The fact that Philip Glass' music stands up so well in a variety of arrangements is a testament to its durability. German composer and pianist/organist Steffen Schleiermacher offers a recital of two dances from Dance, Glass' monumental 1979 multimedia collaboration with choreographer Lucinda Childs and visual artist Sol Lewitt, arranged for organ, and Sonata, a transcription for piano of one section from each of Glass' three portrait operas, made by Paul Barnes. The dances, which frame the Sonata on the CD, are especially effective when performed on the organ, due to the grandeur of which the organ is capable, its ability to sustain notes without decay, and the fact that its sound is closely related to the electronic keyboards used in the original. There is more of a sonic leap from the wind and electronic sounds of Einstein on the Beach and the orchestras of Satyagraha and Akhnaten to a solo piano.

Besides having a flourishing career as a composer, Steffen Schleiermacher has made a name for himself as a pianist and conductor, focusing on new music. This MDG release features three very early works by Philip Glass from 1968 and 1969, Music in Similar Motion, How Now, and Music in Fifths. The works are stylistically closely related and come from a point in the composer's career when he was exploring the use of repetitive structures varied through additive and subtractive processes. Their tonality, limited pitch material, and constant rhythmic patterns gave rise to the popular misconception that Glass' music is about nothing but repetition. Attentive listening (or any real listening at all) reveals that there is a great deal more going on, and that in spite of the simplicity of the material, Glass' radical techniques could produce music of considerable subtlety and seriousness of intent, as well as having a surface that, for certain audiences, was compelling and immensely appealing.

Triadic Memories is one of Morton Feldman's most popular and frequently performed works for piano. Here, more than is usual in his music, Feldman uses the repetition of patterns and gestures. The repetitions are rarely exact – they are characterized by very subtle rhythmic variations – but almost every gesture, whether large or small, is repeated a few or many times. The repeated figures, while all being quiet and relatively simple and brief, vary in their length, structure, and texture. The unpredictability of the number of repetitions, the asymmetry of the repeated figures, the avoidance of a regular pulse, and the subtlety with which Feldman alters the repetitions keep the music continually intriguing for the attentive listener.

After Música Callada Steffen Schleiermacher is now presenting Fêtes lointaines, his second release featuring one-of-a-kind piano compositions by Federico Mompou. Along with the title cycle, this CD includes other miniatures from the period between 1914 and 1921. The titles of the short cycles very much refer to the real world. “Suburbis” depicts street scenes in Barcelona, a guitarist endeavors to get a waltz going, gypsies form the topic of conversation, suddenly an old gray mare appears, and then a beggar concludes the series with hurdy-gurdy distress signals. The festivities in Fêtes lointaines, hints, mere impressions, are heard in the distance – which is why the instructions at the end read: “To be played like an echo.”

Asia Piano Avantgarde Japan, Vol. 1, is the first installment in what promises to be a cycle of discs from MD&G focusing on Asian experimental music for piano played by the ubiquitous Steffen Schleiermacher. It focuses mostly on pieces composed before 1975, although a couple of these works date from the 1990s. The music, by Toshi Ichiyanagi, Toshio Hosokawa, Kazuo Fukushima, Jo Kondo, and Joji Yuasa, mainly demonstrates the enormous influence that the 1950s-era chance compositions of John Cage, with their long pauses and short bursts of sound, had on Japanese composers of the late twentieth century.

Steffen Schleiermacher, a global player in the field of contemporary music, once again presents astonishing new finds, now from his latest journey. His new album, Calligraphy, focuses on Japanese avant-garde music between 1960 and 2012. Toshio Hosokawa, Toru Takemitsu, Joji Yuasa, Keijiri Satoh, and Seiichi Inagaki represent a broad spectrum of Japanese compositional artistry. No matter how different these works may be, the increasing interest in the thousands of years of musical tradition in their country more than justifies their presentation together.

The maximalist Franz Liszt and the almost minimalist Erik Satie might seem a preposterous album pairing, but violinist Andreas Seidel and pianist Steffen Schleiermacher – really, it is Schleiermacher whose project this seems to be, although he gets second billing – make a strong case for its relevance. The key is that it is the mysterious late works of Liszt that are featured. Between Liszt's works of the early 1880s and the famous Gymnopédies of Satie is a period of just seven or eight years, and, more importantly, a common spareness of melodic material and, in some cases, an interest in popular music.

Between the Great Depression and the Third Reich the committed communist endeavoured to exercise influence with his music as his medium. On the first volume of MDG's edition of Hanns Eisler’s songs, Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher present pieces from the years between 1929 and 1937 for which Bertolt Brecht supplied almost all the texts. A long-overdue rehabilitation of a composer who for many years was known above all as the German Democratic Republic’s artistic spokesman!

MDG is delighted to announce the second volume of their critically acclaimed Eisler Lieder recordings. In 1948 Hanns Eisler returned to Europe from exile in the United States, where he had found refuge from the National Socialist regime. On his return he found hardly any traces of the Germany he had left in 1937 and expressed his feelings of grief and loss in many choice songs ? some of which Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher have selected for the enthralling and exemplary program on this second volume of their Eisler edition.

The program of Vol. 3 of the successful and critically acclaimed Hanns Eisler project by Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher features songs from this composer's American exile. The Hollywood Songbook is a major work, even if measured solely by its length and total of thirty-two pieces. Moreover, the concentration and intensification of the content attained by Eisler while he was residing on the Pacific Coast make this rather loosely organised collection of occasional pieces what is certainly the most important song cycle of the twentieth century.

Hanns Eisler composed more than five hundred songs, and his very first extant compositions include songs with piano accompaniment. On the fourth and last volume of their selections from Eisler’s songs, Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher focus on his early works and bring to light an absolutely astonishing discovery: the young Hanns was an autodidact who had an incredible feel for the song part, and his artistic aspirations are also evident in the piano part.

The futurists noisily proclaimed their message in Italy prior to the outbreak of World War I. Manifesto followed on manifesto, every form of violence, including war, was glorified, and anarchism, misogyny, and the destruction of everything representing tradition was preached. A few composers were also among their ranks, but Steffen Schleiermacher's latest discovery demonstrates that their works sometimes contrasted greatly with the literary pamphlets issued by this group. Steffan Schleiermacher continues his extraordinary recordings for MDG with this new CD.