Darmstadt Aural Documents

Box 1 (6 CDs): Composers – Conductors

Composers conducting their own works:
Boulez, Brown, Brün, Cârneci, Finnissy, Fortner, Furrer, Kagel, Kalitzke, Krenek, Leibowitz, Maderna, Mihály, Müller-Hornbach, Otte, Platz, Pousseur, Stiebler, Stockhausen, Trojahn
Details

Box 2: John Cage – Communication

“Late summer, 1958. For the first time the American composer John Cage attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, held this year in Heiligenberg Castle in Jugenheim. As so often in those years, he was accompanied by the pianist David Tudor, and together they gave the European premieres of his Music for Two Pianos, Winter Music and Variations I, along with several works by other composers, including Earle Brown’s Four Systems.

Moreover, Cage held three lectures on the subject of Composition as Process: Changes (6 September), Indeterminacy (8 September) and Communication (9 September). Each of these lectures, called “studios” in the Darmstadt programme, was flanked by Tudor playing various piano pieces, among them Cage’s Music of Changes, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI, Christian Wolff’s For Piano with Preparations and Bo Nilsson’s Quantitäten. The lecture texts and live performances respectfully intertwine, neither disturbing nor influencing each other. The pauses in the one form the open spaces for the actions of the other.” (Stefan Fricke in the CD booklet)
Details

Box 3: Ensembles
Details

Box 4: Pianists
Details