Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony release an exhilarating album of composer Mason Bates’s large-scale works for orchestra and electronica. Hear the first-ever recordings of his colossal Liquid Interface and the SFS-commissioned The B-Sides alongside Bates’s supercharged work, Alternative Energy. One of the most creative and ingenious synthesists of our time, these works show Bates reimagining the dimensions of symphonic music by integrating jazz, techno, drum-n-bass, field recordings of a FermiLab particle collider—and more.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony present Berg’s spellbinding Three Pieces for Orchestra, launching the Symphony’s new digital-only series by its eight-time Grammy Award-winning in-house record label, SFS Media. Presented in studio master-quality and available for download and streaming worldwide, hear one of the finest examples of Berg’s inventive artistry in a work that builds from a “fragmentary opening to a sensual whirl” then “dips in and out of the waltzes that define musical Vienna,” and finally unites within “the shadow of the huge hammer strokes that ultimately come crashing down on the musical texture.” (SFGate)
Title: Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra, Opus 6 (1929 revision)
Composer: Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Artists: San Francisco Symphony
Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director
Works: Three pieces for Orchestra, Opus 6 (1929 revision)
1. Praeludium: Slow (5:52)
2. Reigen: A little hesitant at first—Light and winged (5:51)
3. Marsch: Moderate march tempo (10:11)
Recorded: Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra was recorded live January 21-23, 2015 in PCM 192kHz/24-bit audio in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco.
Label: SFS Media
Catalogue Number: SFS 0070
Release Date: June 30, 2017
Total Run Time: 21:54