Mode Records

08/10/2024

MORTON FELDMAN's Complete Music for Cello and Piano reviewed in GRAMOPHONE by Peter Quantrill!

The title of Patterns in a Chromatic Field invites a visual analogy to the American school of abstract expressionism that sprang up in New York after the war. If we could train or at least encourage our ears to listen to Feldman the way we look at Rothko or de Kooning, we might come closer to the essence of the music. Cello and piano circle around each other, forming patterns and then decomposing them. They share a melody, and pause for thought over an element of it. This in turn leads them further away from, or back towards, the distinctive slithering motif that begins the piece.

Just because this form of expression takes place in time, it need not lead anywhere: this was John Cage’s discovery, and before him Erik Satie’s. Feldman learned from his friend Cage, and from the music of Webern, to build an interior world that rejects the need for continuity, or even pulse. Once we cease waiting for something to happen, Patterns becomes among the most eventful (action-packed would be pushing it) of Feldman’s long late pieces.

Compared to Rohan de Saram and Marianne Schroeder (hatART, 9/17), Stephen Marotto and Marilyn Nonken take a relatively flowing approach to tempo, not that they are in any hurry. Nonken has recorded Feldman’s piano output for the Mode label, and she understands this hermetic world from the inside. The sound is drier than for Arne Deforce and Yutaka Oya (Aeon, 8/09), but it complements Marotto’s lighter bowstrokes.

The early miniatures include graphic scores, one of which (Durations 2) is presented in two (not very) different realisations. The discovery (and first recording) is the Sonatina, which the 20-year-old Feldman wrote in 1946. In his helpful booklet essay, Samuel Clay Birmaher says that the solo part is ‘naively virtuosic and often unidiomatic or even impossible to play’. Marotto stylishly overcomes such challenges and leaves the impression of a composer searching for his own voice within the later music of Bartók and Prokofiev. Thank goodness he met Cage.

— Peter Quantrill, Gramophone, September 2024

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/feldman-complete-music-for-cello-and-piano-stephen-marotto

mode 340/41 (2-CDs or digital)
$29.98 + shipping from Mode Records
https://moderecords.com/catalog/340feldman/
or
CD-quality Download: $24 with PDFs from Bandcamp
https://feldmanedition.bandcamp.com/album/feldman-edition-14-complete-music-for-cello-piano-mode-340-1

24 track album

08/02/2024

This article in VARIETY delves into the truth about ever dwindling streaming royalties. Here taken from songwriters' perspective, and I'm amazed to learn that they get even less of the $.004 per stream than the artists, publishers and record labels do!

In any case, it's a terribly unfair situation. And, while the article talks of Spotify's poor payment to the creators of their content, it is important to know that Youtube pays even less than Spotify!

It is no secret that songwriters are at the bottom of the streaming economy. But a new report shows they receive 9.5% of the average $.004 per stream.

07/25/2024

Facebook works in mysterious ways, bringing back this post for Mode's special RADULESCU LIMITED EDITION ARTIST EDITION LP!
We still have some available, so not too late to order!
Each LP with an original painting.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154028550260906&id=43065080905&set=a.10150289816060906

Here's the text from the original post:
THE 50 PIECE RADULESCU LIMITED ARTIST EDITION!
With the JACK Quartet and Stephen Clarke

We have already announced the 500 LP limited-edition of Mode's best-selling Radulescu release. But we want to bring attention again to the very special ARTIST EDITION, limited to 50 unique pieces out of the 500 LPs.

Because of their rarity, the ARTIST EDITION is hard to find in shops and online, but it can also be ordered direct from Mode. And it could make the perfect gift for that "special someone" (or for yourself!) for the holidays. And your purchase of the ARTIST EDITION is also a contribution to Mode Records.

To benefit Mode Records, artist Dorothea Kares (whose painting is on the cover of this release) created 50 individual, unique paintings for the ARTIST EDITION. Each original signed painting is slightly smaller than the LP, and is inserted inside the LP cover. Some of these paintings may appear on future releases in Mode’s Radulescu Edition!

The ARTIST EDITION comes in a resealable, Japanese-style plastic
outer sleeve with an ARTIST EDITION sticker indicating the number of the painting out of 50.

It also comes with the features of the standard LP edition:
– 4-page insert with notes (in English, German & French) by the late Radulescu expert Bob Gilmore
– Reproduction of a score page
– Excellent sound with lacquers cut from the 96-khz/24-bit master, using no compression or limiting. Cut by veteran engineer Scott Hull of Masterdisk
– Download card for the digital version of the entire release

mode 290
Artist Edition LP ($180)
or other formats:
CD ($14.99)
Limited Edition of 500 numbered LPs ($25.00)
+ shipping
or CD Quality Download ($12)

THE 50 PIECE RADULESCU LIMITED ARTIST EDITION!
With the JACK Quartet and Stephen Clarke

We have already announced the 500 LP limited-edition of Mode's best-selling Radulescu release. But we want to bring attention again to the very special ARTIST EDITION, limited to 50 unique pieces out of the 500 LPs.

Because of their rarity, the ARTIST EDITION is hard to find in shops and online, but it can also be ordered direct from Mode. And it could make the perfect gift for that "special someone" (or for yourself!) for the holidays. And your purchase of the ARTIST EDITION is also a contribution to Mode Records.

To benefit Mode Records, artist Dorothea Kares (whose painting is on the cover of this release) created 50 individual, unique paintings for the ARTIST EDITION. Each original signed painting is slightly smaller than the LP, and is inserted inside the LP cover. Some of these paintings may appear on future releases in Mode’s Radulescu Edition!

The ARTIST EDITION comes in a resealable, Japanese-style plastic
outer sleeve with an ARTIST EDITION sticker indicating the number of the painting out of 50.

It also comes with the features of the standard LP edition:
– 4-page insert with notes (in English, German & French) by the late Radulescu expert Bob Gilmore
– Reproduction of a score page
– Excellent sound with lacquers cut from the 96-khz/24-bit master, using no compression or limiting. Cut by veteran engineer Scott Hull of Masterdisk
– Download card for the digital version of the entire release

mode 290
Artist Edition LP ($180)
or other formats:
CD ($14.99)
Limited Edition of 500 numbered LPs ($25.00)
+ shipping
or CD Quality Download ($12)

07/12/2024

PHILL NIBLOCK's "Disseminate" mentioned in Bandcamp's overview of his recordings by Matthew Blackwell!

A key shift in Niblock’s approach occurred in 1993, with Five More String Quartets. Rather than recording various instruments singly and then combining them, he recorded a string quartet playing together in real time, with the microtonal beatings generated through slight differences in tuning. The 1998 piece Disseminate, commissioned by Petr Kotik, goes one step further. For the first time, Niblock wrote an actual score (with the assistance of Ulrich Krieger) that could be played live with no pre-recorded element. This led to other scores for live performance throughout the second half of his career. The first version of Disseminate on this album was performed by a 60-piece orchestra in Ostrava, Czech Republic consisting of the Ensemble OCNM and members of the Janáček Philharmonic. From his earliest compositions, Niblock was interested in creating microtones through the sheer number of tracks involved as well as through carefully calibrated intervals. That idea is taken to extremes here: the 60 instruments involved begin in unison on a sustained D note before gradually diverging, creating one of the densest but most dynamic drones of Niblock’s career.

— Matthew Blackwell, Bandcamp, "Experimental Music Titan Phill Niblock Made Things Happen", July 10, 2024
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/phill-niblock-album-list

mode 131
Disseminate Ostrava (Ensemble OCNM with members of the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra)
Kontradictionaries (The Kontra-Trio)
Disseminate Q-O2 (Q-O2 Ensemble)
$14.99 + shipping CD direct from Mode:
https://moderecords.com/catalog/131niblock/
$12 digital download from Mode's Bandcamp page:
https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/album/disseminate-mode131
or from your usual suspects

06/19/2024

NEW on Mode Records!
"Actions | Remarks: John Cage's Variations" book + CD!

Book edited by Cat Hope and Lindsay Vickery,
including CD recording of the 8 John Cage ‘Variations’ (1958–76), recorded by the Australian ensemble Decibel.

Authors featured are Leta E. Miller, David P. Miller, Vincent Bonin, Paul van Emmerik, Thomas DeLio, James Pritchett, Cat Hope, Lindsay Vickery, Stuart James and an introduction by Warren Burt.

Book + CD. First edition. 251 pages. ISBN 978-7645930343
Printed in Germany
The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 55
mode 342
$34.99 + shipping direct from Mode Records
https://moderecords.com/catalog/342cage/
Audio available digitally on Bandcamp
https://cageedition.bandcamp.com/album/complete-john-cage-edition-volume-55-actions-remarks-john-cages-variations-mode-342

The eight ‘Variations’ compositions by John Cage reflect the most productive years of his compositional life — from Variation I in 1958 to Variation VIII in 1976. They show the evolution of some of the earliest aleatoric, multimedia and spatial approaches to contemporary live music performance.

This book brings together new and existing perspectives, experiences and backgrounds to these remarkable works, explored by leading International Cage scholars and practitioners. The writings are complemented with a CD recording of Decibel’s Complete John Cage Variations Project, an hour long performance program featuring the Variations I – VIII. The works are performed using annotated digital scores created within the ensemble, automating many of the manual processes that resulting in new, accurate versions that align with Cage’s artistic aims. Traditional acoustic instruments and period electronics are featured alongside photocells, Arduino boards, online messaging services and calls, noise bass guitar, shortwave radio and custom DIY circuitry.

Rare composer notes and missing parts were sourced from the John Cage Trust, New York Public Library and Langlois Foundation. Published in conjunction with Cage’s publisher Peters Edition, the scores developed for the project are available via the Apple store.

Decibel is a new music ensemble and artistic research team that focuses on the integration of acoustic and electronic instruments in chamber music performance, founded in Western Australia in 2009. They are world-leading interpreters of graphic notations and pioneer digital score formats for composition and performance. This includes the ongoing development of their successful Decibel ScorePlayer App for iPad, enabling coordinated performance of graphic notations for musicians and composers internationally. They have released 7 albums and tour internationally regularly.

Cat Hope is an artist scholar whose research interests include animated notation, gender and music, Australian music, digital archiving, as well as music composition and performance as artistic research. She has been awarded Civitella Ranieri, Churchill and Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study Fellowships, and is co-author of ‘Digital Arts – An Introduction to New Media (Bloomsbury, 2014) and co-editor of ‘Contemporary Musical Virtuosities’ (Routledge, 2024). She is a Professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Lindsay Vickery is a composer/performer whose music includes works for acoustic and electronic instruments in interactive-electronic, improvised or fully notated settings, ranging from solo pieces to opera and has been commissioned by numerous groups for concert, dance and theatre. He writes and presents on a range of topics, most recently on the emergence of the “screenscore”, nonlinear music and the realisation of Cage’s music. He is head of composition and music technology at the WA Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.

04/30/2024

MORTON FELDMAN Edition 14 reviewed on Bandcamp by Peter Margasak!

Complete Music for Cello & Piano
Stephen Marotto, cello. Marilyn Nonken, piano.
mode 340/41 (2-CDs) or digital
https://moderecords.com/catalog/340feldman/
or digital at:
https://feldmanedition.bandcamp.com/album/feldman-edition-14-complete-music-for-cello-piano-mode-340-1

With his 1981 masterpiece Patterns in a Chromatic Field, Morton Feldman continued his journey into long-form works that toyed with the real-time memory of his listeners. In these slowly cycling compositions, the sort of intricate irregularities woven into the patterns of Turkish rugs were translated into carefully measured sound. That piece for piano and cello occupies the bulk of this stunning double-CD release, exquisitely performed by Marilyn Nonken and Stephen Marotto, respectively. The set collects all of Feldman’s work for this configuration of instruments, including the first ever recording of his 1946 piece “Sonatina,” written in the shadow of Bartók. The 1951 work “Composition for cello & piano” is a set of seven super-short movements that feel like raw material he would later refine and embroider within long form works. There’s also “Two Pieces,” a pair of miniatures from 1948, when the composer was studying with Stefan Wolpe, and the previously unpublished 1972 vignette “For Stockhausen, Cage, Stravinsky, and Mary Sprinson.” The set opens and closes with two very different performances of “Durations 2,” one of his earliest experiments with graphic notation. While the pitch material is fully mapped out, there’s no indication of the duration for each note, with both performers taking their own path while remaining mindful not to tangle the sounds up. As evidenced here, no performance is ever the same. Still, the apex of Feldman’s writing for piano and cello remains Patterns, a viciously tough piece to play, casting a deceiving spell of serenity while requiring the players to maintain hyper-focused concentration.
— Peter Margasak, The Best Contemporary Classical Music on Bandcamp, March 2024, posted April 1st.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-contemporary-classical/the-best-contemporary-classical-music-on-bandcamp-march-2024

03/28/2024

MORTON FELDMAN
Enters BILLBOARD'S Classical Charts AT NUMBER 10 Last Week!

Mode's recent release of Morton Feldman's "Complete Music for Cello & Piano" with Stephen Marotto and Marilyn Nonken (mode 340/41, 2-CDs or digital).
mode 340/41 (2-CDs or digital)
$29.98 + shipping from Mode Records
https://moderecords.com/catalog/340feldman/
or
CD-quality Download: $24 with PDFs from Bandcamp
https://feldmanedition.bandcamp.com/album/feldman-edition-14-complete-music-for-cello-piano-mode-340-1

03/03/2024

New on Mode Records!
MORTON FELDMAN EDITION, Vol. 14
Complete Music for Cello & Piano
Stephen Marotto, cello. Marilyn Nonken, piano.

mode 340/41 (2-CDs or digital)
$29.98 + shipping from Mode Records
https://moderecords.com/catalog/340feldman/
or
CD-quality Download: $24 with PDFs from Bandcamp
https://feldmanedition.bandcamp.com/album/feldman-edition-14-complete-music-for-cello-piano-mode-340-1

Durations 2 (1960) [2 realizations]

Composition for cello & piano (1951)

Sonatina (1946) FIRST RECORDING

Two Pieces (1948)

For Stockhausen, Cage, Stravinsky, and Mary Sprinson (1972)

Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981) (01:28:42 duration)

This release brings together ALL of Morton Feldman’s compositions for cello and piano, including unpublished works and a first recording.

Together, these works tell the story of Feldman’s music. They span 35 years — over half his lifetime — from when he was searching for his voice as a student to when he was opening new doors in the last years of his life.

The album is bookended by two realizations the graphic score “Durations 2” (1960), giving an opportunity to hear what the flexibility of graphic notation can bring.

The “Sonatina” (1946) is earliest work here, and a first recording. Displaying the influence of Béla Bartók, Feldman wrote for the cello sound he loved without fully understanding the realities of playing the instrument. The resulting solo part is naively virtuosic and often even impossible to play. For this recording, Stephen Marotto keeps as close as possible to the written score, aiming to fulfill what Feldman heard in his mind’s ear.

By 1948, Feldman had been studying privately with the composer Stefan Wolpe for several years. The unpublished “Two Pieces,” of that year is a fluctuating music held together not by logic, but through its carefully poised gestures — what Wolpe called “shape.” While the emotional drama of this and other early works would soon disappear from Feldman’s music, it was above all the idea of “shape” that remained with him for the rest of his life.

In 1950, Feldman met John Cage, who shepherded him into the world of the New York avant-garde. The unpublished, compact, “Composition for cello and piano” (1951) is a sudden breakthrough, yet it already contains the DNA of his very last works in its minimal material and blurred memories of sounds.

“For Stockhausen, Cage, Stravinsky, and Mary Sprinson” (1972) is an ephemeral, unpublished piece, a shard of music broken off from the main body of work Feldman was producing at the time. It consists of just two musical moments separated by silence — the same chord expressed in two different ways.

At almost 1 hour 29 minutes, “Patterns in a Chromatic Field” (1981) is of Feldman’s late, long duration period of works and it perhaps the best known of the works recorded here.

Liner notes by Samuel Clay Birmaher.

NOTE: Available NOW exclusively through Mode until the worldwide physical & digital release on April 19.

01/09/2024

PHILL NIBLOCK (1933–2024)

I'm saddened to learn of Phill's passing:

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/phill-niblock-artist-composer-dead-1234692343/

Phill was a very kind, unique and generous person. It was a pleasure to work with him, especially on MMode Recordss DVD of "Brazil 84" from Niblock's series of films “The Movement of People Working."

Please find MMode Recordss Phill Niblock releases at these links:

BRAZIL 84
Brazil 84 (film and music) - with soundtracks “Three Orchids” for 3 orchestras; “Two by Tom,” for 2 orchestras; “Three Orchids" - SEM Ensemble, Trio Scordatura (Amsterdam), Nelly Boyd Ensemble (mode 273, DVD)
https://moderecords.com/catalog/273-niblock/

DISSEMINATE
Disseminate Ostrava (Ensemble OCNM with members of the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra)
Kontradictionaries (The Kontra-Trio)
Disseminate Q-O2 (Q-O2 Ensemble).
(mode 131, CD)
https://moderecords.com/catalog/131niblock/
https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/album/disseminate-mode131

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/phill-niblock-artist-composer-dead-1234692343/

3 track album

01/07/2024

SALES OF PHYSICAL AUDIO RELEASES CONTINUE TO GROW IN 2023

Happy New Year! It's good to read the stats in this article.

And also good to see that CDs are definitely not dead yet. Not all independent labels can afford to have a steady stream of vinyl releases. But Mode will have a new vinyl release of music by Walter Zimmermann in 2024!

Check the article out:

Comment 06 Jan 2024 CDs continue to outsell vinyl in the UK BPI report on UK ‘music consumption’ By Paul Sinclair 102 The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has published its annual report on UK music consumption and, as usual, it makes for interesting reading. As has been reported on SDE befor...