POUSSEUR, HENRI - Musique Mixte 1966-1970

This is the fourth Henri Pousseur CD in Sub Rosas Early Electronics series, exploring the work of this Belgian theoretician and experimental/avant garde composer. Along with previous releases in this series, Musique Mixte will cover all his electronic music and his most radical works between 1953 and 1988 -- 35 years of research and experiments. These recordings are a continuation of Sub Rosas earlier releases, namely: Liège -É Paris (a piece composed thanks to Luciano Berio and premiered at the grand opening of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, in 1977), the 8 -É?tudes Paraboliques box set (over 220 minutes of music realised in Cologne, 1972, at the WDRs studios -- the last étude featuring Stockhausens participation) and 4 Parabolic Mixes, (four takes on the work by Henri Pousseur himself, Robert Hampson, Philip Jeck and Markus Popp). The two pieces featured on Musique Mixte (voice, pianos, various electroacoustic devices) are magnum opuses in Pousseurs body of work, though they are seldom heard -- Jeu de Miroirs de Votre Faust" has been unavailable for a long time, while "Crosses of Crossed Colors" is released here for the first time ever. "Already for Couleurs croisées, my initial idea was to add an amplified voice to the orchestra, a voice that could stand up to it and would clarify and explain the meaning of the piece, in the form of a black Baptist minister-style preach. So, besides the voice (black, if possible), we have: five pianos, whose assembled parts re-use almost all the harmonic-rhythmic contents of the orchestral piece." - Henri Pousseur.