Another performance of Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis! In a single issue I reviewed no fewer than three recordings—for three flutes (all Eberhard Blum on Hat Hut, through superimposition); for chamber orchestra (The Barton Workshop on Etcetera) and for the full group (86 players) with the SEM Ensemble (Wergo)—this is the work which flopped at a New York Philharmonic Concert in 1964. Now players obviously relish the open experience of Cage, taking initiatives rather than fulfilling routines. Perhaps the idea of a work based on star charts appeals. The result in this fourth recorded realization, which has little connection with the others, is as authentically aimless as the skies themselves. The playing is at a low dynamic level and there are silences: the timpani take over from 6'18'' to 6'59'' and end the whole thing...

Babbitt's Correspondences, a typical product of his technological muse, appears to be the first recording of his 1967 work for strings and tape. Schuller's Spectra is a resourceful but sprawling 20-minute piece, dedicated to Mitropoulos. Its single span is less obviously successful than his Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (Mercury, 7/93), also from the late 1950s.

-- Peter Dickinson, Gramophone [7/1994]