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  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • List of compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • List of albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
    • Complete list of ratings
  • Mixtapes, etc.
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
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5:4
Category:

Premières

  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2020 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 February 5, 2020 • 06:00
    February 5, 2020 • 06:00

    It no doubt goes without saying that Iceland’s Dark Music Days festival is primarily named for the fact that it takes place in January, when the amount of daylight the country receives is minimal. In a less literal sense, though, musically speaking there’s a lot to be said for listening…

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  • AnniversariesPremières

    Éliane Radigue – Occam Delta XV (UK Première)

    by 5:4 January 26, 2020 • 06:00
    January 26, 2020 • 06:00

    To conclude my Éliane Radigue birthday weekend, i’m returning to a work in the Occam series that i’ve briefly written about previously, Occam Delta XV. The piece dates from 2018 and results from a collaboration between Radigue and Quatuor Bozzini. In a way that i hope isn’t too fanciful, the overall…

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  • AnniversariesPremières

    Éliane Radigue – Occam River XV (World Première)

    by 5:4 January 24, 2020 • 11:30
    January 24, 2020 • 11:30

    A composer whose work i return to more often than most – and find the experience completely different every time i do – is Éliane Radigue. Today is the grande dame’s 88th birthday – joyeux anniversaire! – so, as i did a few years ago, i’m going to devote another…

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  • Advent & ChristmasPremièresThematic series

    Karen Tanaka – Sleep Deeply

    by 5:4 December 23, 2019 • 05:00
    December 23, 2019 • 05:00

    While i can take or leave most Christmas music, i have a real soft spot for lullaby works setting texts that either allude to or directly address the sleeping infant Jesus. It’s a nice counterpoint to the shouty-shouty zeal that permeates a great deal of festive musical fare, but more…

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  • PremièresThematic series

    Maria Kõrvits – Darkness and Deeper Dark (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 22, 2019 • 05:00
    December 22, 2019 • 05:00

    This morning (at 4:19am to be precise) saw the winter solstice, making this the northern hemisphere’s shortest day and the start of not only the season of winter but also a host of traditional festive periods. Being the day when we’re dominated most by night, it’s an ideal moment to…

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  • PremièresThematic series

    Age Veeroos – Külmking (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 20, 2019 • 05:00
    December 20, 2019 • 05:00

    It’s nice, sometimes, when a composition isn’t concerned with layers of complexity and subtext, but instead focuses on a single idea. So as the days grow increasingly cold (here in the UK, at least), it seems an ideal time to explore one of Age Veeroos‘ latest works, the title of…

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  • Advent & ChristmasPremièresThematic series

    Tõnis Kaumann – Ave maris stella (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 19, 2019 • 05:00
    December 19, 2019 • 05:00

    During my week-long journey into winter, i’ll be veering back and forth between sacred and secular music. When i first heard Tõnis Kaumann‘s setting of the Marian hymn Ave maris stella at the World Music Days earlier this year, i have to admit it didn’t make a huge impression on…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    CBSO Centre, Birmingham: BCMG – Migrating Sounds

    by 5:4 December 16, 2019 • 11:45
    December 16, 2019 • 11:45

    i’m going to start with an observation, a complaint and a plea. Yesterday evening’s concert given by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group featured four pieces of music that together lasted one hour and two minutes. The actual concert lasted more than double that length. It continues a trend that appears to…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2019 • 15:53
    November 28, 2019 • 15:53

    It’s many, many years since i spent meaningful time in the company of music by Can, so i went to founder member Irmin Schmidt‘s HCMF piano recital last Thursday with precisely no expectations. What transpired was one of the most mesmerising, understated performances that i’ve ever witnessed in St Paul’s…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 27, 2019 • 15:58
    November 27, 2019 • 15:58

    Last week i was able to catch a couple of days of the shenanigans going on at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. It was strange not to be doing my usual thing of setting up camp for the whole shebang, but quite apart from it being better than nothing,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Nordic Music Days 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 21, 2019 • 06:00
    November 21, 2019 • 06:00

    Being the host nation, music from Norway was especially well-represented at this year’s Nordic Music Days in Bodø. Harnessing the large and impressive organ of Bodø Cathedral, Trond Kverno‘s Triptychon 2 was one of the fieriest things i heard at the festival. We tend to think of toccatas as fast-flowing,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Nordic Music Days 2019 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 19, 2019 • 16:31
    November 19, 2019 • 16:31

    Founded in 1888, the annual Nordic Music Days is one of the oldest contemporary music festivals in the world. It’s a peripatetic festival, moving from place to place each year, and for 2019 – surprisingly, for the first time – it moved north of the Arctic Circle, to the small…

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  • Premières

    Stuart MacRae – Prometheus Symphony (World Première)

    by 5:4 November 12, 2019 • 13:38
    November 12, 2019 • 13:38

    i’m concluding this brief look at three recent new symphonies with one by another Scottish composer, Stuart MacRae. As in James MacMillan’s latest symphony, MacRae has also turned to mythology for inspiration, drawing on the ancient Greek tale of Prometheus. According to legend – as recounted by 8th century poet Hesiod…

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  • Premières

    David Briggs – Symphonie Improvisée on Three Welsh Themes (World Première)

    by 5:4 November 9, 2019 • 06:00
    November 9, 2019 • 06:00

    One of the minor passions of my listening life, which i rarely write about here, is organ music. It doesn’t come up very often in the world of contemporary music, but it did a couple of months back in the gala recital at this year’s OrganFest at Llandaff Cathedral. Performed…

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  • Premières

    James MacMillan – Symphony No. 5 ‘Le grand Inconnu’ (World Première)

    by 5:4 November 6, 2019 • 12:54
    November 6, 2019 • 12:54

    Symphonies – one minute you think that no-one’s really writing them anymore, and then suddenly three of them turn up in quick succession. Of course, in reality the apparent lack of them may well be more to do with the fact that composers today are reluctant to title a work…

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  • Premières

    Chaya Czernowin – Once I blinked nothing was the same (UK Première)

    by 5:4 October 24, 2019 • 11:39
    October 24, 2019 • 11:39

    As i know i’ve remarked previously about compositions, size isn’t everything. Apropos: i’ve been spending time recently with a short work by Chaya Czernowin which, though it was premièred four years ago, only received its first UK performance last month. Once I blinked nothing was the same has a duration…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    King’s Place, London: Theatre of Voices – Baltic Voices

    by 5:4 October 4, 2019 • 11:16
    October 4, 2019 • 11:16

    Personality and connection tend to go hand in hand. This is just as true for getting to know a person as it is for getting to know a piece of music: we’re drawn towards or pushed away according to the ways in which its personality – its qualities and characteristics,…

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  • CommentFestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: the premières – how you voted

    by 5:4 October 2, 2019 • 12:17
    October 2, 2019 • 12:17

    Many thanks to all of you who took part in this year’s Proms première polls. As ever, there was a stark imbalance in the number of votes certain works received, but interestingly, whereas in previous years this tended to be focused on works performed earlier in the festival (since there…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    CBSO Centre, Birmingham: BCMG – Celebrating Sir Harrison Birtwistle at 85

    by 5:4 September 25, 2019 • 12:54
    September 25, 2019 • 12:54

    The latest concert given by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, last Sunday, was an extended celebration for the 85th birthday of Britain’s most radical musical octogenarian, Harrison Birtwistle. In fact, the occasion was marked by not one but two back-to-back concerts, the first of which gave prominence to performers taking part…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Ultima 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 September 20, 2019 • 17:35
    September 20, 2019 • 17:35

    A golden rule in cinema is “show, don’t tell”, reminding the director it’s invariably more subtle and effective to avoid directly stating the things you want the audience to consider and instead to incorporate them into the medium itself, in the process allowing for a more subtle, rich and wide-ranging…

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Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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