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CD/Digital releases

Toivo Tulev – Dawn, Almost Dawn

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World New Music Days 2025, Portugal (Part 1)

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Erkki-Sven Tüür / Max Bruch – Violin Concertos (Hans Christian Aavik /...

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In memoriam Per Nørgård

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FestivalsPremières

Estonian Music Days 2025 (Part 3)

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Estonian Music Days 2025 (Part 1)

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2011: Judith Weir – Stars, Night, Music and Light (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 15, 2011 • 20:24
    July 15, 2011 • 20:24

    The 2011 Proms season commenced this evening with the world première of a new work from Judith Weir. Evocatively titled Stars, Night, Music and Light, Weir has drawn on three lines of text from the sixth stanza of George Herbert‘s poem ‘Man’, a poem that echoes the sentiments of Psalm …

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  • Premières

    Proms 2008: Steven Stucky – Rhapsodies (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 8, 2011 • 21:32
    July 8, 2011 • 21:32

    In seven days’ time, the 2011 Proms season will be upon us, bringing with it a welter of new music. This year’s season promises no fewer than 12 world premières and eight UK premières, plus four ludicrously-titled “London premières”; once again, they’ll all be featured on 5:4, alongside one or …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Richard Ginns – Sea Change

    by 5:4 June 25, 2011 • 12:08
    June 25, 2011 • 12:08

    Nostalgia is a curious and dangerous thing. Its essential condition – memorialising past events, beautifying them into an idealised rendition of the original – is a kind of historical plastic surgery, and its prevalence in contemporary culture shows no sign of abating. At its best, in the realm of the …

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  • Premières

    Adam Duncan – Images Sombres (World Première)

    by 5:4 June 16, 2011 • 07:07
    June 16, 2011 • 07:07

    The final concert in the “New Tunes on Old Fiddles” series included the world première of Images Sombres by Adam Duncan, composed for the viola da gamba player Jonathan Manson. A title such as Images Sombres, composed for viol, puts John Dowland in mind, but while Duncan’s sensibility might echo …

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  • Premières

    Matthew Bilyard – Impressions; Panayiotis Kokoras – Jet (World Premières)

    by 5:4 June 15, 2011 • 06:56
    June 15, 2011 • 06:56

    Third in the “New Tunes on Old Fiddles” concert series was a recital given by the outstanding Dutch recorder player Erik Bosgraaf. The concert included two world premières: Impressions by Brit Matthew Bilyard and Jet by Greek composer Panayiotis Kokoras. The preamble claims Impressions conjures up “images of bustling coastal …

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  • Premières

    Duncan Ward – Who Is Mr Grobe? (World Première)

    by 5:4 June 14, 2011 • 09:15
    June 14, 2011 • 09:15

    The second première in the “New Tunes on Old Fiddles” concert series was a work for viola d’amore and harpsichord, Who is Mr Grobe? by Duncan Ward, given its first performance last November by Catherine Mackintosh and Christopher Bucknall. Ward’s piece grew out of the apparent ‘mystery’ surrounding another piece …

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  • Premières

    Marc Yeats – rhêma (World Première)

    by 5:4 June 13, 2011 • 15:10
    June 13, 2011 • 15:10

    A few months ago, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a series of lunchtime concerts recorded late last year at the Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall in Salford, under the heading “New Tunes on Old Fiddles”. Each of the concerts featured early music played on period instruments, plus the première of a new …

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  • Movies

    BBC Philharmonic – Music from Blue Velvet & Twin Peaks

    by 5:4 June 10, 2011 • 22:51
    June 10, 2011 • 22:51

    This evening the BBC Philharmonic gave a concert from their swanky new home at MediaCity in Salford, dedicated to film music, conducted by Robert Ziegler and and hosted by the superlative film critic Mark Kermode. Towards the end of the concert, the orchestra performed three pieces from the films of …

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  • Podcasts

    Podcast #3 : The Music of Twin Peaks

    by 5:4 June 10, 2011 • 06:33
    June 10, 2011 • 06:33

    Today marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the television show Twin Peaks; the final episode was broadcast on 10 June 1991. Therefore, the new 5:4 podcast is a celebration of the remarkable music from this unique show. Despite some discussion of the story, those who haven’t yet seen …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Noveller – Glacial Glow

    by 5:4 June 6, 2011 • 17:12
    June 6, 2011 • 17:12

    Since departing from rock outfit Parts & Labor in 2009, Sarah Lipstate has taken to exploring deeply experimental territory. Under the nom de guerre of Noveller, armed with only a guitar and the determination to subject it to all manner of treatments, she has spent the last couple of years …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    A flawless reverie for the end of the world: The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Anthropomorphic

    by 5:4 May 23, 2011 • 11:09
    May 23, 2011 • 11:09

    From time to time, an album comes along that doesn’t just confound expectations, but actually goes so far as to widen one’s understanding of what music is capable of being. Scott Walker’s The Drift (which recently turned five years old) is, for me, the most memorable example of that; the …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Mind-bogglingly beautiful: Fovea Hex – Here Is Where We Used To Sing

    by 5:4 May 14, 2011 • 12:33
    May 14, 2011 • 12:33

    Clodagh Simonds likes to take her time. Following an early spell of musical incandescence in the late ’60s and early ’70s (in her own group, the fascinating prog folk outfit Mellow Candle), the Irish singer was content to hover in the fringes for three and half decades before taking centre …

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  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #20 : Dancefloor

    by 5:4 April 24, 2011 • 10:55
    April 24, 2011 • 10:55

    Having finally emerged from the dark days of Lent, i thought it would be fitting to have a new mixtape, with an upbeat theme. As i’ve mentioned on previous occasions, dance music has always been a parallel love of mine alongside the avant-garde, and this mixtape will, i hope, prove …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Barbican, London: Unsuk Chin – Total Immersion

    by 5:4 April 10, 2011 • 15:39
    April 10, 2011 • 15:39

    Yesterday was a long day, spent in the company of the music of Unsuk Chin, the latest composer to be featured in the Barbican’s ongoing Total Immersion series. In some ways, it feels like Chin’s music has been around forever—or, at least, for the last 20 years, since Acrostic-Wordplay first …

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  • Premières

    James MacMillan – Seraph (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 20, 2011 • 15:27
    March 20, 2011 • 15:27

    James MacMillan‘s most recent composition, Seraph, a concertino for trumpet and strings, was premièred by Alison Balsom and the Scottish Ensemble a little over a month ago, at the Wigmore Hall in London. Its bold, militaristic start immediately puts Shostakovich in mind, but this is supplemented with an obvious reference …

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  • Premières

    Detlev Glanert – Musik für Violine und Orchester (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 17, 2011 • 21:46
    March 17, 2011 • 21:46

    On 11 February, getting on for 15 years since its world première in Darmstadt, Detlev Glanert‘s Musik für Violine und Orchester arrived in the UK, in the hands of Stephen Bryant and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of David Robertson. The first movement, ‘Cantus’, is linked to Orpheus, …

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  • Premières

    Gary Carpenter – Fred & Ginger (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 16, 2011 • 21:17
    March 16, 2011 • 21:17

    Radio 3 has featured a glut of premières recently, from a mixture of established and less well-known names. One such new name (to me, at least) is Gary Carpenter, whose new orchestral piece Fred and Ginger received its first performance on 17 February, broadcast a week later. A little over …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    A complete counterpoint to untold destruction: Ex Confusion – Too Late, They Are Gone

    by 5:4 March 15, 2011 • 22:35
    March 15, 2011 • 22:35

    Sometimes, timing changes everything. Tomorrow sees the release of a new EP from Japan’s Atsuhito Omori, better known as Ex Confusion, titled Too Late, They Are Gone. That a work of such sublime quietude from a Japanese artist should come at such a desperate time for that country—which has, in …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    The familiar and the strange playing together as friends: Radiohead – The King of Limbs

    by 5:4 March 6, 2011 • 16:23
    March 6, 2011 • 16:23

    As an occasion, Valentine’s Day is polarising enough, split between they who regard it with importance, and those for whom it’s little more than an overhyped, vacuous sham. But that polarisation was exacerbated further on this particular Valentine’s Day, bringing as it did Radiohead‘s announcement that their eighth album, The …

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  • Premières

    Daniel Kellogg – Soft Sleep Shall Contain You: A Meditation on Schubert’s Death and the Maiden (UK Première)

    by 5:4 February 24, 2011 • 22:15
    February 24, 2011 • 22:15

    Last autumn, on 27 November, at a lunchtime concert at London’s Wigmore Hall, the renowned Takacs Quartet gave the UK Première of the American composer Daniel Kellogg‘s Soft Sleep Shall Contain You: A Meditation on Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. As that title suggests, the piece draws on material from …

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • 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