The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental-electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you've never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs. 

AGP1-23 are now available for direct download in the archive at dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/AvantGardeProject

Ignore the seeders/leechers statistics, as they often show no seeders when in fact there are some. For the time being, a new AGP torrent is being seeded around midnight each Friday night (GMT), and is advertised on the I Hate Music Forum. 

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AGP25 continues our month of requests by AGP patrons with a collection of works by Bruno Maderna, an Italian composer who died in the prime of his composing life, in 1973. Maderna was also a celebrated conductor, and his music features particularly beautiful instrumental combinations and a strong lyrical sense. Most of Maderna's major works are available on CD, but I was able to find a few out-of-print ones in my stacks. 

Track 01 comes from a 2LP memorial tribute to Maderna released by BVHAAST. The two oboe concertos from this set are available on CD from the BVHAAST CD Store. Track 02 comes from a Wergo compilation of performances by Severino Gazzelloni, a flute virtuoso who was particularly devoted to contemporary music and premiered many new works. Track 03 is from one LP in a series on Time Records, organized by the composer Earle Brown in the early 1960s. Both tracks 02 and 03 are conducted by the composer. Tracks 04 and 05 are two versions of a solo viola work by Maderna that can either be played from beginning to end (closed form) or begun in the middle and reshuffled (open form). There are CD recordings of this short work available, but none in which the closed form and open form are juxtaposed.

The torrent includes a text file containing liner notes from the three LPs from which these recordings were transcribed.

Equipment used for A/D conversion: Lyra Helikon phono cartridge, Linn LP12/Lingo turntable, Linn Ittok tonearm, Audioquest LeoPard tonearm cable, PS Audio PS2 preamplifier, Kimber PBJ interconnect, M-Audio Audiophile USB A/D converter. 

01 - Juilliard Serenade [14:22]
02 - Hyperion III [25:16]
03 - Serenata #2 [11:41]
04 - Viola, open form [6:25]
05 - Viola, closed form [7:14]

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish any artists to be deprived of the royalties that they so richly deserve.