IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001): XAS, ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR (b.1959): Lamentatio, GEORG KATZER (b.1935): Wie ein Hauch...doch manchmal, FABIEN LÉVY (b.1968): Durch, OLGA NEUWIRTH (b.1968): Ondate, GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923-2006): 6 Bagatelles.

Description: The Ligeti Bagatelles are early, very appealing, tonal, somewhat Bartókian pieces, originally adapted by the composer from piano pieces for wind quintet and arranged with the composer's blessing for saxophone quartet. Tüür's Lamentatio was composed after the composer narrowly avoided a tragic ferry accident in 1994, and this is reflected in the work's somber atmosphere, with drifting, echoing lines of sound and lonely lamenting calls forming a desolate sonic landscape. Katzer's 'Like a breath ... yet sometimes' consists of ambiguous fragments, some explicitly tonal, others dissonant, still others breathing or key-click noises. These form patterns which constantly shift and evolve kaleidoscopically. Levy's piece has a lively, quasi-minimalistic patterned developmental process, interrupted by a slower section in which more difuse patterns (involving clicks and breath sounds as well as played notes) seem to be striving to assert themselves. The Neuwirth is a complex assemblage of layers, often of ambigiuous pitch and very free rhyhtm, which build into a fluid, plastic texture, with more familar eements embedded and then discarded along the way. Xenakis' piece (the title is 'SAX' mirror-inverted) is tightly organised and not especially dissonant or confrontational by this composer's standards, with rich chordal writing throughout and suggestions of primitive-soundign melodies. The structure is interrupted by improvisational passages several times, then resumed in dense accordion-like textures wth very little in the way of solo lines. sonic.art.