Eötvös directs the WDR Symphonieorchester of Cologne playing Karlheinz Stockhausen?s Gruppen on one of the recordings, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.
Commenting on the piece, Hungary?s György Kurtág, an icon of modern music, said ?If Dostoevsky once said that Russian literature came from Gogol?s ?The Overcoat?, then the whole of twentieth-century music after 1950 comes from ?Gruppen?.?
The other new release features Igor Stravinsky?s ?Le sacre du printemps? and ?Mavra?. ?Le sacre du printemps? is played by the the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, while Mavra is performed by the Göteborg Symfoniker, Sweden?s national orchestra. Both pieces are conducted by Eötvös.
One critic has called ?Le sacre du printemps? ?the most original and most influential composition of music at the time, inspiring dumbfounded enthusiasm in colleagues like Debussy and Bartók, with both of them sensing its importance for music history - although the former was shocked by the music?s unbridled savagery, and the latter commented on the work?s fragmentary nature.?
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Source: Fidelio
