Cortical Foundation, 1998

The regular paper box release of this item as corti 15 is sold out.  We still have some of the regular CD's disk 1 - 2 & 3 so we are releasing 25  sets with these and with Disk 4 as a CDR from our original masters.  Packaged in a 4cd Jewel case.

A full color jewel case lid linsert copies a very obscure 6 LP set, first released by Dieter Roth Verlag in 1980. That box documented the rather monumental recording of Nitsch's "Island Symphony", recorded in Iceland, 1980."Unlike others he does not attempt to advance atonal music with methods that since long ago should be handed over to science and technical realism (e.g. Stockhausen). Nitsch ignores any attempt to investigate the core of the construction of Webern's music. He does know it well though and starts where others don't react at all: at lust, rot (disintegration) and death, poison and madness, fragrance and temperature, the fluid, the excess. To him the intricate structure of a symphony is not accidental play with traditional forms, it's necessity. A symphony is s o u n d...

Rarely has such a large-scale recording felt so much like an ethnomusicological report from another planet. Island bulges with La Monte Young drones, Alvin Lucier beat patterns, Kagel-esgue cacophony, Ivesian cloud textures, Branca-esque tremolos, Scriabin-esque ritual atmosphere, and Tibetan spirit-evocation, all culminating in the great 20th-Century symphony that we feared had failed to arrive on schedule, but that suddenly appears here in all its chaotically mystical and apocalyptic glory. -- Kyle Gann, The NY Village Voice October 13, 1998.

The following text by Gunter Brus -- originally published in "projekt prinzendorf - o.m. theater von hermann nitsch" published as a catalogue together with an exhibition at the Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz (Austria), Otto Breicha Graz/Wein, 1981.
The Island Symphony

Hermann Nitsch is looked upon as the true successor of the great masters of symphony: Beethoven, Bruckner, and Mahler. He draws from Scriabin's, Schoenberg's, and Webern's experience, however, comes up with different conclusions than their (sanctioned) successors. That is to say: Nitsch disregards Webern's analysis of music. Unlike others he does not attempt to advance atonal music with methods that since long should be handed over to science and technical realms (e.g. Stockhausen). Nitsch ignores any attempt to investigate the core of the construction of Webern's music. He does know it well though and starts where others don't react at all; at lust, rot (disintegration) and death, poison and madness, fragrance and temperature, the fluid, the excess. To him the intricate structure of a symphony is not accidental play with traditional forms, it's necessity. A symphony is s o u n d (and complete).

Nitsch draws material from a number of epochs, mostly though from late romanticism and expressionism. Unlike those who don't want to let go of the past, Nitsch uses material that pertains to today's interests rather than adhering to structures established before.

Theater and music cannot be left in the hands of specialists only. A new generation has to grow. Nothing is gained by performances of some puny imbeciles. These warmed-up-versions of dadaistic rage are no good if the goal is to leave the current stagnation in theater and music behind. The staging of a Nitsch performance requires something that is completely missing in today's Karajans and Bernsteins: What is called for is rather exact knowledge of where liberation and expansion (really) takes place. Maybe they struggle all the way to the primal scream (which should be given a chance to erupt) but get stuck midways as the expressionists whimpering with clammy (inhibited) souls. Freud is like an oxygen frenzy (rush) for these tenors. Few set out to work on Scriabin's fragrance and color prophecies.

I see a legitimate expansion of Scriabin's mystery play in Nitsch's symphonic and theatrical work. Nitsch does not make the mistake to turn ScriabinÕs demands into dogma. He doesn't allow himself (run danger) to separate Scriabin from history like a fatherly patron the way it happened to Webern and his successors (epigons). Nitsch didn't run into Scriabin like a lost son but as somebody who clearly knew his own goals and was capable to integrate Sriabin's visions into his own work.

In London, 1966, Nitsch was called the "Bruckner of the Happening". He succeeded so radically in breathing new life into the great symphony which was said to be dead that it will soon turn popular, short sighted hodge podge views on the "History of Music" completely upside down.

Hans J. Schacht,  Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1998