Charles Wuorinen

'Earle Brown: A Life in Music Vol. 6' is the eagerly-awaited final installment in a unique series: the 18 LPs of Earle Brown's legendary Contemporary Sound Series, recorded between 1960 and 1973, have become a rarity in great demand since the series was discontinued in 1978. These rare and historically important recordings have been carefully digitised and remastered by the Earle Brown Music Foundation. The complete series is now available in six 3-CD boxes by WERGO.

CD 1 contains works by John Cage and Christian Wolff from the early 1960s: In Cage's “Cartridge Music”, sounds are generated by inserting different objects in the pick-up head of the gramophone. Due to their composition structure, Wolff's works “Duo for Violinist and Pianist”, “Summer” and “Duet II” have in common that no interpretation is identical with the next one.

CD 2 presents the outstanding violinist Paul Zukofsky, brilliantly accompanied by the pianist Gilbert Kalish, performing works by George Crumb, Isang Yun, Charles Wuorinen and John Cage which make extremely high demands on the performer.

CD 3 contains works by the South American composers Gerardo Gandini, César Bolaños, Marlos Nobre, Oscar Bazán, Manuel Enríquez and Alcides Lanza, performed by the New Sound Composers-Performers Group under the direction of Alcides Lanza.

Combining the best of the old and new with world premiere recordings, Sono Luminus is proud to announce the first of three upcoming albums from world renowned pianist Bruce Levingston. Levingston has created programs inspired by literature, the elemental aspects of light and dark, and the power of intimate sound.

The CD Heart Shadow contains three major piano works inspired by literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including world premiere recordings of works by two of the most outstanding composers of our time: Rome Prizewinner Lisa Bielawa and Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Wuorinen. The inspiration for Bielawa’s sweeping and emotionally charged “Elegy-Portrait” comes from a work of Rainer Maria Rilke; Wuorinen’s deeply touching and introspective “Heart Shadow” derives its genesis through by a novella by Salman Rushdie. These exquisitely wrought and powerful new works, both written by leading composers of their generation, are heard alongside Robert Schumann’s brilliant and beloved masterpiece, “Kreisleriana”, a work also inspired by the world of letters, E.T. A. Hoffmann’s magical Katur Murr. Heard together, in elegant and richly colored interpretations by pianist Bruce Levingston, these three dark and magnificent piano works reflect the deep influences that great music and writing continue to have upon one another.

Pianist Bruce Levingston is one of today’s leading figures in contemporary music. Many of the world’s most important composers have written works for him and his world premiere performances of their works Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center have won notable critical acclaim. The New Yorker describes him as ““elegant and engaging”, “a poetic pianist who has a gift for inventive— and glamorous— programming”, while The New York Times calls his performances ““graceful”, “dreamy” and “hauntingly serene”.

Mr. Levingston has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in concerts and music festivals throughout the world and his performances have been broadcast internationally on radio and television. His CD Portraits received high critical praise. Classics Today lauded his ““transcendent virtuosity” and “huge arsenal of tone color”” while Klassic Magazin noted his “warm playing, deep understanding and intimate, richly colored sound.” He is founder and artistic director of Premiere Commission, Inc., a non profit foundation that has commissioned and premiered over forty new works.

With these world premiere performances and Levingston’s stellar interpretation of the classics combined with the extremely well thought out programs, this and the albums to follow are sure to be treasures for piano enthusiasts, classical music lovers, new music aficionados, and the general listening public. The subsequent albums will follow in October and January. The October release, NIGHT BREAK (Liszt, Brahms, Rhim, Glass), will feature works of light and dark with a world premiere recording of Phillip Glass’ “Dracula Suite” transcribed by Bruce Levingston with Philip Glass’ supervision. The January release STILL SOUND (Pärt, Satie, Gross, Schubert, Chopin, Bolcom) is an album of intimate works featuring world premiere recordings of Pulitzer Prize-winner William Bolcom’s “New York Lights” written for Bruce Levingston, and Augusta Gross’ new works inspired by Satie and Pärt.

Charles Wuorinen’s staggeringly prolific output has been remarkably consistent yet tremendously varied. This disc presents the first commercial recordings of three recent pieces, together with the First String Quartet, a watershed work in the composer’s career. Wuorinen’s personal musical language is unabashedly modernist yet imbued with a love of early polyphony, and makes virtuosic demands on the performers. This spritely, sometimes elusive, often ‘maximalist’ music invites multiple interpretations and hearings to reveal the riches deep beneath its sparkling, ever-shifting surface.

Like all of Wuorinen’s music from the past three decades, the duos on this recording take the long view of musical history and align themselves not only with its expressive traditions, but much more importantly, with its secure and sustained future. The spare utterance of those works of the great European tradition that are composed for only two musicians, leave no margin for error: all is exposed when writing for two contrasting instruments. These duos, spanning slightly more than a quarter century of Wuorinen’s oeuvre, never lapse in their intensity and invention. They display an impressive fecundity of sources and outward forms.