Alexander Goehr: (b1932) Colossos or Panic Claire Booth, soprano ~ Hilary Summers, contralto Birmingham Contemporary Music Group BBC Symphony Orchestra ASKO Ensemble & Schönberg Ensemble Oliver Knussen, conductor NMC D165 • Alexander Goehr was born in Berlin and is the son of the conductor Walter Goehr. • Goehr studied composition with Olivier Messiaen. The music scene of Paris made a great impression on him and he became good friends with Pierre Boulez and was heavily involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of the early 1960s. • To celebrate Alexander Goehr's 80th birthday this year, BBC Radio 3 commissioned a new orchestral work which was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 13 January 2012 at Barbican Hall in London. Oliver Knussen, to whom the work is dedicated, conducted the work. “Unburdened by ideology and technical schemata, Goehr's works fly free of their conceptualisation with the energy of pure artistic discovery.   What he most values in his technical devices is an ability to throw up felicities of part-writing or reiterative rhythm which may be cultivated for their independent strangeness and beauty.   Such trouvailles lend his music a very personal flavour even as they unlock the fragrance of the past.” Paul Driver. Goehr's orchestral evocation of Goya's terrifying painting, Colossos, is coupled with the premiere recording of his early cantata The Deluge, inspired by Eisenstein's notes for a film based on a writing by Leonardo da Vinci (the film was never completed).   The neo-classical Little Symphony uses the chordal structure of Mussorgsky's ‘Catacombs’ from Pictures at an Exhibition as a harmonic backbone and is performed by the Dutch chamber orchestra, ASKO Ensemble. TRACK LISTING COLOSSOS OR PANIC       25'27   I       14'57  II Maestoso       10'30 THE DELUGE       13'02 Scena   I       7'01 Scena  II       2'09 Scena III       3'52 LITTLE SYMPHONY       28'33   I Lentissimo, molto sostenuto       1'30  II Grave       9'49 III Molto allegro v    5'37 IV Quasi recitando, tempo commodo       11'37 NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879