SYLVANO BUSSOTTI (b.1931): Lachrimae for Voice and Piano, MAURO BOTORLOTTI (1926-2007): Shatten and Ein Spiel for Soprano and Piano, MARCELLO ABBADO (b.1926): Vocalizzo sopra "Ma se mi toccano dov'è il mio debole" dal Barbiere di Siviglia for Female Voice and Piano, FRANCO DONATONI (1927-2000): ...ed inseime bussrono for Female Voice and Piano, CATHY BERBERIAN (1928-1983): Stripsody for Solo Voice, GILBERTO BOSCO (b.1946): ...im Traume for Soprano and Piano, RICCARDO PIACENTINI (b.1958): An Mozart for Soprano, Piano and String Quartet.

Description: Volume 4 of this fascinating series includes some classics of the avant garde repertory - most notably perhaps Kathy Berberian's notorious compendium of vocal effects, Stripsody (1966), originally conceived as her own solo vehicle and here reinterpreted from the indications and symbols of the score, in the light of Berberian's own recordings. Bussotti's tumultuous Lachrimae of 1978, with piano, voices and language itself treated as sources of every conceivable kind of sonic raw material - prepared, extended, fragmented and frenziedly recombined. And Donatoni's rigorously structured and controlled, yet anarchic ...ed insieme bussarono, sounding for all the world like a cut-up collage of piano and vocal material, but performed live. The two lieder by Bortolotti are considerably closer to conventional song traditions, with a quasi-impressionistic piano accompaniment. Bosco borrows gestures from Schumann's Dichterliebe as an anchoring element in a reimagining of the original like a distorted dream. Abbado's Vocalise reduces the voice to single syllables and hummed vocalisations, while the piano is similarly treated, through various forms of direct contact on the strings (but no conventional playing) to a similar destructuring of its usual role. The Piacentini breaks down and restructures texts and music of Mozart, treating them as modular building blocks to be recombined in various perspectives (sometimes overlain by 'photo-sounds' - that is, recorded 'found' material), in a playful sonic collage. Italian/German-English texts. Duo Alterno, Penderecki String Quartet.