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  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • List of compositions reviewed on 5:4
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    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
    • Complete list of ratings
  • Mixtapes, etc.
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5:4
Category:

Premières

  • FestivalsPremières

    Ultima 2019 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 September 19, 2019 • 18:25
    September 19, 2019 • 18:25

    When you listen to music what do you see? What does music look like, and what do images sound like? What’s the relationship between musical and visual stimuli? These questions became something of a recurring consideration during the three days of concerts i attended recently during the opening weekend of…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Daniel Kidane – Woke (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 18, 2019 • 11:00
    September 18, 2019 • 11:00

    Perhaps there’ll come a time when it’s possible to mention the Last Night of the Proms without also mentioning, usually in the same sentence, the word ‘tradition’. This is not that time. Whatever you may think of its entrenched traditions, one of the Last Night’s better ones has been the…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Bach Night

    by 5:4 September 17, 2019 • 12:15
    September 17, 2019 • 12:15

    Here we go again. Four of the last premières at the Proms were the product of the festival’s irresistible inclination not to allow composers to just write what they want to write but to force them to ‘respond’ to earlier music. Last year, the most prominent example of this was…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Jonny Greenwood – Horror vacui (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 11, 2019 • 19:08
    September 11, 2019 • 19:08

    Any kind of sound processing – human, mechanical, digital – is a response of some kind: taking a signal, possibly analysing it, before doing something with it or to it. The latest new work at the Proms, Jonny Greenwood‘s Horror vacui, takes this as its starting point and modus operandi.…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: John Luther Adams – In the Name of the Earth (European Première); Louis Andriessen – The Only One (UK Première); Freya Waley-Cohen – Naiad (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 9, 2019 • 18:45
    September 9, 2019 • 18:45

    The latest crop of premières at the Proms have encompassed extremes of scale and duration. John Luther Adams‘ In the Name of the Earth received its first European performance at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday by no fewer than eight choirs, comprising 700 singers. At a little over three quarters of…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Dobrinka Tabakova – Timber & Steel; Linda Catlin Smith – Nuages (World Premières)

    by 5:4 September 3, 2019 • 20:04
    September 3, 2019 • 20:04

    i’ve often wondered whether, in music today, energy and complexity tend to be mutually exclusive. The whole ‘clocks and clouds’ dichotomy: regularity versus ambiguity, pulse versus drift, clarity versus obfuscation. This is certainly one of the considerations that arises from the latest pair of Proms premières: Dobrinka Tabakova‘s Timber &…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Jocelyn Pook – You Need to Listen to Us; Alissa Firsova – Red Fox; Ryan Wigglesworth – Piano Concerto (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 29, 2019 • 16:53
    August 29, 2019 • 16:53

    A few weeks back, when critiquing Hans Zimmer’s short work Earth, i almost held back from writing about the piece as it was taking place in a concert for children. i couldn’t help wondering to what extent it was fair to hold up something so intentionally superficial to critical scrutiny.…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Dieter Ammann – Piano Concerto (“Gran Toccata”) (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 23, 2019 • 13:05
    August 23, 2019 • 13:05

    None of the premières so far at this year’s Proms has left me with a more conflicted first impression than Dieter Ammann‘s new Piano Concerto, given its first performance on Monday by Andreas Haefliger with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. The basis for that reaction is wrapped…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Errollyn Wallen – This Frame is Part of the Painting; Joanna Lee – At this man’s hand; Jonathan Dove – We Are One Fire (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 21, 2019 • 15:09
    August 21, 2019 • 15:09

    Three of the last four world premières at the Proms have been vocal works, two of them for unaccompanied choir, the other for voice and orchestra. One of the choral works, Jonathan Dove‘s We Are One Fire, was commissioned as a birthday present for the 90th anniversary of the BBC…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M. C. B. (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 20, 2019 • 19:22
    August 20, 2019 • 19:22

    A week ago, the Proms saw the world première of a new work by no fewer than 14 composers. Conceived by conductor Martyn Brabbins as a 60th birthday present to himself, the piece is inspired by, and modelled on, the structure and character of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. For this new…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Benjamin Beckman – Occidentalis (European Première); Detlev Glanert – Weites Land (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 13, 2019 • 17:20
    August 13, 2019 • 17:20

    Until last Sunday, among the new works premièred at the Proms there hadn’t been what we’re all used to hearing: namely, a short, ebullient romp that gets a concert up and running. And then, a couple of days ago, the National Youth Orchestra of the USA, directed by Antonio Pappano,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Huw Watkins – The Moon (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 10, 2019 • 18:33
    August 10, 2019 • 18:33

    There are times when it seems the Proms is incapable of commissioning a new work without foisting upon the composer some theme or connection that they are required to incorporate into the piece. The festival’s ongoing theme commemorating the 50th anniversary of the moon landings was brought to bear on yet…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Outi Tarkiainen – Midnight Sun Variations (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 6, 2019 • 12:55
    August 6, 2019 • 12:55

    Composers generally tend to shy away from admitting their music to be overtly autobiographical, but in the case of the latest Proms première, by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen, the piece is a clear extension – a manifestation, even – of the composer’s way of experiencing the world. In her answers…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Peter Eötvös – Alhambra; Tobias Broström – Nigredo: Dark Night of the Soul (UK Premières)

    by 5:4 July 30, 2019 • 17:23
    July 30, 2019 • 17:23

    The last two premières at the Proms have both been concertos: Alhambra, the third violin concerto by Peter Eötvös, and Nigredo: Dark Night of the Soul, a double-trumpet concerto by Swedish composer Tobias Broström. It’s been interesting to note how their overall approach to narrative is, at a fundamental level…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Anna Þorvaldsdóttir – Metacosmos (UK Première)

    by 5:4 July 29, 2019 • 17:10
    July 29, 2019 • 17:10

    Performed last Monday by an orchestra combining students from the Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School, conducted by Edward Gardner, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir‘s Metacosmos is a work i know quite well. Anna and i discussed it at length during our Dialogue together, and i explored the piece further following…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Hans Zimmer – Earth; Alexia Sloane – Earthward (World Premières)

    by 5:4 July 26, 2019 • 11:52
    July 26, 2019 • 11:52

    The most significant love-hate musical relationship of my life has been – and continues to be – with film scores. Few idioms have the power to elevate, charm, horrify, astonish and amaze us more while at the same time displaying the irresistible propensity to eschew all originality and imagination in…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Zosha di Castri – Long Is the Journey, Short Is the Memory (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 25, 2019 • 11:45
    July 25, 2019 • 11:45

    Many of the Proms seasons in recent years have begun with a world première, and that was again the case this year. In 2018, the opening work commemorated the end of World War I, whereas in 2019 the topic of commemoration is altogether more triumphant: humanity walking on the moon.…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 June 20, 2019 • 18:53
    June 20, 2019 • 18:53

    The main focus during the five days of concerts at Forum Wallis was on ensemble and chamber music. An important and impressive feature of these concerts was their aesthetic diversity, not showing a marked preference for certain kinds of music-making. This resulted in extremely different – sometimes, practically opposite –…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    St Mary’s Church, Penzance: Kevos – Old Kings in Exile

    by 5:4 June 4, 2019 • 13:22
    June 4, 2019 • 13:22

    Last weekend i made a pilgrimage to the far south-west of England to catch the latest concert given by (as far as i can tell) Cornwall’s one and only contemporary music ensemble, Kevos. The title of the concert, named after one of the works being performed, Old Kings in Exile,…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Only Connect 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 31, 2019 • 15:18
    May 31, 2019 • 15:18

    The lack of ostentation in most of the music at this year’s Only Connect festival was perhaps nowhere more conspicuous than in a concert last Saturday devoted to French composer Pascale Criton. Performed by violinist Silvia Tarozzi, cellist Deborah Walker and singers Stine Janvin Joh, Signe Irene Stangborli Time and…

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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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