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5:4
Premières

Proms 2022: Julian Anderson – Symphony No. 2 ‘Prague Panoramas’ (World Première)

by 5:4 August 8, 2022 • 11:20 8 comments

20 years on: Autechre – Gantz Graf

by 5:4 August 5, 2022 • 05:00 3 comments

Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir & Sam Slater (arr. Robert Ames) – Selections...

by 5:4 August 2, 2022 • 15:59 0 comment
Premières

Proms 2022: Nicole Lizée – Blurr is the Colour of My True...

by 5:4 August 1, 2022 • 14:31 0 comment

The Dialogues: Naomi Pinnock

by 5:4 July 27, 2022 • 08:23 0 comment

Proms 2022: Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Your Servant, Elizabeth (World Première)

by 5:4 July 23, 2022 • 12:54 0 comment
Premières

Proms 2022: Sally Beamish – Hive (World Première)

by 5:4 July 22, 2022 • 17:56 0 comment

Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir – The Fact of the Matter (World Première)

by 5:4 July 21, 2022 • 16:15 2 comments

Laura Bowler – The Blue Woman; Distance

by 5:4 July 18, 2022 • 16:39 0 comment
ConcertsPremières

BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 2)

by 5:4 July 10, 2022 • 11:41 0 comment

BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 1)

by 5:4 July 7, 2022 • 12:25 0 comment

Mixtape #65 : Love

by 5:4 July 4, 2022 • 12:38 0 comment

more articles

  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Julian Anderson – Symphony No. 2 ‘Prague Panoramas’ (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 8, 2022 • 11:20
    August 8, 2022 • 11:20

    Almost exactly 10 years ago, i coined a new adjective, ‘Faberian’, in reference to Faber Music, to summarise what i later described as “the kind of thing one hears all too often in works from the more mainstream protagonists of that particular publishing house”. On that first occasion i elaborated…

    Read more
  • Anniversaries

    20 years on: Autechre – Gantz Graf

    by 5:4 August 5, 2022 • 05:00
    August 5, 2022 • 05:00

    Though i find it a bit hard to believe, today marks the 20th anniversary of one of Autechre‘s most dazzling creations, Gantz Graf. It was the opener on a 3-track EP, but the other two tracks, Dial and Cap.IV, though significantly longer than Gantz Graf‘s mere 4-minute duration, were utterly…

    Read more
  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir & Sam Slater (arr. Robert Ames) – Selections from Battlefield 2042 (European Première)

    by 5:4 August 2, 2022 • 15:59
    August 2, 2022 • 15:59

    As part of the Proms’ inexorable slide away from concert works in an attempt to remain relevant, yesterday evening’s event was given over to orchestral arrangements and reworkings of music from videogames. They included the European première (following a performance by the LA Philharmonic late last year) of Robert Ames‘…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Nicole Lizée – Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes (European Première)

    by 5:4 August 1, 2022 • 14:31
    August 1, 2022 • 14:31

    Canadian composer Nicole Lizée‘s new percussion concerto, premièred last month in Ottowa, received its first European performance at the Proms last Friday evening. Its title, Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes, though somewhat strange at first, perhaps suggests the two main aspects of the work. The first…

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  • InterviewsThe Dialogues

    The Dialogues: Naomi Pinnock

    by 5:4 July 27, 2022 • 08:23
    July 27, 2022 • 08:23

    It’s a real pleasure to be able to present another instalment in my ongoing occasional series The Dialogues. This time, my guest is UK composer Naomi Pinnock, whose music has been a persistent highlight on my radar for the last decade or so. We’d been talking about recording this for…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Your Servant, Elizabeth (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 23, 2022 • 12:54
    July 23, 2022 • 12:54

    Last night’s Prom was a monarchist’s paradise, waxing lyrical in the Queen’s platinum jubilee year with an evening of music composed for royal occasions. Nestling among all the sonic bowing and scraping and forelock-tugging from the usual early 20th century shower was a short new choral work from Cheryl Frances-Hoad,…

    Read more
  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Sally Beamish – Hive (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 22, 2022 • 17:56
    July 22, 2022 • 17:56

    Yesterday evening’s Prom concert wasn’t specifically aimed at children, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was while listening to Sally Beamish‘s new harp concerto, Hive. The work’s narrative is structured in a simple four-movement form, corresponding to the seasons of the year, beginning in winter. This opening movement isn’t…

    Read more
  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir – The Fact of the Matter (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 21, 2022 • 16:15
    July 21, 2022 • 16:15

    Last night’s Prom concert included the first of this year’s crop of premières. The Fact of the Matter is a 16-minute response to the current state of the world by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. In the pre-concert discussion, she spoke about the divisions between people, and the feeling that “we’re…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Laura Bowler – The Blue Woman; Distance

    by 5:4 July 18, 2022 • 16:39
    July 18, 2022 • 16:39

    The opportunity to hear two new works by Laura Bowler within a single week isn’t just a exciting prospect, it’s a daunting one. Her subject matter has oscillated between the personal and the global, at both extremes seeking to address the pain and damage that far too many people are…

    Read more
  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 2)

    by 5:4 July 10, 2022 • 11:41
    July 10, 2022 • 11:41

    In the previous part i highlighted the works heard at BEAST FEaST 2022 that went against the grain and handled their materials with gentleness. However, not surprisingly the dominant compositional attitude was one aspiring to power and heft. Though unassumingly titled, Helena Gough‘s Yolk featured an almost flamboyant display of…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 1)

    by 5:4 July 7, 2022 • 12:25
    July 7, 2022 • 12:25

    The key word, i think, is “feast”. There was something gloriously gluttonous about the quantity of music performed at BEAST FEaST 2022, though considering the festival was celebrating both the 40th anniversary of the founding of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and the recent 70th birthday of its founder Jonty Harrison,…

    Read more
  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #65 : Love

    by 5:4 July 4, 2022 • 12:38
    July 4, 2022 • 12:38

    Almost as soon as i finished the previous 5:4 mixtape, focusing on war, it seemed necessary that the next one should go in the opposite direction. For this love-infused mix, i’ve not allowed myself the usual interpretative free rein but have for the most part focused on songs and tracks…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Fermata Brum

    by 5:4 June 27, 2022 • 16:42
    June 27, 2022 • 16:42

    i’m heading off to Birmingham this evening, to savour the next few days’ acousmatic delights and disorientation at the BEAST FEaST festival. Words to follow once i’m back next week.

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releases

    Olga Neuwirth – Orlando

    by 5:4 June 27, 2022 • 16:12
    June 27, 2022 • 16:12

    There’s something rather depressing about the fact that, despite nearly a century separating the publication of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando in 1928, and the première of Olga Neuwirth‘s opera Orlando in 2019, the topic of gender identity and fluidity continues to be regarded as such a hot, controversial topic in…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Gigs, gigs, gigs: BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances

    by 5:4 June 23, 2022 • 14:02
    June 23, 2022 • 14:02

    It’s no fewer than 40 years since the formation of BEAST – Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, one of the leading organisations pioneering the creation and presentation of electronic music. To celebrate this milestone, next week Birmingham University will be hosting BEAST FEaST 2022, a four-day extravaganza of concerts, installations and…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Annelien Van Wauwe – Flow

    by 5:4 June 20, 2022 • 15:59
    June 20, 2022 • 15:59

    Flow is the title of a new album featuring Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe wielding the less common basset clarinet. Invented in the 1770s by Theodor Lotz (who had previously created the basset horn), the purpose of the instrument was in part to extend the lower range of the clarinet.…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano & Oskolki

    by 5:4 June 15, 2022 • 16:23
    June 15, 2022 • 16:23

    Chamber music implies a particular kind of intimacy, and that’s overwhelmingly the case on a new album of music by Russian-born composer Lera Auerbach. Part of its intensity comes from the fact that the performers are Avita Duo, comprising pianist Ksenia Nosikova and her violinist daughter Katya Moeller. This in…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    JH – APEIROZOAN

    by 5:4 June 11, 2022 • 18:21
    June 11, 2022 • 18:21

    far away and hidden in the lands beneath no moon,in gorges below pinnacles upon which dwell the dead,a cavern, overshadowed by encircling mountains, gapesbeneath a narrow vault across whose dark the stars are sped.from deep down in its cave there comes a sinister refrainthat resonates the barren, shadowed valleys with…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    LEYA – Eyeline

    by 5:4 June 6, 2022 • 16:46
    June 6, 2022 • 16:46

    One of the more beguiling albums i heard in 2020 was Flood Dream by New York duo LEYA. That being said, at the time i wasn’t at all sure what to make of it, except that it left me intrigued, fascinated and, in a way that i couldn’t really articulate,…

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releases

    Juliana Hodkinson – Angel View

    by 5:4 May 31, 2022 • 12:23
    May 31, 2022 • 12:23

    i’ve crossed paths with the music of Juliana Hodkinson on a few occasions over the last few years, and they’ve always been somewhat discombobulating experiences. My response each time has been ambivalent, primarily due to the way that Hodkinson seeks to harness – and, potentially, rely upon – physical and…

    Read more
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5:4
  • About
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  • The Lists
    • Complete list of ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
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    • Submission Contact Form