Variations V (1965) 47:13
NDR-Hamburg German Television version 1966 (mono, PCM audio)
with introduction by Hansjörg Pauli

Musicians: John Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma
Choreography: Merce Cunningham
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company: Merce Cunningham, Carolyn Brown, Barbara Lloyd, Sandra Neels, Albert Reid, Peter Saul, Gus Solomons, Jr.
Filmed Projections & Visual Effects: Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik
Lighting: Beverly Emmons
Directed for Film by Arne Arnbom

Variations V (1965) 39:37
Paris version 1966 (stereo, PCM audio only)
Musicians: John Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma

Variations V reflects the experimentation and spirit of the 1960s — a collaborative, interactive multi-media event with choreographed dance, elaborate mobile decor, variable lighting, multiple film projection, and live-electronic music often activated by the dancers’ movements.

Filmed in 1966 at the NDR television studio in Hamburg, Germany, it is historically important as one of the few available films of a Cunningham Dance Company performance from the 1960s and the first commercial release of Variations V.

As the dancers performed on stage, their movements interacted with twelve antennas built by Robert Moog and a set of photocells designed by Bell Labs research scientist Billy Klüver in such a way as to trigger the transmission of sounds to a 50-channel mixer whose output was heard from six speakers around the hall. The actual sound sources—a battery of tape recorders and radios—were supervised by Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma. The mise-en-scène was supplemented by a film collage by Stan VanDerBeek that included processed television images by Nam June Paik and footage of the dancers shot by VanDerBeek during rehearsals.

157 minutes of video and music.

• 7 Joyous Flashes

• Concerto for Housekeeper

• Short Piano Piece IV

• Short Piano Piece IX

• Short Piano Piece XIII

• Flux & Form No. 2 (solo)

• Flux & Form No. 2 (3 versions mixed)

• Pulse: a ‘Keyboard Dance’/C Major Chord

• “perfect” (on the strings)

This man and his work represent the real “speculum musicae” of the past forty years. The example of his music embodies a lifelong commitment to an integral radicalism. . . . this is a venerable tradition that Philip has written so eloquently about, and continued in his music. A tradition that stems from “Charlie” Ives through John Cage and Lou Harrison. All of these composers would ultimately admonish us to do one thing: to open our ears—and LISTEN! —Peter Garland

Perhaps the single most striking quality of Corner’s piano music, beyond the pleasure of the music, is the crystal clarity of the concepts. Corner moves purposefully from deep musical thought via these concepts to highly pianistic compositions with a broad range of affect, much as Bach moves from his deep music via contrapuntal forms to the unfolding of his keyboard works. There is love for the piano, and in recording the works, and, in relationship to it, the choice mastering techniques for each work. There he was joyful. —Charlie Morrow

When Philip plays the piano he always makes me imagine that music is a single great continuum, and that we always live in all of it. We may hear it a portion at a time, but we always live in all of it. I am moved by the ease with which he leads me from here to here to here, each different, always NOW, always familiar, always remembered, yet unexpected, like watching the change, return and passing of the seasons. In addition to making music, he shows me the reasons for making music. —Henry Martin

Always there is the presence of touch as play upon, within, around the piano; his playing, the keyboard and frame of instrument singing, of fingers, palms, arms and body, whole . . . by touch releasing, through gesture sounding, and always mind/sense being one . . . The piano thereby is transformed, qualities of percussion and human voice all possible, extended and endlessly fulfilled with nuances of articulation and resonance. —Malcolm Goldstein

• The Viola in My Life (1970)
• False Relationships and the Extended Ending (1968)
• Why Patterns? (1978)

The music on this recording (reissued from CRI CD 620) illustrates the essential integrity of the work of Morton Feldman (1926–1987) and one of its fundamental strengths-its continuously unfolding unanimity of purpose. There are few composers of his generation whose first and last published work (in Feldman's case Journey to the End of Night of 1949 and Piano and String Quartet of 1986) span youth and final years with such a concentrated viewpoint.

There are, however, landmarks in the music of Feldman that are largely technical and notational. There are the graphic pieces, the first from 1950 and the last from 1964, in which some parameter of composition is not specified (often pitch). There are the "free duration pieces," both solo and ensemble, in which there is instruction either for sections of the piece or for its entirety. False Relationships and the Extended Ending (1968) is a late example of this kind, although Why Patterns? (1978) is a variant of the principle. There are also the conventionally notated works in his oeuvre, one of which is The Viola in My Life (1970).

It may be that Feldman's music will always strike a certain kind of listener as idiosyncratic-a denial of the time-honored ways in which music articulates itself. I think that Feldman was deeply offended by this response, by this notion that his music was singular because it was, as some might say, "missing something." Though it is true that his values of graduation can be exceedingly fine, when one enters this scale and comprehends it, something truly new and wonderful opens up in the art of music-a world in which the relative and the absolute become engaged with themselves.

• Chansons pour le corps (1988–1994) for chanteuse and 5 instruments with recorded memories
• Et si tout entière maintenant ... (1986–1987) Symphonic tale/Conte symphonique/Symphonische Dichtung for actress, tapes & orchestra

With recent releases on John Zorn's Tzadik label among others, Luc Ferrari is enjoying a well deserved renaissance. After studies with Messiaen and formative visits to Darmstadt in the '50s, Ferrari (born Paris, 1929), with Pierre Schaeffer, was one of the co-founders of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1959. In the sixties he worked with the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris and made the first French television documentaries on new music, between 1964-69, he taught in Cologne, Stockholm and Amiens. His pioneering electroacoustic music has evolved through installations to sound art and eventually to the hörspiel (radio play), making him one of the most unique and creative voices in music. This CD marks the first release in a series of Luc Ferrari's music on Mode Records.

The works on this disc show a combination of his musique concréte and instrumental styles. The point of departure for Chansons pour le corps was a series of spontaneous interviews with women on the subject of the female form, which Ferrari recorded in the Jardin du Luxembourg. It's a great image, a young woman out for a Sunday afternoon stroll approached by a man wondering if she might allow him to record her talking about various intimate parts of her body! The interviewees were invited to speak about their eyes, hands, breasts and sex, and those who accepted did so with extraordinary candor. Novelist and radio presenter Colette Fellous was then asked to write texts based on the tapes. These were set for soprano and ensemble and interspersed with extracts from the original interviews. Ferrari states: ".the interpretation of the Chansons could be very simple, in a voice without vibrato, paying special attention to the words and their meaning."

Et si tout entiére maintenant, a "symphonic tale" for voice, orchestral sound, and tape is an extraordinary and unique work. The orchestral score was performed, recorded, and then treated electronically in Ferrari's studio; though the orchestra is never deformed beyond all recognition. This is incorporated into the piece along with authentic sounds of the Swedish icebreaker and its crew, and Fellous' spoken text. What results is typical Ferrari genre-blending, inhabiting a region somewhere between fact and fiction, documentary and poetry, orchestral and electronic music. The text can be at times straightforward, at times tantalizingly ambiguous -dare we imagine some sort of sexual intrigue between the woman and the captain as well as the pilot? Fellous juxtaposes first and third person narrative, direct and reported speech, in a manner analogous to Ferrari's masterly mix of composed music and recorded sound. Fellous says: ".(Ferrari) asked me to board the dream and tell him the story. So we set to work. He brought me sounds, I brought him texts. A rhythm was born. In such a way we tangled, untangled, mixed noises and words, fiction and reality, and from this came a symphonic tale whose sensual warmth tries to turn back the cold."

• Visage 2 (1955–1956) for brass and percussion
• Après presque rien (2004) for fourteen instruments and two samplers
• Madame de Shanghai (1996) for three flutes and digitally stored sounds

Although not as well known as some of his composer colleagues in France, Luc Ferrari (1929-2005) was a remarkable French composer who distinguished himself with a wide variety of works from traditionally notated compositions for conventional instruments to indeterminate scores, improvisations, experimental tape works, radio pieces, films and multimedia installations. This CD, Mode Records’ second disc featuring music by Ferrari, vividly confirms this fact.

• Après presque rien (after almost nothing) is an unusual, moody musical reaction to Ferrari’s series of six Presque rien works spanning more than three decades of his career (1967-2001), conceived for tape recorder and displaying Ferrari’s concept of “anecdotal” music and love of nature. Après presque rien is a vivid instrumental work interspersed with a broad range of taped environmental sounds. It was a special commission from the avant-garde band Art Zoyd, Musiques Nouvelles and CCMIX.

• Visage 2 for two trumpets, trombone, tuba, piano and six percussionists (on this disc) is the second piece in a five-part series of works carrying the same title and spanning the period between 1955 and 1959. While most of the works in this series reflect Ferrari’s fascination with serialism, Visage 2 is a physical confrontation of two sexual bodies, telling gestures with notes, rhythms and instruments.

• Madame de Shanghai blends flute sounds with field recordings from the Asian commercial center of Paris (Avenue d’Ivry), including Chinese and Vietnamese voices. At the end of this piece, Ferrari features the voice of Orson Welles, who directed the 1947 film noir The Lady of Shanghai and acted the lover of “The Lady of Shanghai” (Rita Hayworth). Ferrari says “… I can say that this “dramatic comedy” is a bit of a tribute to the film by Orson Welles.”

• Liner notes by Sabine Feisst and Luc Ferrari.

Luc Ferrari

• Ephémère (1974) new version for viola & tape by Brunhild Ferrari (2012)

Brunhild Ferrari

• Le Piano Englouti (2012) version for viola & tape

Vincent Royer – Luc Ferrari

• Pour que le vent soit propice (2011) based on “Ce qu’a vu le Cers” (1978) by Luc Ferrari

… a release in which Royer almost completely dissolves into Ferrari’s tapes. … If it hasn’t been evident already, Royer is one of the best Ferrari proponents around. — Grant Chu Covell, lafolia.com, November 2015

This album tells stories of the wind, the ocean and a village feast in the southern France … The listener is led into a poetic journey about freedom and impermanence. It brings together three Ferrari-related works: by Ferrari himself, by Ferrari’s wife Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari and an improvisation by Royer to one of Ferrari’s soundscapes.

Luc Ferrari was very interested in collaboration. New music violist Vincent Royer began collaborating with Ferrari following their meeting in
2001.

Regarding Éphémère (1974), Ferrari wrote: “This musical piece – which, as its name says, is based on the effects of the sea – is intended
for musicians open to all types of music. As the name says too, this tape has been conceived as a snap of time.” In 2012 Brunhild Ferrari realized this new version for Royer’s viola.

Brunhild Ferrari’s Le piano englouti (“The Sunken Piano”) is a tape piece comprised of recorded and processed sounds. The sounds were recorded over fourteen years, at a Greek island almost swallowed by the noisy Aegean Sea, and in 2010, at a very discreet and silent Japanese
island. Originally composed to accompany a piano, as in Debussy’s work of the same name, this version is arranged for Royer’s viola.

The Royer/Ferrari Pour que le vent soit propice uses Ferrari’s tape piece “Ce qu’a vu le Cers” as the basis for a viola & electronics
improvisation. This live recording captures the special mood of the intimate concert surroundings it was recorded at.

• Bass Song
• Over and Under
• Work for 4
• Space Between
• Body Music
• Departure

Body Music is music for Ellen Fullman’s unique Long String Instrument, an eighty-foot long instrument with approximately eighty strings. Fullman has been developing this instrument for longitudinally vibrating long strings over the past thirteen years. Having received a BFA in sculpture, her interest in music began with the resonance of materials used in making sculpture. When she started making the Long String Instrument, she saw it as “sculpture as music;” now she has come full circle in conceiving “music as sculpture.” For the most part, the music in Body Music relies harmonically on the diatonic scale. Because of the prominence of overtone content, more complex harmony is suggested. Through her studies of extended harmony, Fullman has come to realize that harmony is “dimensional.”

“Five more astonishing compositions on long string sculpture-instruments, including the marvelously flowing Work for 4, performed on a 145-foot-long string installation, already a modern classic. Space Between surprisingly produces some sounds normally associated with electronic music, and Body Music suggests a kind of celestial Delta-blues with its bar chording technique. A CD that will appeal to many listeners. – “Blue” Gene Tyranny

• Epigraphs in the Time of AIDS – Pauline Oliveros
• TexasTravelTexture – Ellen Fullman

• paradis (2013) für zwei Klaviere
• Harry’s Dream (2012) für 33 Gläser und Stimmen
• Bagatellen & Studien (2000–2012) für Klavier

In einem fiktiven Traum lässt uns Cicero von der Milchstraße aus – als dem Wohnsitz der entkörperten Seelen – auf die kreisenden Planeten blicken und die dadurch entstehende Sphärenharmonie hören. Auch die Ideenwelt des amerikanischen Komponisten Harry Partch geht geht bis auf Anschauungen der Antike zurück. Er erfand ein System der reinen Stimmung, das auch „Harry’s Dream“ zugrundeliegt. Dreiunddreißig Musikerinnen und Musiker spielen jeweils einen einzelnen Ton auf einem centgenau eingestimmten Weinglas. So bilden sie zusammen ein Super-Instrument, dessen Klänge sich um den Zuhörer bewegen, dichter und wieder transparenter werden, sich beschleunigen und wieder verlangsamen. Durch gelegentliches Mitsummen oder -singen wird der Klang gefärbt und verdichtet. Die kosmische Thematik von „Harry’s Dream“, die reine Stimmung und das ungewöhnliche Instrumentarium stehen im größten Gegensatz zur Intimität der Werke für Klavier, dem klassischen Instrument der temperierten Stimmung. In „paradis“ vereinen sich zwei Klaviere zu einem fragilen Klangbild, in dem auch die Klopfgeräusche der Klavierhämmer ein zentrales Klangelement bilden. Nur an zwei Stellen blüht der Klavierklang für einen Moment auf. Es bleibt das Nachbild einer Schönheit zurück, von der man nicht sicher sein kann, ob es sie wirklich gegeben hat.

• An Hour for Piano (1971)

A trance music piece made up of repeating 4/4 cells in which an absolutely steady eighth-note motion predominates. Often several cells are going on simultaneously, and one cell frequently mutates into another through the addition or subtraction of a note or two. One has to step back far enough to get a perspective on the large-scale shifts in density and tonality before the impact of An Hour for Piano can be felt. Frederic Rzewski plays very percussively throughout, giving the piece an intense forward motion.

CD booklet includes Tom Johnson's, “Program Notes to be read while hearing An Hour for Piano,” and an essay by Kenneth Goldsmith, “An Hour of Tom Johnson.”