Have a look at CER's articles on music in the region, many of which have discographies of CDs which can be purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Beyond Fission
Sue Bagust
A new exhibition in Vienna draws on paintings previously unseen in the West to show the internationalism of the early modernist movement and the links between art and music.
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Articles:
Bulgaria's Angelic Voices
Diane Strickland (Vol 2, No 26, 2000)
The famed, ethereal sound of the all-female choir, Angelite, hits the UK.
Global Music, Local Trends
Apostol Apostolov (Vol 2, No 21, 2000)
"Balkan conservatism" leaves young Bulgarian musical tastes half-open to global trends.
May it Fill Your Soul
Sue Bagust (Vol 1, No 17, 1999)
Professor Rice spent thirty years travelling around Bulgaria, collecting folk music and talking to musicians the result of which is a book and accompanying CD.
Articles:
Croatian Contemporary
William A Everett (Vol 2, No 19, 2000)
A look at the big names and institutions which make up the contemporary music scene in Croatia.
Ballet for the Nation?
Sue Bagust (Vol 2, No 19, 2000)
A millennial Croatian ballet production misses the irony of its nationalism.
Music Days Revived
Borko Špoljaric (Vol 2, No 19, 2000)
After a four-year hiatus, Croatia's festival of 20th-century music is back.
Articles:
Janáček from All Angles
Zuzana Slobodová (Vol 2, No 3, 2000)
Recent academic debate on Leoš Janáček has been full of effusive praise for the now fashionable Czech composer. In the frenzy to pay homage to his genius, not everybody has come to terms with his extreme misogyny.
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Articles:
Pärt of a Wider Picture
Kurt Mortensen (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
The roots of Estonia's art music scene run deeper than just Pärt, Tüür and Tormis.
Defenders of a Small Nation
Hubert Jakobs (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
Livonian folk band Tulli Lum unites modern ethno-jazz with the cultural inheritance of an almost extinct national group.
The Torchbearer Dies
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 23, 2000)
Estonia is in shock at the death of Lepo Sumera, the composer who tried to entwine hope and hopelessness
Purveyors of Prog
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 3, 2000)
The experimental and groundbreaking Estonian rock group Ruja.
The Visionary of Hiiumaa
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 3, 2000)
Hiiumaa-born Erkki-Sven Tüür has managed to bring his vision from the small island to the world.
A Subtler Form of Suffering
Andrew James Horton (The New Presence, April 1999)
How Arvo Pärt's music of the spiritual evolved out of the apocalyptic.
Articles:
From Berlin to Broadway
Charlotte Purkis (Vol 2, No 6, 2000)
Its hard to believe that 50 years after his death there should still be European premieres of a composer of the stature of Kurt Weill.
Articles:
The Mind Is a Free Creature: The music of György Kurtág
Rachel Beckles Willson (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
Although Kurtág, Hungary's leading contemporary composer, is a taciturn man, his work is effused with the influence of words and speech.
Kurtág in Edinburgh
Rachel Beckles Willson (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
Last year, Kurtág was the featured composer at the distinguished Edinburgh festival. One of the more interesting events was the British premiere of Samuel Beckett: ...pas à pas - nulle part.
Zoltán Kodály, Modernism and Hungarian Folk Music
Sue Bagust (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
Bartók became one of the 20th century's "canonised" composers for his blending of folk and art music. However, it is often forgotten that Zoltán Kodály, Bartók's collaborator in folk studies, laid a substantial foundation for modern music in Hungary in this respect.
From Táncház to Concert Band
Paul Nemes (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
Ghymes started off as a small Hungarian folk ensemble in Slovakia and, feeling the need to speak to a broader audience, graduated on to becoming a concert band which has won international acclaim.
World Music at Play: Egy Kiss Erzsi Zene
Andrew James Horton (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
Erzsi Kiss and her band draw on an eclectic range of sources to create a "virtual world music" which is both a mature and sophisticated synthesis of musical conventions and childishly good fun.
Not For Dummies
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
After Crying is one of the most innovative bands on the Hungarian music scene and stands at the forefront of "intelligent" music, not only in Hungary but as far as Venezuela.
From Beats to Bass
Blade Runner
with Gusztáv Kosztolányi (Vol 2, No 12, 2000)
A brief history of beat and rock Music in Hungary.
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Articles:
Defenders of a Small Nation
Hubert Jakobs (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
Livonian folk band Tulli Lum unites modern ethno-jazz with the cultural inheritance of an almost extinct national group.
21st-Century Schizoid Lamb
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
Who said intelligent rock music is dead? Certainly not Latvia's progressive trailblazers: Holy Lamb.
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Articles:
Baltic BeBop
Mel Huang (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
The Dainius Pulauskas Sextet is pushing the jazz envelope and gaining respect in both their native Lithuania and abroad.
Baltic Beat
Bernd Jahnke (Vol 2, No 27, 2000)
During the Soviet days, Lithuania was held to be the "jazziest republic in the USSR," and it has proudly remained on top of the jazz scene in the region.
Articles:
What Vastness of Suffering?
Nicholas Reyland (Vol 2, No 9, 2000)
Lutosławski both vehemently rejected suggestions that his music was an expression of the traumatic circumstances of his life and was curiously tolerent to those who suggested this might be so.
Arks and Labyrinths
Nicholas Reyland (Vol 1, No 20, 1999)
At the end of the 1950s, Poland's contemporary music scene was transformed from neo-classical backwater to avant-garde frontier with the arrival of Krzysztof Penderecki onto the scene.
Rebellion at the Fringes
Wojtek Kość (Vol 1, No 7, 2000)
Over the past ten years, the independent music scene in Poland has undergone a major transformation.
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Articles:
The Experiment Continues
David Fanning (Vol 2, No 21, 2000)
A recent conference on the under-researched topic of Russian avant-garde music was cause for celebration.
Zaum and Sun
Isobel Hunter (Vol 1, No 3, 1999)
The "first Futurist opera" revisited.
The St Petersburg Legacy
Andrew James Horton (Vol 1, No 2, 1999)
A portrait of a city through its poetry and music.
The Forgotten Avant Garde
Andrew James Horton (Vol 1, No 1, 1999)
Russia's vibrant experimental music scene of the 1920s was cruelly deprived of widespread fame by Stalin
Articles:
Twenty Years of...?
Alexei Monroe (Vol 2, No 31, 2000)
Laibach, the politically provocative experimentalists of the industrial music scene, is 20 this year. What have they achieved?
A Not Entirely Harmonious Success
Niall O'Loughlin (Vol 1, No 15, 1999)
Just as everyday life has continued smoothly for Slovenians with the break-up of Yugoslavia, so has the development of contemporary music.
Articles:
Balkan Hardcore
Alexei Monroe (Vol 2, No 24, 2000)
Serbian Turbofolk generates paramilitarism and porno-nationalism, but is it just another face of Western pop culture?
Vrooom's Torpedo Music
Robert Young (Vol 1, No 18, 1999)
Mixing everything from cabaret to drum'n'bass.
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