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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
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Tag:

percussion

  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Ensemble Musikfabrik, Christian Marclay: Investigations

    by 5:4 November 19, 2018 • 00:27
    November 19, 2018 • 00:27

    It’s not unusual, considering HCMF’s openness to stepping outside the bounds of convention, for a new work at the festival to have to overcome how extraordinary it is. That was certainly the case in Huddersfield Town Hall yesterday afternoon, where Christian Marclay‘s Investigations received its world première. It wasn’t just…

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  • Concerts

    The Barbican, London: Ryoji Ikeda – Music for Percussion / datamatics [ver. 2.0]

    by 5:4 October 2, 2018 • 15:23
    October 2, 2018 • 15:23

    Last Sunday, the Barbican in London was treated to an evening of music by Japanese composer Ryoji Ikeda. For much of Ikeda’s career, he’s created a unique kind of electronic music, blending the aloof coldness and potential impenetrability of the most raw sounds – sine tones and noise – with more…

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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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  • CD/Digital releases

    José Manuel López López – Horizonte Ondulado

    by 5:4 May 8, 2018 • 14:29
    May 8, 2018 • 14:29

    My ears have recently been extensively tickled by the sound of percussion, courtesy of Horizonte Ondulado (Undulating Horizon), the latest release from the always interesting Neu label, exploring five works for percussion by Spanish composer José Manuel López López. As always, Neu have lavishly produced the album in a beautiful slipcase containing a 60-page…

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  • Anniversaries

    Brian Ferneyhough – Fanfare for Klaus Huber

    by 5:4 January 16, 2018 • 11:36
    January 16, 2018 • 11:36

    Today is the 75th birthday of one of the UK’s most consistently remarkable, bewildering, surprising and moving composers, Brian Ferneyhough. By way of a miniature celebration, here are two recordings of his shortest composition, Fanfare for Klaus Huber for two percussionists. It’s a piece i feel somewhat connected to: composed in…

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  • Anniversaries

    In memoriam: Tōru Takemitsu – Seasons

    by 5:4 April 25, 2016 • 21:48
    April 25, 2016 • 21:48

    An anniversary i wasn’t able to observe due to being engrossed in my Lent series was that of the death of Tōru Takemitsu, who died a little over twenty years ago, on 20 February 1996. i can still remember the day vividly; at the time i was an undergraduate at the Birmingham…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2015: Bertram Wee – Dithyrambs (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 16, 2015 • 21:55
    August 16, 2015 • 21:55

    If there’s one thing that pretty much all of the new works at the Proms tend to suffer a lack of, it’s humility; that’s not to suggest this is down to their respective composers (in most cases), but the act of presenting a première usually finds itself festooned in generous…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2015: HK Gruber – into the open …; Hugh Wood – An Epithalamion, or Mariage Song (World Premières)

    by 5:4 July 28, 2015 • 16:34
    July 28, 2015 • 16:34

    Proms premières come in all shapes and sizes, and last week’s new works from HK Gruber and Hugh Wood were larger and more aspirational specimens. Scale and stature are different things, though, and despite their respective composers’ demonstrative ambition (and experience, composing veterans both), each of these pieces were hobbled…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – Void (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 4, 2015 • 09:27
    April 4, 2015 • 09:27

    To bring my Lent Series to an end, i’ve chosen a work rather fitting to the general atmosphere of Easter Eve, Rebecca Saunders‘ Void, for two percussionists and chamber orchestra. Saunders was recently awarded the 2015 Mauricio Kagel Music Prize, for composers who, among other things, “are forever in search…

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  • 20th CenturyBlasts from the Past

    Blasts from the Past: György Ligeti – Poème symphonique

    by 5:4 June 14, 2014 • 16:05
    June 14, 2014 • 16:05

    A couple of days ago marked the eighth anniversary of the death of Hungarian composer György Ligeti. To mark the event, and also begin a new occasional series on 5:4, i’d like to take a brief look back at one of the more enigmatic works of Ligeti’s career. Poème symphonique…

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  • 20th CenturyCommemorationsPremières

    Tōru Takemitsu – From me flows what you call time (UK Première)

    by 5:4 October 8, 2012 • 12:33
    October 8, 2012 • 12:33

    It was on this day, in 1930, that one of my favourite composers, the great Tōru Takemitsu, was born. So to mark what would have been his 82nd birthday, here’s one of his most spectacular orchestral works, the wonderfully-named From me flows what you call time. The title is taken…

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  • Premières

    James Dillon – Nine Rivers (World Première) – 5. La coupure

    by 5:4 November 2, 2011 • 08:32
    November 2, 2011 • 08:32

    To describe the fifth work in James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, La coupure, as being ‘pivotal’ perhaps seems like a truism; it sits, after all, at the epicentre of the cycle. Yet it marks a timbral transition that will be felt on all the remaining pieces, namely the inclusion of electronics.…

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  • Premières

    James Dillon – Nine Rivers (World Première) – 1. East 11th St NY 10003

    by 5:4 October 29, 2011 • 09:28
    October 29, 2011 • 09:28

    Having spent last week in the company of some ‘contemporary epics’, and with today being the composer’s 61st birthday, it seems an appropriate time to explore one of the most ambitious compositional endeavours of the contemporary age: James Dillon‘s Nine Rivers. i can’t be the only person for whom Nine…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Barbican, London: Unsuk Chin – Total Immersion

    by 5:4 April 10, 2011 • 15:39
    April 10, 2011 • 15:39

    Yesterday was a long day, spent in the company of the music of Unsuk Chin, the latest composer to be featured in the Barbican’s ongoing Total Immersion series. In some ways, it feels like Chin’s music has been around forever—or, at least, for the last 20 years, since Acrostic-Wordplay first…

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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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