Christian Wolff/The Barton Workshop - (Re): Making Music, Works 1962-99

The Mode label continues its series of releases devoted to the music of Christian Wolff -- this is the sixth volume -- with a wide-ranging selection of chamber music spanning 37 years of the composer's career, from 1962's "For 5 or 10 Players" (heard in two versions, understandably enough one for five players and the other for ten) to 1999's "Schoenen Met Veters," written for and performed by (as is all the music here) The Barton Workshop. The ensemble's trombonist and musical director, James Fulkerson, provides brief but cogent liner notes that rightly lay stress on the composer's continued fascination with contrapuntal artifice, notably writing that embodies the techniques of canon and hocket, but the music, deceptively simple though it might appear at times, is far removed from sterile neo-classicism. Read More