career, from his earliest published work to a major new work written for this recording (presented in a tasteful non-chronological sequence). Written by the teenaged Wolff in 1950 during his brief period studying with Cage, Duo for Violins is a beautifully austere experiment in extreme reduction, using only three chromatically adjacent pitches without octave transpositions. Exploring the possible permutations of the limited material passing slowly between the two violins, the work prefigures the incessant worrying at small intervals of late Feldman works such as For Philip Guston or—fittingly—For Christian Wolff. This recording also presents premiere recordings of two other short duo pieces from the same year, recently rediscovered by Wolff in his papers, which use similarly reduced materials in a livelier, more dynamic manner.
Moving forward to the 1970s, the solo pieces Bread and Roses and The Death of Mother Jones belong to the period in which Wolff was drawing on political music, in this case two early 20th century songs that celebrate women labour activists. In both, arrangements of the traditional melodies are followed by a series of technically demanding free variations in a modernist style. The lyricism of these pieces is carried into the more fragmented, elusive works of the 90s onward. In the beautiful Six Melodies Variation (1993), written in tribute to Cage, fragments of Cage’s Six Melodies dissolve into anthemic snatches of the music of 18th century American composer William Billings (whose music Cage used in Apartment House 1776 and other works). The sixteen Small Duos for Violinists (2021) explore the radically disjunctive style of recent major Wolff works such as Long Piano (Peace March 11), where short ‘patches’ varying in style, density, and notation system are places next to each other without clear concern for conventional compositional principles. Here the individual duos range in length from a few seconds to just under two minutes, in energy from near stillness to churning rhythm, and in harmonic content from crystalline consonance to thorny dissonance. Including pieces inspired by the work of Rameau and Satie, like much of Wolff’s later music, the Small Duos manage to be at once lyrically immediate and subtly challenging: as Philip Thomas has written, ‘Our ears are not used to such a sustained rate of change’.
Published in a stylish digipak including extensive liner notes and wonderful reproductions of a series of Wolff’s delicate abstract works in pencil, crayon, and water colour, A Complete Anthology of Solo and Duo Violin Pieces is both an important addition to the documentation of Wolff’s oeuvre and an accessible survey of the many facets of his innovative music.
14,50€
In stock
LP
Christian WOLFF
“Berlin Exercices”
Christian Wolff - piano, melodica + Ensemble Zwischentöne (Hans-Ulrich Altenkirch - Vibraphone. Ellen Fricke - Voice. Robin Hayward - Tuba. Rainer Killius - Contrabass recorder. Aleksander Kolkowski - Violin. Kurt König - Percussion. Annette Krebs - Guitar. Inge Morgenroth - Tenor Saxophone. Natalia Pschenitschnikowa - Flutes. Helles Weber - Accordion). Peter Ablinger - Artistic director. Bill Dietz - Liner notes.
“Exercise” indicates relatively shorter pieces in which the process of work, of practicing and of trying things out within specified limits, in short a kind of discipline in process, are being attempted. I regard them as both exercises in composing and for performers, especially as the performers function as members of an ensemble.” Christian Wolff
Original price was: 22,00€.14,00€Current price is: 14,00€.
Out of stock
CD
Christian WOLFF
“Ten exercises”
“Exercises 18 (two versions), 7, 16, 8, 14b, 3, 1, 15, 10 (two versions), 11”. Natacha Diels, Garrett List, Larry Polansky, Michael Riessler, Frederic Rzewski, Robyn Schulkowsky, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Christian Wolff. “This marvelous recording of these elusive works features composer-supervised performances by a hand-picked group of renowned new-music exponents”. “Your first encounter with the music of Christian Wolff leaves you with the impression you’ve just heard (or played, or read) something totally strange, unlike anything else you know. And yet, upon reflection, you realize it is at the same time something completely ordinary and normal, as familiar in its way as any number of repetitive actions characteristic of everyday life, getting up in the morning, going to school, work, church, washing the dishes, performing the daily tasks of home and family. Weird little tunes, sounding as if they had been beamed at some remote point in the universe and then bounced back again as a kind of intergalactic mutant music; recognizable melodic and rhythmic patterns, somehow sewn together in monstrous pairings, sometimes reminiscent of the demons of Hieronymus Bosch, composites of animals, fish, flowers, and common household objects: there is order, but also constant interruption, intrusions of disorderly reality upon regularity and lawfulness, combining to create an effect of both familiarity and strangeness: Shklovsky’s ostranenie. You could say this music is surrealist-not reproducing familiar forms, but revealing, behind these, life’s unpredictability. You could say it is political; improvisatory; concerned with collaborative, non-hierarchical forms of social organization; but you can’t really say what it is like (although John Cage came close when he said, after a performance of the Exercises in New York, that it was like the classical music of an unknown civilization).” Frederic Rzewski
15,00€
Out of stock
CD
Christian WOLFF
“Stones”
The score of “Stones” consists of just a few lines of text:
Make sounds with stones, draw sounds out of stones, using a number of sizes and kinds (and colours); for the most part discretely; sometimes in rapid sequences. For the most part striking stones wfth stones, but also stones on other surfaces (inside the open head of a drum, for instance) or other than struck (bowed, for instance, or amplified). Do not break anything. Christian Wolff, STONES, (from: Prose ColIection, 1968-74)
While these instructions contain an abundance of possibilities, they also exclude many things. The score describes a condition under which things may happen, not a process in which things develop.
Seven composers participated in the present realization by the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble: Antoine Beuger, Jürg Frey, Chico Mello, Michael Pisaro, Burkhard Schlothauer, Kunsu Shim und Thomas Stiegler.
For this performance, each prepared, independently of the others, between 10 and 20 events.The solutions, though compatible with the score, were unique. Michael Pisaro, for example, made drawings on stones, producing very gentle sounds. Burkhard Schlothauer sometimes drew a large stone across the floor. Jürg Frey decided, that a single sound might well last long time. Thus, 27 minutes of quietly rubbing two very uneven limestones, is considered as one event. Thomas Stiegler used a violin and violin bow as the surface upon which all of his events took place. Kunsu Shim began performing his nearly inaudible, subtle sounds only after about 55 minutes had elapsed.
While playing this CD you may forget, after a while, that it is playing. All of a sudden you might hear a little stone, sometime, somewhere. After an initial ,,What is that?", you’ll suddenly realize: ,,Oh yes, it’s the CD!".
10,00€
In stock
CD
Christian WOLFF
“Angelica music”
Apartment House with Andrew Sparling, clarinet, voice, Gordon MacKay, violin,
Ruth Ehrlich, violin, Bridget Carey, viola, Anton Lukoszevieze, cello, Philip Thomas, piano.
Music by Christian Wolff (1934). “Exercise 13” (1974), “Exercise 10” (1973/1974), “Duo 7” (2005), “Keyboard Miscellany: Variation on Morton Feldman’s Piano Piece 1952” (1988), “Duo For Violins” (1950), “Keyboard Miscellany
6” (1997), “Edges” (1968), “Keyboard Miscellany
12” (1997), “Winter Exercise” (2013), “Berlin Exercise” (2000).
13,50€
Out of stock
2 CD
Christian WOLFF
“Kompositionen 1950-1972”
“Finally I realized that the kind of sound made in an indeterminate situation includes what could result in no other way; for example, the sound of a player making up his mind, or having to change it. In fact, the indeterminate notation I’ve used is, as far as I know, the only possible one for the kind of sound I should like. And don’t forget, we also like to be surprised. and the rhythm produced by that situation is like no other rhythm.”
“Most of the pieces collected for this portrait of Christian Wolff document the composer’s early activity and were mainly recorded around the time of their composition. Each recording exemplifies the sound gestures from their time.”
“For Pianist”, 1959, Version 1 Frederic Rzewski. “Duo for Violinist and Pianist”, 1961, János Négyesy & Cornelius Cardew. “Lines für Streichquartett”, 1972, for stringquartet. “For Prepared Piano”, 1951 by Frederic Rzewski. “For Piano I”, 1952 Frederic Rzewski. “For 1, 2 or 3 People”, 1964 David Tudor. “Edges”, 1968 Gentle Fire. “For 1, 2 or 3 People”, 1964 by Nelly Boyd, Robert Engelbrecht, Jan Feddersen, Jens Röhm. “Stones” (aus Prose collection), 1968. “Suite (I)” for prepared piano, 1954 by Fuat Kent. “Duo for Violins, 1950 by Biliana Voutchkova, Daniella Strasfogel. “For Pianist”, 1959 by David Tudor. “For Piano I”, 1952 by David Tudor. “Suite (I)” for prepared piano, 1954. “Edges”, 1968 by Keith Rowe.
“Most of the pieces collected for this portrait of Christian Wolff document the composer’s early activity and were mainly recorded around the time of their composition. Each recording exemplifies the sound gestures from their time.”
“For Pianist”, 1959, Version 1 Frederic Rzewski. “Duo for Violinist and Pianist”, 1961, János Négyesy & Cornelius Cardew. “Lines für Streichquartett”, 1972, for stringquartet. “For Prepared Piano”, 1951 by Frederic Rzewski. “For Piano I”, 1952 Frederic Rzewski. “For 1, 2 or 3 People”, 1964 David Tudor. “Edges”, 1968 Gentle Fire. “For 1, 2 or 3 People”, 1964 by Nelly Boyd, Robert Engelbrecht, Jan Feddersen, Jens Röhm. “Stones” (aus Prose collection), 1968. “Suite (I)” for prepared piano, 1954 by Fuat Kent. “Duo for Violins, 1950 by Biliana Voutchkova, Daniella Strasfogel. “For Pianist”, 1959 by David Tudor. “For Piano I”, 1952 by David Tudor. “Suite (I)” for prepared piano, 1954. “Edges”, 1968 by Keith Rowe.
21,50€