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Miscellaneous

  • 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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  • Miscellaneous

    Ivan Wyschnegradsky – Manual of Quarter-Tone Harmony

    by 5:4 January 17, 2018 • 13:06
    January 17, 2018 • 13:06

    If composers have generally lost a lot of the romanticised mystique and puffery that used to surround them (no bad thing), there remains one area where compositional intent is still likely to raise eyebrows and/or hackles, and confine the composer to a box labelled ‘weirdo’: non-standard tunings. Due to the…

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  • Miscellaneous

    HCMF revisited: Laurence Crane – Movement for 10 musicians

    by 5:4 November 16, 2017 • 06:00
    November 16, 2017 • 06:00

    One of the awkward aspects of attending the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival arises from the fact that, when choosing which concerts to attend, there’s an unavoidable fear that one will inevitably miss something fantastically memorable and/or stunningly ground-breaking. The next piece in my HCMF revisitings is a case in point,…

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  • Miscellaneous

    HCMF revisited: James Dillon – Piano Concerto ‘Andromeda’

    by 5:4 November 14, 2017 • 13:28
    November 14, 2017 • 13:28

    Scottish composer James Dillon is a regular fixture at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and the last few years have included several of his larger-scale works. Of these, the performance of his Piano Concerto ‘Andromeda’ at HCMF 2014 was one of the most striking, and has remained vividly in mind…

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  • Miscellaneous

    HCMF 2014 revisited: Morton Feldman – Piano Four Hands

    by 5:4 November 15, 2015 • 11:49
    November 15, 2015 • 11:49

    Not everything performed at HCMF is brand new, yet there are occasions when it feels as though one’s hearing a familiar piece for the first time. This happened last year with Morton Feldman‘s Piano Four Hands, a work that dates back over half a century, composed in 1958. One of…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Unsuk Chin – Six Piano Études

    by 5:4 February 12, 2013 • 20:58
    February 12, 2013 • 20:58

    It’s been quite a while since my articles on the Barbican’s 2011 Total Immersion Day devoted to Unsuk Chin, but here’s an omission from that account, which was only broadcast recently. The day began with a piano recital given by Clare Hammond, featuring Chin’s Six Piano Études. It’s perhaps not…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Street Sounds special (BBC 6 Music)

    by 5:4 June 23, 2010 • 16:46
    June 23, 2010 • 16:46

    Last Sunday, the ill-fated BBC 6 Music broadcast a two-hour special focusing on the legendary Street Sounds label. The special is presented by Dave Pearce, in conversation with the persistently energetic Morgan Khan, who founded Street Sounds in the early 1980s, and is responsible for bringing so much early hip-hop,…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Peter Maxwell Davies – The Wells Service

    by 5:4 March 26, 2009 • 13:39
    March 26, 2009 • 13:39

    Yesterday’s Choral Evensong came from one of our most beautiful cathedrals, Wells Cathedral, celebrating the feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The canticles came in the form of Peter Maxwell-Davies‘ Wells Service. The Magnificat is a dense and stodgy affair, briefly aerated with a treble solo; it’s…

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  • Miscellaneous

    George Benjamin – Viola, Viola; Three Miniatures for Solo Violin; Into the Little Hill

    by 5:4 March 5, 2009 • 17:33
    March 5, 2009 • 17:33

    George Benjamin is one of the first contemporary composers in whom i became interested, as a teenager. It’s difficult to pin down or articulate quite what i find appealing in his music, and in fact reasonably often i’ve found myself ambivalent about certain pieces. There’s an intensity and earnestness of…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Cut and Splice 2005: Frank Bretschneider, Carsten Nicolai & Olaf Bender

    by 5:4 February 24, 2009 • 15:56
    February 24, 2009 • 15:56

    Returning to the archives, here’s an eclectic variety of electronic music from the 2005 Cut and Splice Festival in London. The festival included a focus on three composers associated with the German Raster-Noton label: Frank Bretschneider, Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) and Olaf Bender (aka Byetone). During the festival, Frank…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Approaching future pop perfection: Freezepop

    by 5:4 December 12, 2008 • 23:16
    December 12, 2008 • 23:16

    2008 seems to be drawing to a close with surprising alacrity, and already i’ve started to see a number of “Best of 2008” articles appearing. Rest assured i’ll be doing my own individual pick of the year’s highlights towards the end of the month. Meanwhile, let’s turn our attention to…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Ancient and modern: Unsuk Chin – Violin Concerto, Miroirs des temps; Chris Dench – Passing bells: night

    by 5:4 September 23, 2008 • 19:15
    September 23, 2008 • 19:15

    i’ve been a fan of Unsuk Chin‘s music ever since she returned to instrumental writing in the early ’90s with Akrostichon-Wortspiel. Her Violin Concerto is awash with invention; all the talk of open strings is simply an opening gambit, from where it departs into vivid and distinctly unfamiliar territory. Often,…

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  • Miscellaneous

    A moving aria for a vanishing style of mind: Scott Walker – The Drift

    by 5:4 September 14, 2008 • 19:22
    September 14, 2008 • 19:22

    i avoid superlatives whenever possible. If people ask me (and they do, surprisingly often) to name a favourite composer or artist or album, i invariably either deflect the question away—”i don’t really have one…”—or reflect it back at them—”i’m not sure; how about you…?”). For the most part, the best…

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  • Miscellaneous

    David Briggs – Symphony in Four Movements

    by 5:4 June 25, 2008 • 20:49
    June 25, 2008 • 20:49

    A former Director of Music of Gloucester Cathedral, David Briggs has made something of a name for himself as a creator of large-scale improvisations. From a compositional standpoint, they’re generally contrived and unoriginal; Briggs – like fellow organist Wayne Marshall – has a penchant for creating music in the styles…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Down with politics! : And One – Bodypop

    by 5:4 May 25, 2008 • 12:28
    May 25, 2008 • 12:28

    If you were to combine Leonard Cohen, Laibach and Aqua with just a sprinkling (dare i suggest it) of The Village People, the result would go some way to resembling And One. To describe them as ‘peculiar’ is not really to say anything meaningful about Europop, which has never borne…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Messiaen’s Méditations – the greatest organ work of all time?

    by 5:4 May 18, 2008 • 21:49
    May 18, 2008 • 21:49

    Trinity Sunday, and an opportunity to share one of the most prized CDs of my collection. It’s a complete recording of Olivier Messiaen‘s organ cycle Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, performed by Messiaen himself on the organ of the Parisian church where he was organist for most…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Deerhoof: confounding & clever

    by 5:4 April 30, 2008 • 20:57
    April 30, 2008 • 20:57

    i detest the obsession to subdivide music into genres, and what excites me so much about Deerhoof’s music is that it’s absolutely impossible to pigeon-hole. i’ve seen them called “indie rock”, “post rock”, “avant rock” and “math rock”; but i don’t worry about such things, and choose rather to revel…

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  • Miscellaneous

    The Pipettes: changing once again

    by 5:4 April 21, 2008 • 12:41
    April 21, 2008 • 12:41

    i’m in mourning at present. A few days ago, it was announced that two members of The Pipettes, RiotBecki and Rosay, are leaving “to pursue other musical projects”. i’ve nothing against change, of course, and in their five years The Pipettes have already experienced a fair amount of alterations, but…

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  • Miscellaneous

    Vitrolic, bitter and brilliant: Transvision Vamp – Velveteen

    by 5:4 April 19, 2008 • 11:50
    April 19, 2008 • 11:50

    When i was 16, i bought my first CD player. At the time – and i’m conscious how old i feel saying this – it was still a real novelty for anyone my age to possess their own CD player, and it was one of the (mercifully) few times when…

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  • MiscellaneousSeasonal

    Days of wrath and mourning: Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts

    by 5:4 March 9, 2008 • 14:06
    March 9, 2008 • 14:06

    Passion Sunday, and my thoughts move into more sombre, vermilion territory. Not in a morbid sense but, nonetheless, death unavoidably starts to pervade things from now on. and with it, a return to some music that can accurately be said to have changed my life. At the time i first…

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5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • 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
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  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
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