Major-Label Avant-Garde Classics: EMI Virgin EMI Virgin EMI

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Elliott Carter
Juilliard String Quartet
This title will be released on April 29, 2014.

Good to know. That reminds me of a question I want to ask on the Carter thread....

[snyprrr]

Yep...how did we miss that one?  . It's already available here in Europe, BTW (saw it last week in Berlin).

This was the earlier incarnation (sans the 5th SQ--not yet composed at the time--but avec the Duo for violin and piano).

woo hoo!! Yea, forgot about that classic SONY Carter. Now to come again!!

[snyprrr]

PHILIPS

1) Maderna Oboe Concertos 1-3 (Holliger)

2) Skalkottas 'Cycle' (Holliger)

3) Holliger/ Carter/ Veress (Holliger)

4) Lutoslawski

5) Berio

6) Honegger/ Martinu/ Martin (Holliger)

7) Percussions de Strasbourg Box

Ustvolskaya (the most extreme Philips cd???)

9) Vivier (another coup!)

10) Stravinsky Complete Works for Violin (Mustonen/ van Kuelen)

11) Webern String Quartets (Q. Italiano) CLASSIC!!

12) Lochenhaus Ed.- Schnittke SQ 2,... Schullhoff?,...

13) Busioni/ Madge Box- not the best reputation- but cool anyhow!

13) Reger...


I'm running out of steam here, help me out!

[Mirror Image]

I know. I have the Warner Teldec box. I still wish that there were more recordings of his orchestral works. Normally I don't care about having more than one or two recordings of a piece, but Ligeti's music can be so complicated that it helps to hear different interpretations.

There are plenty of orchestral recordings of Ligeti. I mean you have the Teldec box, the DG box, various recordings on Wergo, a new recording on Ondine (w/ Lintu and Schmid in the Violin Concerto), among others. Some composers, especially more unknown ones, are lucky to have more than one recording of even one their works. I think we should just be thankful instead of wishing there were more available. The CD medium has been very kind to Ligeti.

[kishnevi]

7) Percussions de Strasbourg Box

From what I can tell, Philips itself had nothing to do with those recordings--they all seem to be copyrighted by other members of the Universal Group.  The most frequent by far is Classics Jazz France, un label de Universal Music France.; there are also mentions of Erato (the original one,  I assume, not the substitute for Virgin) and Arion.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

PHILIPS [snypped...]
I'm running out of steam here, help me out!

A couple major Penderecki works (St. Luke Passion and Utrenja) were issued on Philips. But I think they were licensed from some Polish label.

I'm glad I held onto my Philips LPs. It's a little sad they're out of the recording biz now, subsumed in Decca.

[snyprrr]

From what I can tell, Philips itself had nothing to do with those recordings--they all seem to be copyrighted by other members of the Universal Group.  The most frequent by far is Classics Jazz France, un label de Universal Music France.; there are also mentions of Erato (the original one,  I assume, not the substitute for Virgin) and Arion.

I'm pretty sure the original Xenakis on there was on a Philips LP, but... mmm...

A couple major Penderecki works (St. Luke Passion and Utrenja) were issued on Philips. But I think they were licensed from some Polish label.

I'm glad I held onto my Philips LPs. It's a little sad they're out of the recording biz now, subsumed in Decca.

Philips has a few bizarre things out there,... and then... nothing!?! I'll give it a little while longer for the SONY-heads to catch up, but it looks as though Philips was just waaay to conservative to release too much Avant-Garde.

[not edward]

This one looks very welcome: the Double Concerto on this disc, never previously issued on CD, is widely regarded as the finest recording of the work.

[not edward]

I thought about it and Philips just doesn't have anything (for me) that is worth mentioning.
Not the case at all with Sony which has some releases that really changed me.

(i.e. several Boulez releases, Ligeti, Stockhausen .. )

Off the top of my head, there were some excellent Philips discs with Reinbert de Leeuw:
Vivier's Marco Polo pieces
Gubadulina's Perception and Jetzt immer schnee
Ustvolskaya's Composition I-III
Gorecki's Lerchenmusik and Kleines Requiem fur eine Polka

Also a good disc of Zimmermann concertos with Schiff, Holliger and Hardenberger.

[kishnevi]

I thought about it and Philips just doesn't have anything (for me) that is worth mentioning.

The question was not, did Philips have any "new music" releases worth mentioning.
The question was,  did they have any, regardless of the merits of the music/performance?

And going back over the Percussions de Strasbourg box,  I realized I must need new glasses, since at least of the third of the pieces have copyrights that refer to "prospective de 21eme siecle, Philips".  The Xenakis is only one of many.

[ritter]

Philips issued this (which I have in my collection  ), mentioned above by synprrr:



There's also AFAIK two Berio CDs (I don't know which one snyprrr meant):


(now avaialble from Newton Classics)


(I don't know this recording, alas)

[not edward]

(I don't know this recording, alas)

Looks like quite a significant recording; I've never heard Canticum Novissimi Testamenti II, but it seems to have been well-recieved, which certainly wasn't always the case with late Berio.

[ritter]

Looks like quite a significant recording; I've never heard Canticum Novissimi Testamenti II, but it seems to have been well-recieved, which certainly wasn't always the case with late Berio.

The "II" suffix has me a bit intrigued...I know Canticum Novissimum Testamenti from the Peter Rundel recording on Wergo, and really enjoyed the work...but neither the Centro Studi Luciano Berio (www.lucianoberio.org) nor Universal Edition list a Canticum Novissimum Testamenti II    ? ? ? ?

[snyprrr]

I thought about it and Philips just doesn't have anything (for me) that is worth mentioning.
Not the case at all with Sony which has some releases that really changed me.

(i.e. several Boulez releases, Ligeti, Stockhausen .. )

yea, i mean, I somewhat agree,... but you don't just love the Maderna/Holliger disc? But even if you don't, we must acknowledge that Philips (The Establishment) actually did lose their shit a couple of times and release something worthy (like edward and ritter just noted). But yea, Philips is in the tank when it comes to the Avant Garde (which is a pity because of their yummy sonics).

I always loved the Lutoslawski Oboe/Harp Concerto on Philips, very crisp ('The Essential Lutoslawski', chortle, remember??- or the original LPs from the library, ahhh).

So, do we move on to our next Super Major? Who can it be now??


So, just to recap- SONY, they've shown quite a commitment to at least do things consistently, Philips, not so much at all... neeexxxt...

[not edward]

The "II" suffix has me a bit intrigued...I know Canticum Novissimum Testamenti from the Peter Rundel recording on Wergo, and really enjoyed the work...but neither the Centro Studi Luciano Berio (www.lucianoberio.org) nor Universal Edition list a Canticum Novissimum Testamenti II    ? ? ? ?

From some digging, it appears that the II indicates that it was the revised version of 1991, rather than the original version of 1989 (which is no longer available for performance). This would probably explain why the II has been dropped from the title of the revised version.

I'm not sure what the differences between the two are.

[Cato]

Does Supraphon count as a major label?

[asin]B00000JK02[/asin]

Alois Haba's quarter-tone opera!

[snyprrr]

Does Supraphon count as a major label?

[asin]B00000JK02[/asin]

Alois Haba's quarter-tone opera!

Nooooo! silly... corporation t-shirt...

[snyprrr]

ok, on to DG (surely James approves! )

What's the single most iconographic DG Avant-Garde disc?

1) Abbado conducts Ligeti, Boulez, Rihm, Nono

Surely everyone remembers this one? It seemed like back in the Stoned Age (the '80s) this was the only disc by DG with any meat. Then, there's:

2) Abbado conducts Xenakis, Dallapiccola, Henze, Perezzani

...and finally:

3) Abbado conducts Nono, Furrer, Kurtag


Then there's the famous

4) Mutter plays Berg/Rihm

..beyond that...

5) Gubaidulina 'Offertorium'

6) Levine conducts Carter, Cage, Babbitt,...

Kurtag/Stockhausen


Then, of course, we have their budget series with the funky art-work:

7) Berio
Henze
9) Henze VC
10) Schoenberg Chamber Music (Atherton)***
11) BA Zimmermann
12)

oy, just too many to list. THEN we have the 20/21 Series:

Schnittke
Takemitsu (3-4)
Boulez
Lindberg

oh, it's making my head hurt. Obviously DG has had quite the commitment. Whatcha got?

[ritter]

Well, DG had loads of Stockhausen on LP, but the rights were bought by the Stockhausen Foundation, who now sell the CDs direct form the webpage (with excellent presentations, albeit at quite high prices  )...

But...you can still get some Stocky / DG albums in their original DG incarnations form ArkivMusic:







I got Samstag aus Licht this way, and am very happy with my purchase (which cost me about half as much as the SV edition).

As for Henze, there's of course this (including all the DG / Henze albums --AFAIK).

Quite beautifully produced (with the individual CDs reproducing the original artwork of the LPs or CDs--e.g. Ondine under Knussen).

And this "Complete Works" (or "Work-in-progess", as the back cover has it  ):

Very high production standards, and a collection that (even if you own almost everything that it includes in previous incarnations, as is my case) stresses the unity and at the same time the remarkable evolution of Boulez's music over 60 years of composing (and contains the only available recording of Improvisé - Pour le Dr. Kalmus  --OK, it's just a miniature piece, but still  )... But complete it is not  : apart from the withdrawn pieces (Polyphonie X or Poésie pour pouvoir--available elsehere--), some published works like the fanfare Initiale, or the orchestration of Ravel's Frontispice, or lesser-known opuses (e.g. the incidental music to J.-L- Barrault's staging of Thus spoke Zarathustra), are sadly missing form this set...

[petrarch]

1) Abbado conducts Ligeti, Boulez, Rihm, Nono

Love that one. Got it for the Ligeti when it came out, but the Rihm made such a lasting impression that I had to get everything I could put my hands on from that composer.

There is also this, though I prefer the Arditti/Richard version:



The budget series has too many good releases to list...

And this "Complete Works" (or "Work-in-progess", as the back cover has it  ):

But complete it is not  : apart from the withdrawn pieces (Polyphonie X or Poésie pour pouvoir--available elsehere--), some published works like the fanfare Initiale, or the orchestration of Ravel's Frontispice, or lesser-knowkn opuses (e.g. the incidental music to J.-L- Barrault's staging of Thus spoke Zarathustra), are sadly missing form this set...

Also missing are the two musique concrète Études he composed at the GRM (also available elsewhere)...