Franco Donatoni - In cauda, Portrait, Duo pour Bruno (Tamayo)
Avant-Garde, Contemporary Classical| FLAC (Tracks, No LOG, covers) | 318 MB | 71:36 | Label: Stradivarius | Released 2000 | RAR 3% Rec. |megaupload

Franco Donatoni is one of the composers schooled in Darmstadt with Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Nono and Barraque under Oliver Messiaen. Compared with this group, his music is not well represented by performers. I do not understand why. Donatoni is an excellent composer and was as prolific as Boulez or Nono. If you enjoy the work of any of the Darmstadt composers, I suggest that you would enjoy hearing Donatoni.

Donatoni creates clear textures within complex music, creating something that is (or was) definitely avant garde, while also not unnecessarily complex. Donatoni is more reserved than Stockhausen, Nono or Barraque, but less intellectual than Boulez. I admire his ability to create a situation, wherein one finds as much going on as in Boulez, but with a sharpness of contrast between the parts that is excellently clear, yet not vulgar or blunt; it is graceful but obvious.

The performances here are excellent. Arturo Tamayo, a student of Boulez in conducting, gives extreme care to the clarity of the orchestra, like Boulez. The intonation is impeccable, the chords finely balanced, the counterpoint melodic and studied. Tamayo may be slightly colder in performance than Boulez (accentuating what people usually complain about in Boulez recordings), but these performances are definitely moving. 'Portrait,' a work featuring harpsichord soloist Elizabeth Chonjnacka, shows fine contrasts between the sections. The orchestra is wonderful.

This is a live recording, and some of the recording equipment or settings could have been better. Occasionally there is mild distortion in loud sections and sometimes there is a 'hum' from one of the settings on the soundboard being up too high in the quiet sections. This is the major downfall of the recording.

However, the performances and the compositions are so excellent, that I must recommend that you snatch up this one. These are works that you might not hear if you pass this recording up, and that would be a pity. Donatoni wrote some of the best music of the second half of the twentieth century.
By Steven Rice

Christian Wolff - Wolff Edition 3: Tilbury Pieces (Complete), Snowdrop [mode74]
Avant-Garde, Contemporary Classical | EAC | APE (IMG+CUE, No LOG, scans) | 171 MB | 58:36 | Label: mode74 | Released 1999 | RAR 3% Rec. | Filefactory, megaupload

At 65-years old in 1999, Christian Wolff is enjoying a renewed interest in his work, with many performances of his music worldwide. The works on this disc, volume 3 of Mode's Christian Wolff Edition, belong to his minimalist, and open-form, styles.

The Tilbury pieces (1969-70) are named for the pianist John Tilbury, whom Wolff had recently met at that time. Snowdrop (1970), from the same period, was named for the snowdrops among the earliest Spring flowers found in the Vermont countryside where Wolff lives. They attempt to integrate a systematic way of writing with chance and the excitement of early minimalism from Riley, Glass and Reich along with their English counterparts Hobbs, Smith, Nyman and White. A reaction against Serialism, their sound motifs come in fixed cycles, now and again two or more sounds appear at the same time, coincide and collide, making chords.

Tilbury 5 was written 25 years later at the request of the performers Dahinden, Kleeb and Polisoidis to extend the Tilbury set.

Roland Dahinden, a master of extended techniques for the trombone, is in demand as both a new music and jazz trombonist as well as a composer. He has often performed with Anthony Braxton. He has recorded for Black Saint and as a duo with new music specialist Hildegard Kleeb for Hat Art.