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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
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5:4
Tag:

chamber

  • CD/Digital releases

    Clara Iannotta – Earthing

    by 5:4 November 5, 2020 • 11:15
    November 5, 2020 • 11:15

    The other newly-released portrait album that’s got me thinking about polarities lately is Earthing, featuring four works for string quartet by Italian composer Clara Iannotta. The reason it provoked that particular train of thought (among many others) is due to the fact that, unlike most new music, it doesn’t so…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Þorvaldsdóttir – Rhízōma

    by 5:4 November 3, 2020 • 11:44
    November 3, 2020 • 11:44

    Something that comes up a lot in my writing about music is polarities. Perhaps it’s understandable; many composers strive to establish some kind of drama in their work, which often involves the juxtaposition and/or interplay of polarised types of material or behaviour. A lot of the satisfaction and enjoyment from…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2020 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 August 24, 2020 • 16:37
    August 24, 2020 • 16:37

    As was the case at last year’s festival, most of the concerts at Forum Wallis 2020 focused on works for ensemble. However, while in 2019 the majority of performances involved larger numbers of players, due to the pandemic almost all of the pieces this year were for small chamber groupings,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Naomi Pinnock – Lines and Spaces

    by 5:4 June 19, 2020 • 13:08
    June 19, 2020 • 13:08

    It’s fitting that the first portrait disc devoted to the music of UK composer Naomi Pinnock should be titled Lines and Spaces. Not merely because one of the four works featured on the disc has that as its title, but due to the fact that every time i’ve listened to…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Zeynep Gedizlioğlu – Verbinden und Abwenden

    by 5:4 June 10, 2020 • 11:09
    June 10, 2020 • 11:09

    Composer portrait albums tend to go one of two ways, highlighting either the broad diversity of their output or the more single-minded consistency of a central idea permeating multiple works. In the case of Verbinden und Abwenden, a new disc exploring the music of Turkish composer Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, it’s most…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Páll Ragnar Pálsson – Atonement

    by 5:4 May 22, 2020 • 13:10
    May 22, 2020 • 13:10

    One of the first works of contemporary music that i ever got to know was Dérive 1 by Pierre Boulez. i fell for the piece pretty hard, and one of the main reasons for that infatuation – which hasn’t really subsided in the decades since – was the way Boulez…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Yfat Soul Zisso – Together, alone

    by 5:4 April 24, 2020 • 13:21
    April 24, 2020 • 13:21

    At the moment, stuck in the lockdown with no foreseeable end, i’m experiencing (like, i imagine, many people) good days and bad days – the former when my mind is focused and energised, the latter when it feels flat and enervated. It’s a situation that’s made a chamber work i…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2020 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 February 9, 2020 • 08:01
    February 9, 2020 • 08:01

    As i mentioned previously, allusions to or evocations of nature were few and far between at this year’s Dark Music Days, indicating the strength and diversity of Iceland’s more searching, abstract approach to composition. This seemed to be precisely the point of Sigurður Árni Jónsson’s Illusion of Explanatory Depth, premièred…

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  • 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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  • CD/Digital releases

    Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir – Vernacular; Siggi String Quartet – South of the Circle; Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Concurrence

    by 5:4 January 17, 2020 • 11:17
    January 17, 2020 • 11:17

    In just over a week’s time Iceland’s premier new music festival, the Dark Music Days, will be up and running again, and once again i’ll be heading off to Reykjavík to immerse myself in some of the goings-on. Details about the festival can be found here, and for any UK…

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  • Thematic series

    Éliane Radigue – Occam XVII

    by 5:4 December 24, 2019 • 05:00
    December 24, 2019 • 05:00

    For the penultimate work in my week-long journey into winter, i’m again turning away from festive music to a piece that continues my preoccupation with the season’s prevailing darkness. Not that the work in question, Éliane Radigue‘s Occam XVII for double bass, has darkness as its theme; her Occam series…

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  • Concerts

    Centrala, Birmingham: Illuminate Women’s Music

    by 5:4 October 17, 2019 • 15:23
    October 17, 2019 • 15:23

    In Birmingham last Saturday i caught the latest concert in the current season by Illuminate Women’s Music, touring six UK towns between September and November. As the name implies, the purpose of Illuminate Women’s Music is to shine a light on women composers and performers, featuring a mixture of new…

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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

    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

    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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  • InterviewsThe Dialogues

    The Dialogues: Anna Þorvaldsdóttir

    by 5:4 April 27, 2019 • 11:49
    April 27, 2019 • 11:49

    i’m excited to present a new instalment in my series The Dialogues. On this occasion, i’m in conversation with Icelandic composer Anna Þorvaldsdóttir, whose music has become increasingly well-known in recent years. In the UK, her work has started to appear with more frequency on concert programmes, and there’s a…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Duo Gelland, Ensemble Mosaik

    by 5:4 November 18, 2018 • 15:04
    November 18, 2018 • 15:04

    Yesterday’s late evening concert at HCMF, given by Ensemble Mosaik in Bates Mill, presented the first UK performance of Enno Poppe‘s Rundfunk. There are ways in which the piece is remarkable, and ways in which it isn’t. What certainly is remarkable – and the more i’ve thought about this the…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2018: Simon Holt – Quadriga; Suzanne Farrin – Hypersea (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 21, 2018 • 10:12
    August 21, 2018 • 10:12

    Last Monday at Cadogan Hall, percussionist Colin Currie and the JACK Quartet combined forces to perform two works from the ’80s by Xenakis and two world premières, by Simon Holt and Suzanne Farrin. The points of inspirational origin of these pieces were somewhat different from what one usually encounters in new music,…

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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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