Berio/boulez/messiaen/stockhausen
Serenata I/sonatine/canteyodjaya/zeitmasze
The pieces collected on this album are all taken from performances staged for the 1957 'Le Domaine Musical' season, beginning with Luciano Berio's 'Serenata I,' conducted by Pierre Boulez, which debuted in Paris in March of that year; arranged for flute and fourteen instruments, Berio said that the idea behind the piece was for the solo flute to be confronted by continuously interchanging elements, rather than mere accompaniments or oppositions. Boulez's own 'Sonatine,' composed in 1946 for flute and piano, is a 12-tone piece that evidences Olivier Messiaen's influence, with shades of Asian classical music in places; then, Karlheinz Stockhausen's monumental 'Zeitmasze' or 'Time Measures,' a serial composition for five woodwinds, played in different combinations of tempos and speed, was partly inspired by Webern's principles of homogenous and harmonic textures. Finally, Olivier Messiaen's 1949 work 'Cantéyodjayâ,' delivered by pianist Yvonne Loriod, takes it shape from the classical Hindu rhythms of ancient India, as with much of the composer's oeuvre.