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Brian Ferneyhough

  • CD/Digital releases

    Listening, isolated: solo music by Brian Ferneyhough, Sam Hayden, Olga Neuwirth, Rebecca Saunders and Salvatore Sciarrino

    by 5:4 May 4, 2021 • 16:19
    May 4, 2021 • 16:19

    Considering that most of us have been spending the last 12 months in varying forms of isolation, it seems a fitting time to focus on music for solo instruments. German label Kairos clearly feels the same way, as they’ve recently brought out a short series of five albums, each titled …

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  • Anniversaries

    Brian Ferneyhough – Fanfare for Klaus Huber

    by 5:4 January 16, 2018 • 11:36
    January 16, 2018 • 11:36

    Today is the 75th birthday of one of the UK’s most consistently remarkable, bewildering, surprising and moving composers, Brian Ferneyhough. By way of a miniature celebration, here are two recordings of his shortest composition, Fanfare for Klaus Huber for two percussionists. It’s a piece i feel somewhat connected to: composed in …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    HCMF 2017: The Otheroom, Ensemble Modern + Arditti Quartet, zeitkratzer perform Kraftwerk

    by 5:4 November 19, 2017 • 18:52
    November 19, 2017 • 18:52

    Yesterday at HCMF was unusual, personally speaking, as for the most part it involved hearing music not for the first time. In the evening at St Paul’s Hall, Ensemble Modern and the Arditti Quartet gave the first UK performances of Carola Bauckholt‘s Laufwerk, Christopher Trapani‘s PolychROME and Brian Ferneyhough‘s 45-minute …

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  • Concerts

    Recognition, raw ambition and raw power: Alba New Music 2017

    by 5:4 October 13, 2017 • 12:51
    October 13, 2017 • 12:51

    Last weekend brought the welcome return of Alba New Music, Edinburgh’s nascent new music festival. Having got the ball rolling with a bang last year, the 2017 festival as a whole felt more focused, in part due to deliberately having something of a thematic thread running through it. With an emphasis …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 13, 2017 • 17:57
    May 13, 2017 • 17:57

    i’ve recently got back from the annual Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Witten Days for New Chamber Music), Germany’s annual three-day blow out celebrating the newest iterations of the idiom. It was my first experience of the festival, and i have to say my initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive. The …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    A mass of miniature miracles: Alba New Music 2016

    by 5:4 October 12, 2016 • 11:01
    October 12, 2016 • 11:01

    A couple of miles out of the centre of Edinburgh, emblazoned in brightly-lit capital letters, is a stark, startling sentence: THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE. Created by Nathan Coley in 2009, and situated outside the Modern Two gallery, the unequivocal message of this bold piece of art rang entirely …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: NEOS box sets – Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014, Darmstadt Aural Documents Box 3: Ensembles

    by 5:4 October 2, 2016 • 15:21
    October 2, 2016 • 15:21

    What with the increase in listeners turning away from physical releases in favour of digital downloads, and in light of yet another (admittedly somewhat spurious) article this week offhandedly proclaiming the imminent death of the album, the efforts of German label NEOS to put out large, lavish box sets are both absurd …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2014: Shorts, Feldman’s Pianos, asamisimasa

    by 5:4 November 26, 2014 • 00:42
    November 26, 2014 • 00:42

    Yesterday was HCMF’s annual day of ‘Shorts’, concerts of between 20 and 40 minutes, affording the opportunity to hear an exceptionally diverse range of music. Taken as a whole, it’s a cross between an Aladdin’s cave and one of those machines with the grappling hook that you find in amusement …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2013: Quatuor Diotima

    by 5:4 November 18, 2013 • 01:05
    November 18, 2013 • 01:05

    This morning saw Brian Ferneyhough back at St Paul’s Hall, his music this time being performed by the outstanding Quatuor Diotima, alongside works by Gérard Pesson, Miroslav Srnka and György Ligeti. Ligeti’s 1968 String Quartet No. 2 came last in the concert, but i mention it first because—as Ligeti’s music always …

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    HCMF 2013: Ensemble Linea + Irvine Arditti

    by 5:4 November 17, 2013 • 20:56
    November 17, 2013 • 20:56

    The final concert yesterday took place, once again, in St Paul’s Hall, featuring Ensemble Linea, conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz. It featured three new works, by Brian Ferneyhough, Raphaël Cendo and James Clarke. Ferneyhough and Clarke appear at first to come from different points of origin; Ferneyhough states that he cannot …

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  • PremièresThematic series

    Ferneyhough Week – Plötzlichkeit (UK Première)

    by 5:4 January 18, 2013 • 09:19
    January 18, 2013 • 09:19

    A principal thread running through much of Brian Ferneyhough’s music is one that plays with notions of linear narrative. It has been present as far back as the Sonatas for String Quartet, composed in 1967, which intercuts two entirely separate materials, one strictly serial, the other intuitive. Incipits (1996)—drawing inspiration …

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  • 20th CenturyThematic series

    Ferneyhough Week – Missa Brevis

    by 5:4 January 17, 2013 • 09:25
    January 17, 2013 • 09:25

    From one of Brian Ferneyhough’s less familiar works i’m turning today to one of the best known, the Missa Brevis, composed in 1969. The very fact that Ferneyhough turned to a form and text so embedded in the development and consciousness of western music, so infused with associations, may seem …

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  • 20th CenturyThematic series

    Ferneyhough Week – Prometheus

    by 5:4 January 16, 2013 • 09:48
    January 16, 2013 • 09:48

    Today i’m going to focus on a relatively early work of Ferneyhough’s, Prometheus for wind sextet, composed in 1967. It’s not a piece that’s performed terribly often, nor is there much information about it, i suspect in part due to how early it was composed (when Ferneyhough was just 24 …

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  • Thematic series

    Ferneyhough Week – Exordium

    by 5:4 January 15, 2013 • 10:11
    January 15, 2013 • 10:11

    La terre est un homme is an unusual work in Brian Ferneyhough’s output, inasmuch as he has only written for orchestra on two occasions (his other orchestral work will be featured later this week). The string quartet, on the other hand, is a medium to which he has turned on …

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  • 20th CenturyThematic series

    Ferneyhough Week – La terre est un homme

    by 5:4 January 14, 2013 • 15:08
    January 14, 2013 • 15:08

    This week sees the 70th birthday of one of the UK’s most significant composers, Brian Ferneyhough. For nearly fifty years, his music has been thrilling and discombobulating audiences in not entirely equal measure, pursuing his compositional goals with ruthless, painstaking rigour. As has long been the case with its most …

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  • Festivals

    Proms 2010: Weir, Musgrave, Northcott, Ferneyhough, Taverner, Harvey and Jackson

    by 5:4 September 5, 2010 • 23:56
    September 5, 2010 • 23:56

    The final Proms Saturday Matinee, two days ago, featured the BBC Singers, exploring a variety of contemporary works inspired by early music. The singers were joined for the occasion by the Arditti Quartet and members of Endymion, with David Hill presiding. The concert opened with Judith Weir‘s millennial composition All …

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  • Premières

    Ensemble Exposé: Brian Ferneyhough – Incipits (UK Première) plus Davies, Xenakis, Barrett, Dillon and Sørensen

    by 5:4 June 6, 2008 • 21:15
    June 6, 2008 • 21:15

    Here’s a real treat for those who prefer their contemporary music to be at the more intellectually rewarding end of the continuum. It’s music from a concert given at the ICA in London by Ensemble Exposé (plus violist Garth Knox), under the direction of Roger Redgate, who also discusses the …

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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
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