VA - The Avantgarde series (21 CD Boxset) (2023)

The legendary DG Avantgarde vinyl series (1968-1971) is turning 55! In order to celebrate this occasion, the series is now released on 21 CDs for the first time. The Avantgarde series serves as a historical document for a time of radical change in musical thinking and the breaking of artistic boundaries. The question "What is music?" confronted many of the composers and musicians involved in the series, and the anti-authoritarian spirit of the 1960s and 1970s was a palpable influence. Deutsche Grammophon's Avantgarde Series reflects all the currents that thus arose, without aesthetic demarcations and across genres and instrumentations: large orchestral works stand alongside chamber music and solo forms, electronic music and improvisations.
The edition is presented in its original colourful designs by renowned graphic designer Holger Matthies, accompanied by a 186-page booklet with original commentaries (available in English & German) by composers and experts as well as photos of the artists from the DG archive.
Highlights include canon works by György Ligeti such as his choral work "Lux aeterna," Luciano Berio's "Sequenza V" with Vinko Globokar on trombone, a simultaneous recording of three works by John Cage, and some groundbreaking and monumental electronic works such as Luigi Nono's "Contrappunto dialettico alla mente" and Leo Küpper's "Automatismes sonores."