chamber music

The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist …

Even at the first concert of the first day of Borealis 2022, i was realising how much the festival felt different from the norm. i go to a lot of festivals (notwithstanding the upheavals of the last two years), and for the most part, aside from cultural distinctions, they’re all …

The word ‘solastalgia’ was invented in 2003 by philosopher Glenn Albrecht as a concept to describe the lived experience of negative environmental change. This indicates a variety of contexts – both actual and potential – in which one directly experiences grief and pain from the perception that one’s sense of …

The next work i’m featuring in this year’s Lent Series is one that, in the six years since i first heard it, has completely changed my opinion about it. At the world première of John Woolrich’s Swan Song, i felt that “the fragmented delivery of transient moments of something cantabile …

The next piece in my Lent Series is concerned with not just the possibility but the occasional necessity of having to progress through darkness. Some Paths Will Always Lead Through the Shadows was composed by Elis Hallik in 2021, and takes as inspiration words by poet Doris Kareva: Bitter and …

The Lent Series continues today with a short, darkly ruminative work for baritone and ensemble by British composer Colin Matthews. It’s a setting of the poem ‘It rains’ by war poet Edward Thomas, one of two poems that Thomas composed in 1917 concerned with rain. ‘It rains’ is a wistful …

It’s Rebecca Saunders‘ birthday, so behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a short work of hers investigating slide guitar techniques. Composed in 2018, Study For Metal Bottle Necks comes across as rather different in tone from the majority of Saunders’ work. The usual liminal balance between abstraction and emotional heft …

Behind yesterday’s Advent Calendar door was an angel bathed in glory; today, characters and a context rather less salubrious. Broad St. Burlesque is an homage to the street in Birmingham that its composer, Zoe Martlew, not inaccurately describes as “the city’s principal party slag drag”. The piece was commissioned by …

Today is Finnish Independence Day – Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää! – and to mark the occasion, behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a short work by Pekka Jalkanen. Kuulen lumen tulon (I hear snow coming) is the first part of Jalkanen’s 2017 triptych November, the three movements of which are for one, two …

Today’s Advent Calendar piece is a short work for string quintet by Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova. Composed in 2014, Organum Light takes its inspiration, as the name suggests, from mediæval chant. Part of its allure arises from the conjoining of melody and harmony; the music continually begs the question of …

How have i never heard the music of Aleksandra Gryka before? That’s the question i’ve kept wondering while exploring Interialcell, a new CD featuring five works of hers performed by Klangforum Wien. It’s left me disappointed at making what is, for me, such a very late discovery (her worklist goes …

Some composers you encounter all the time; others not so much. i’ve only come into contact with Marcin Stańczyk‘s music on one occasion: back in 2017, at the UK première of some drops… for double-bell trumpet and ensemble. Until, that is, just recently, when i began immersing myself in a …

i’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with two interesting recent releases of Icelandic music. The first is a short album (an EP really) featuring a string quartet by Anna Thorvaldsdottir titled Enigma. The first thing that struck me, long before actually listening to the music, is that it’s …

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 …

In my last article i explored a CD featuring an overview of the string music of Penderecki, and it’s been interesting to reflect further on aspects of that in relation to Filz, a new album devoted to German composer Enno Poppe – featuring Ensemble Resonanz, and conducted by Poppe – which …

It must have been a strange experience for anyone smitten by the music of Krzysztof Penderecki during the 1960s and early 1970s, falling in love with the bold, abrasive, raw abstract shapes and sound forms unleashed in works such as Emanations (1959), Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St …

Despite its name, it’s important to note that not everything performed at this year’s inaugural Baltic Music Days originated in the Baltic (though all of the performers did). Among the most striking of the international pieces was Spur by Austrian composer Beat Furrer. Composed in 1998, it was especially interesting …

The Sono Luminus label’s ongoing commitment to Icelandic music continues with Moonbow, a new album featuring five works by Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson. Hitherto, my only contact with Gunnar’s music has been via his 2013 release Patterns, showcasing a variety of his earlier output for piano and organ. That album had …

The other newly-released portrait album that’s got me thinking about polarities lately is Earthing, featuring four works for string quartet by Italian composer Clara Iannotta. The reason it provoked that particular train of thought (among many others) is due to the fact that, unlike most new music, it doesn’t so …

Something that comes up a lot in my writing about music is polarities. Perhaps it’s understandable; many composers strive to establish some kind of drama in their work, which often involves the juxtaposition and/or interplay of polarised types of material or behaviour. A lot of the satisfaction and enjoyment from …