Recordings of
Karlheinz Stockhausen
's
Mantra
(1970) are not abundant. There may be various reasons for this, including the dominance of the initial version by the
Kontarsky Brothers
, the popular orientation of most duo piano acts, and the general lack of commercial potential of
Stockhausen
's forbidding serial music. Yet
is actually one of his more accessible works. It is based on a 13-note tone row that returns to its starting point; this is treated in a series of movements that are marked as "Mantras" but might be regarded as a set of variations, each one titled with the name of its predominant technical feature. The set ends with a virtuoso coda and a restatement of the
. The pianists also play percussion instruments, including a set of crotales that symbolizes the spiritual content suggested by the work's title and modify the piano's sound via ring modulators. Finally, there is a third player, here
Serge Lemouton
, contributing a light shading of electronics. Among the various recordings that do exist, this one by pianists
Jean-Francois Heisser
and
Jean-Frederic Neuburger
makes a strong choice.
Mirare
's engineering, from a hall at the Conservatoire de Puteaux in France, is ideal, bringing out the small sonic details that are essential to
's variation concept. Although there's not a lot of tempo variation in
's world, the pianists take the work a bit more slowly than average, letting those details emerge. For listeners ready to accept the radical dissociation from the surrounding musical world that serialism entails, this is a prime choice. ~ James Manheim