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Lent Series

  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Naomi Pinnock – The Field is Woven (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 18, 2019 • 12:55
    March 18, 2019 • 12:55

    The inspiration for Naomi Pinnock‘s 2018 orchestral work The field is woven is a series of paintings from 1979 by Agnes Martin titled The Islands. From a distance, these paintings appear to be squares of off-white blankness, yet on closer inspection details become apparent, in the form of colours and…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Kristin Þóra Haraldsdóttir – In Praise of Darkness (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 13, 2019 • 14:55
    March 13, 2019 • 14:55

    One of the things i particularly enjoy when listening is the sense of not knowing where i am, uncertain of what exactly the music is doing or where it’s going: of being kept, for a time at least, in the dark. It’s this kind of ‘darkness’ that i think typifies…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    James Clarke – Untitled No. 9 (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 10, 2019 • 06:00
    March 10, 2019 • 06:00

    British composer James Clarke‘s output has moved away from having poetic or allusive titles, and for the last 12 or so years his works have either been given a codename indicating the year followed by a letter (e.g. 2013-V) or are simply ‘Untitled’. The fact that the latter are numbered…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Liisa Hirsch – Lävi (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 6, 2019 • 06:00
    March 6, 2019 • 06:00

    Being the first day of the season of Lent, today marks the start of the 5:4 Lent Series. This year, i’m going to be exploring works written for full orchestra, beginning with a piece by Estonian Liisa Hirsch. Hirsch is an intriguing composer; i’m still at a relatively early stage of…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – Skin (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 31, 2018 • 11:00
    March 31, 2018 • 11:00

    …this is the room’s essence not being now look closer mere dust dust is the skin of a room history is a skin the older it gets the more impressions are left on its surface look again… These words, spoken by the narrator in Samuel Beckett’s 1975 play The Ghost…

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Rebecca Saunders on record (Part 4)

    by 5:4 March 28, 2018 • 14:15
    March 28, 2018 • 14:15

    Before i conclude my survey of the available recordings of Rebecca Saunders‘ music, i want to flag up some omissions. There are three works that i’m not able to discuss at this point as i haven’t yet got hold of copies of the discs on which they’re featured: rubricare (2005) which…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – Alba (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 23, 2018 • 12:47
    March 23, 2018 • 12:47

    As i’ve noted in previous articles in this Lent series, there are very strong and clear themes and interests – obsessions, even – running through Rebecca Saunders‘ music, with concomitant aspects of overlap and even tautology from work to work. In this respect, Saunders’ entire output can be heard as the…

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Rebecca Saunders on record (Part 3)

    by 5:4 March 17, 2018 • 13:03
    March 17, 2018 • 13:03

    Continuing my survey of recordings of Rebecca Saunders‘ music, i’m looking today at a cluster of pieces featured on compilations as well as a couple of standalone releases. The last work i wrote about, still, initially bore the provisional title rage, and while Saunders ultimately pulled back from this in…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – still (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 13, 2018 • 15:17
    March 13, 2018 • 15:17

    The next piece i’m looking at in my Lent Series celebrating the music of Rebecca Saunders is something of an exception on 5:4, as it’s a work i’ve written about before. Saunders’ violin concerto still dates from 2011, and i explored the piece six years ago, following its first UK…

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Rebecca Saunders on record (Part 2)

    by 5:4 March 6, 2018 • 13:09
    March 6, 2018 • 13:09

    In continuing my survey of recordings of Rebecca Saunders‘ music, i’m turning my attention now to works that are earlier than everything i’ve explored so far. Stirrings Still, released in 2008 on the Wergo label, is an excellent survey of what we might call (for now, at least) ‘mid-period’ Saunders,…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – Stirrings (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 1, 2018 • 00:00
    March 1, 2018 • 00:00

    i’ve already used the word ‘obsessive’ in this Lent Series, and i’m sure i’ll be using it again in due course, but it’s important to note that the strain of obsession that repeatedly rears its head in Rebecca Saunders’ music is a reflection of her own compulsive attitude towards sounds…

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  • AnniversariesCD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Rebecca Saunders on record (Part 1)

    by 5:4 February 24, 2018 • 00:00
    February 24, 2018 • 00:00

    Alongside the individual pieces i’m focusing on in this Lent Series, i’m also going to be providing an overview of as much as possible of Rebecca Saunders’ music that has been released commercially. When i started planning this series of articles last autumn, my perception was that there wasn’t very…

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  • AnniversariesLent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – murmurs (UK Première)

    by 5:4 February 19, 2018 • 00:00
    February 19, 2018 • 00:00

    Since the trace is not a presence but the simulacrum of a presence that dislocates itself, displaces itself, refers itself, it properly has no site; erasure belongs to its structure. And not only the erasure which must always be able to overtake it (without which it would not be a…

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  • AnniversariesLent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – traces (UK/Austrian Premières)

    by 5:4 February 14, 2018 • 00:00
    February 14, 2018 • 00:00

    Rebecca Saunders turned 50 towards the end of last year, so to mark this milestone the 5:4 Lent Series will this year be dedicated to her music. Over the course of the next six weeks, i’ll be looking at a number of her pieces in some detail, as well as…

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  • Lent Series

    Amber Priestley – floors are flowers — take a few

    by 5:4 April 15, 2017 • 10:51
    April 15, 2017 • 10:51

    i’m ending this year’s Lent series with a beautifully weird little piece by USA-born, UK-based composer Amber Priestley. The work takes its title – floors are flowers — take a few – from an equally short poem by US poet Shel Silverstein, ‘Enter This Deserted House’: But please walk softly as…

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  • Lent Series

    Morton Feldman – Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety

    by 5:4 April 10, 2017 • 11:15
    April 10, 2017 • 11:15

    To begin the final week of my Lent Series, i’m turning to a curious little miniature by Morton Feldman. Composed in 1970, Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety is a work for a small, unusual ensemble of 2 flutes, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, celesta, bells, 2 cellos and 2 double basses.…

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  • Lent Series

    Dave Price – Twitcher

    by 5:4 April 3, 2017 • 15:46
    April 3, 2017 • 15:46

    The next miniature work in my Lent Series is something a little different from the norm. Dave Price uses an array of game calls and bird whistles in conjunction with a piccolo to create his taut, playful and at times downright hilarious three-minute Twitcher. Those of a prog rock disposition may…

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  • Lent Series

    Peter Maxwell Davies – Unbroken Circle

    by 5:4 March 27, 2017 • 15:10
    March 27, 2017 • 15:10

    The next of my Lent Series miniatures is Unbroken Circle, a four-minute piece for alto flute, bass clarinet, viola, cello and piano by Peter Maxwell Davies. It was composed in 1984, a year that would prove to be an anguished one for Max: his mother, Hilda, had a severe stroke…

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  • Lent Series

    Harrison Birtwistle – Double Hocket

    by 5:4 March 21, 2017 • 09:19
    March 21, 2017 • 09:19

    Brevity may well be the soul of wit, but the challenges it raises from the perspective of the listener can be considerable. Everything becomes ultra-compact: no sooner has an idea been presented then we’re on to another – or, more usually in this context, a different facet of the existing one…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Howard Skempton – Here’s the Tender Coming (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 16, 2017 • 20:14
    March 16, 2017 • 20:14

    Back to the Lent Series, and to a completely charming and surprisingly poignant little miniature by Howard Skempton. Here’s the Tender Coming is a Northumbrian folk tune, and Skempton’s arrangement of it dates from 2011, appropriately written for Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell plus the addition of a string quartet. Despite the cheeriness…

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