• 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
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Category:

Seasonal

  • Seasonal

    Peter Maxwell Davies – The Fall of the Leafe

    by 5:4 September 23, 2022 • 02:03
    September 23, 2022 • 02:03

    Today, at 1:03am GMT (the same moment this article is published, in fact), is the equinox, when day and night become equal at the midpoint between light and dark, and the season of autumn begins. i’ve always been especially fond of this season, with its split connotations of positive and…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Seasonal

    Helen Grime – To see the summer sky

    by 5:4 September 21, 2021 • 11:14
    September 21, 2021 • 11:14

    What music “means” – to the composer, and to the listener – is always a fluid, unpredictable thing, and it’s debatable to what extent we have much control over it. For the last few years, as summer has drawn to a close i’ve found myself listening to a short work…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent & ChristmasCD/Digital releasesSeasonal

    Kantos Chamber Choir – The Silver Stars at Play

    by 5:4 December 13, 2017 • 11:43
    December 13, 2017 • 11:43

    ‘Tis the season and all that, and while the majority of festive new releases are concerned with reheating the usual fare, there’s one new Christmas disc that i particularly want to single out. Called The Silver Stars at Play, it’s a collection of 23 contemporary Christmas carol settings, performed by…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Silent Song: James MacMillan – Cantos Sagrados

    by 5:4 March 22, 2008 • 13:25
    March 22, 2008 • 13:25

    If Good Friday is emotionally draining, Holy Saturday feels emotionally empty, numbed and spent. i never quite know what to do with myself on this awful day; everything, somehow, feels wrong, trivial or stupid. i imagine i’m not alone in this; perhaps it’s this feeling that explains the general liturgical…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Stark and unanswerable: John Sanders – The Reproaches

    by 5:4 March 21, 2008 • 09:00
    March 21, 2008 • 09:00

    Each year, on this, its most solemn day, i used to travel to Gloucester Cathedral for the morning Liturgy. Their approach, while lacking a true sense of the abject, was fittingly sombre, particularly at the service’s central point, the Veneration of the Cross. The moment is crushing enough, filing to…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Eye-watering, but not tears: Fernand Laloux – O salutaris hostia, Tantum ergo

    by 5:4 March 20, 2008 • 09:55
    March 20, 2008 • 09:55

    i’m an occasional listener to BBC Radio 3’s broadcasts of Choral Evensong. Only occasional because Evensong, it seems, has got itself stuck – or is deliberately kept – in a rut, where it has languished for at least 50 years (this suspicion was proved some time ago, when a 50-year…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Dolour and death; the Way of the Cross, unadorned: Liszt – Via Crucis

    by 5:4 March 19, 2008 • 10:29
    March 19, 2008 • 10:29

    As i’ve said before, my love of the chorale began in my teenage years with Bach. This love grew after hearing Franz Liszt’s Holy Week cycle, Via Crucis, some years later. Not that chorales are a principal feature of the work; on the contrary, Liszt’s exploration of the Stations of…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    The balance of austerity and grief: Victoria – O vos omnes

    by 5:4 March 18, 2008 • 12:28
    March 18, 2008 • 12:28

    One of the greatest difficulties, i feel, with writing music for Holy Week, is the need to be objectively austere, while also expressing some sense of the highly-wrought feelings that pervade the week. i don’t mean in some ghastly “stiff upper lip” way; that would be dishonest and repressed. One…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Hoping against hope: Thomas Adès – Gefriolsæ me

    by 5:4 March 17, 2008 • 14:27
    March 17, 2008 • 14:27

    It was at a concert in the spring of 1995 that i first encountered the music of Thomas Adès. The piece was Living Toys, and it was significant to my own development as a composer; i came away from the concert with a new vigour, determination and excitement about the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    Passionate, gut-wrenching, but humble: Bach – St John Passion

    by 5:4 March 16, 2008 • 14:07
    March 16, 2008 • 14:07

    Two weeks ago, i was fortunate enough to be at the performance of J. S. Bach‘s St John Passion, given by Ex Cathedra in Birmingham Town Hall. i’ve loved this work since i was a teenager, when a friend lent me a recording of the arias and chorales. It was…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • 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…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail

Join 2,139 other subscribers.

Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Rss
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© 2008-2023 Simon Cummings

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
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form