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5:4
FestivalsPremières

Forum Wallis 2023 (Part 2)

by 5:4 March 22, 2023 • 08:23 0 comment

Galina Ustvolskaya – Symphony No. 1

by 5:4 March 20, 2023 • 09:09 2 comments

Killing My Darlings: Suite for solo violin (1995)

by 5:4 March 18, 2023 • 09:59 1 comment
FestivalsPremières

Forum Wallis 2023 (Part 1)

by 5:4 March 16, 2023 • 09:34 0 comment

Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 7 (UK Première)

by 5:4 March 14, 2023 • 07:48 0 comment

Peter Maxwell Davies – Symphony No. 7 (World Première)

by 5:4 March 9, 2023 • 07:07 0 comment
Lent SeriesPremières

Laurence Crane – Chamber Symphony No. 2 “The Australian” (World Première)

by 5:4 March 4, 2023 • 05:00 0 comment

Fermata Wallis

by 5:4 March 2, 2023 • 07:00 0 comment

Symphony Hall, Birmingham: CBSO Youth Orchestra

by 5:4 February 28, 2023 • 15:47 1 comment
Lent Series

Huw Watkins – Little Symphony

by 5:4 February 27, 2023 • 08:43 5 comments

Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 1 “Music on Open Strings” (UK Première)

by 5:4 February 20, 2023 • 17:12 6 comments

Killing My Darlings: Meditation No. 3 (1994)

by 5:4 February 16, 2023 • 10:57 3 comments

more articles

  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Milton Babbitt – An Encore (European Première)

    by 5:4 December 11, 2022 • 05:00
    December 11, 2022 • 05:00

    There are some composers whose music i keep coming back to not out of love but with the attitude of a nutcracker, trying once again to break through its tough, tenacious surface. i don’t know Milton Babbitt‘s music well (as i admitted when noting his centenary a few years back),…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Onutė Narbutaitė – Vasara

    by 5:4 December 10, 2022 • 05:00
    December 10, 2022 • 05:00

    Today’s featured work is one for the southern hemisphere, now entering its warmest months of the year. Composed in 1991, Lithuanian composer Onutė Narbutaitė‘s Vasara is a miniature choral homage to the season of summer. The words, written by the composer, have a nostalgic flavour, looking back at the experiences…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Francisco López – Untitled, Live at Cafe Oto (#1) (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 9, 2022 • 05:00
    December 9, 2022 • 05:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar piece is the first of two live, untitled performances given by Spanish sound artist Francisco López at Cafe Oto in London in March 2015. The performances were originally presented in four channels, with members of the audience invited to wear eye masks in order to plunge themselves…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Tõnis Kaumann – Ave Maria

    by 5:4 December 8, 2022 • 05:00
    December 8, 2022 • 05:00

    For those of a Catholic persuasion, today is one of the days devoted to Mary in the liturgical calendar, so it’s as good a time as any to feature in my Advent Calendar a setting of Ave Maria by Estonian composer Tõnis Kaumann. A few years ago i explored Kaumann’s…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Chaya Czernowin – On the Face of the Deep (UK Première)

    by 5:4 December 7, 2022 • 05:00
    December 7, 2022 • 05:00

    Though i don’t (any longer) have a religious bone in my body, i’m nonetheless drawn to the paintings of John Martin, particularly his vast, frenzied depictions of some of the more apocalyptic events described in the Bible. i find myself thinking of Martin’s paintings while listening to On the Face…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Naomi Pinnock – everything does change

    by 5:4 December 6, 2022 • 05:00
    December 6, 2022 • 05:00

    “Everything changes it is extraordinary how everything does change.” That short quotation from Gertrude Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography has provided Naomi Pinnock with two separate titles for two related works. Everything changes for viola and cello was composed in 2011 as the accompaniment to a short film by Pavla Scerankova titled…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Max de Wardener – Until my Blood is Pure (World Première)

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

    In last year’s Advent Calendar i featured an untitled piece by Max de Wardener from a live performance at the Southbank Centre in March 2014. On the same occasion he presented a new version of Until my Blood is Pure, originally included on his 2002 EP Stops. That version, for…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Pierre Boulez (orch. Schöllhorn) – Notations Nos. 2, 10 & 11; La treizième (UK Première)

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

    Pierre Boulez composed his piano work Douze Notations in 1945. After its première in February of that year (by Yvette Grimaud), the piece was subsequently withdrawn by Boulez (evidently already regarding it as outdated), who only relented and allowed it to be published in the mid-1980s. Despite this, in 1946…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Elaine Agnew – Hold (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 3, 2022 • 05:00
    December 3, 2022 • 05:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar piece is an example of what may well prove to be a substantial body of work that we might call ‘Covid music’, composed during the pandemic. Hold, by Northern Irish composer Elaine Agnew, is a short work for string orchestra responding to the experience of lockdown in…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Galina Grigorjeva – Molitva (World Première, theremin & strings version)

    by 5:4 December 2, 2022 • 05:00
    December 2, 2022 • 05:00

    Today marks the 60th birthday of Ukraine-born, Estonia-based composer Galina Grigorjeva. Her music over the last decade or so has progressively moved more closely in both character and ideology to that of Arvo Pärt, rooted in musical simplicity, articulating aspects of Orthodox religious belief. In the case of her 2005…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 December 1, 2022 • 15:24
    December 1, 2022 • 15:24

    This year’s composer in residence at HCMF, Lisa Streich, was represented by an appropriately large number of performances, allowing for a pretty deep dive into her musical thinking. If i say that a lot of what i heard of Streich’s music was more intriguing than immediately enjoyable, i need to…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Betsy Jolas – Just A Minute!

    by 5:4 December 1, 2022 • 05:00
    December 1, 2022 • 05:00

    It’s 1 December, so it’s time to begin the second annual 5:4 Advent Calendar. During the next few weeks i’ll be briefly exploring a diverse selection of curiosities, oddities and wonderments. The majority will be short pieces, but i’ll also be featuring larger works occasionally.

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2022 • 14:27
    November 30, 2022 • 14:27

    People doing interesting things to objects doesn’t necessarily create interesting music. Can we agree on that? i don’t think that’s a particularly outrageous thing to say, though there were a number of times during my six days at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival when i found myself wondering otherwise.…

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  • Announcements

    Fermata HCMF

    by 5:4 November 18, 2022 • 08:22
    November 18, 2022 • 08:22

    This afternoon i’m heading north for a few days to experience some of this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Words in abundance once i return next week.

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releases

    Rebecca Saunders – Skin

    by 5:4 November 17, 2022 • 10:46
    November 17, 2022 • 10:46

    In 2018, when exploring the music of Rebecca Saunders in that year’s Lent Series, i made the following remark regarding recordings of her music: The fact that i’ve explored Rebecca Saunders’ recorded output over four articles suggests that she’s well represented by recordings of her work. But almost half of…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Francisco López – Untitled #400

    by 5:4 November 14, 2022 • 16:54
    November 14, 2022 • 16:54

    Nearly 40 years have passed since Spanish sound artist Francisco López‘s earliest releases. Whatever else has changed throughout those four decades of creativity, one thing has remained consistent: his use of the word ‘Untitled’ for his output. Not always, of course, but aside from a few exceptions, López’s output has…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Michael Gielen conducts Messiaen, Szymanowski & Penderecki

    by 5:4 November 4, 2022 • 16:10
    November 4, 2022 • 16:10

    Twentieth century music is at an interesting point in its history from the perspective of recordings. Contemporary music, for obvious reasons, is always the most under-represented, whereas works from the last hundred years are beginning to reach the stage where’s there’s a more meaningful range of recordings available. In the…

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  • CD/Digital releasesPremières

    Shiva Feshareki – Turning World

    by 5:4 November 2, 2022 • 11:26
    November 2, 2022 • 11:26

    Concerts of contemporary music have a tendency to be obsessed with presenting premières, yet it’s all too common for those performances to be dazzling one-offs that are all too soon lost to oblivion. So there’s some serious kudos due to NMC for saving two such performances, both electroacoustic, both showcasing…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Bára Gísladóttir & Skúli Sverrisson – Live from the Spirit Store / Bára Gísladóttir – VÍDDIR

    by 5:4 October 28, 2022 • 09:31
    October 28, 2022 • 09:31

    Over the last few years i’ve been more and more deeply impressed by the music of Icelandic composer and performer Bára Gísladóttir. First contact was at the Dark Music Days in 2020, when i saw her in action with Skúli Sverrisson, forming a complex double bass / electric bass soundworld…

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releases

    Brett Dean – Testament / Beethoven – Symphony No. 2

    by 5:4 October 18, 2022 • 13:59
    October 18, 2022 • 13:59

    The last time i wrote about Australian composer Brett Dean was exploring his response to the music of J. S. Bach, as part of The Brandenburg Project. This time it’s Beethoven’s music that Dean is responding to, in his orchestral work Testament, which has recently been released in a performance…

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