Barraque: Complete Works (3CD)

Only in recent years has it begun to discover Jean Barraque (1928-1973) as one of the central figures in music history after 1945 Cyclical performances of his complete works in London and Strasbourg drew attention to compositions of the highest order, compositions in which rigour of construction and feverish expressivity form an otherwise so rarely heard harmony Thus Oliver Messiaen expressed "the most comprehensive admiration for the seriousness, the perfection, the noblesse of his art and his thinking" His music is characterized by extreme tension and rugged contrasts, it is of the highest presence, which demands the listener's unwavering attention and is thus able to captivate him immediately Barraque's work was decisively determined by the search for the unity of his life's work. The six compositions, which form the canon of his oeuvre as it were, are without exception structurally connected to each other and - as excerpts from a superordinate context - characterized by one-movement, large dimensions and open boundaries When cpo now presents the complete works of Jean Barraque in absolutely top-class new recordings on three CDs, this can - in all modesty - be regarded as a milestone in the discography of contemporary music The monumental piano sonata (40 minutes) will be interpreted by Stefan Litwin, the Nietzsche cantata Sequence, Le Temps Restitue, ...au dela du hasard, Chant apres Chant and the Concerto will be performed by Klangforum Wien under the conductors Sylvain Cambreling, Jürg Wyttenbach and Peter Rundel. The tape composition Etude completes this sensational edition.