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Germany

  • 20th CenturyCD/Digital releases

    Michael Gielen Edition Vol. 10: Music after 1945

    by 5:4 February 18, 2022 • 13:21
    February 18, 2022 • 13:21

    i’m really not a conductor fanboy. Composers are always getting me excited; performers too, from time to time; but conductors, in general, not so much. There are some special cases: Bernard Haitink and Riccardo Chailly have both stunned me on countless occasions; i’ve always had a lot of time for…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Arne Gieshoff – STANZA

    by 5:4 December 2, 2021 • 05:00
    December 2, 2021 • 05:00

    The second piece i’m featuring in this year’s 5:4 Advent Calendar is STANZA, a short orchestral work by German composer Arne Gieshoff. The work’s title is a two-fold reference, to poetic structure (which in Gieshoff’s programme note seems to point toward Italian forms derived from the ‘strambotto‘, comprising eight lines…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2021 • 11:18
    November 30, 2021 • 11:18

    There’s not a lot left to say about HCMF 2021. In previous instalments i mentioned how continuity, often in tandem with lyricism, played a major role in the music that made the deepest and most long-lasting impression. But from a listening perspective, every piece in every concert at this year’s…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2021 • 13:13
    November 28, 2021 • 13:13

    HCMF always has its fair share of unconventional, genre-defying performances, and this year was no exception. Among the more unusual was Eupepsia/Dyspepsia devised by Austrian composer Eva Reiter. Taking the form of a concert-cum-lecture (or possibly lecture-cum-concert), the focus of the work was on the socio-cultural effects wrought on Bolivia…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Ultima 2021 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 October 4, 2021 • 15:59
    October 4, 2021 • 15:59

    In addition to the soundwalks, installations, music theatre, performance art and electroacoustic shenanigans, Ultima 2021 also had its fair share of more conventional ensemble concerts, which took place in two Oslo churches. The beautiful Tøyen Kirke played host to two of Norway’s most prominent new music ensembles, asamisimasa and Cikada.

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Enno Poppe – Filz

    by 5:4 June 29, 2021 • 15:53
    June 29, 2021 • 15:53

    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…

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  • Lent Series

    Carola Bauckholt – Zugvögel

    by 5:4 February 17, 2021 • 05:00
    February 17, 2021 • 05:00

    For the majority of us, throughout much of the last 12 months we’ve been largely unable or forbidden from travelling far from home. Personally, i’ve become increasingly aware of how fortunate i am to live somewhere rural, enabling me to enter the countryside by, literally, crossing the road. But many…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Gunnar Geisse – TRIPTYCH

    by 5:4 November 19, 2020 • 13:47
    November 19, 2020 • 13:47

    Coincidentally, another project i’ve been involved with also materialised last week. For Gunnar Geisse‘s new CD TRIPTYCH, released on the NEOS label, i’ve contributed an essay to the liner notes. Titled ‘Liminal (un)reality’, my text explores the music’s complex amalgam of reproduced and recreated, supposedly real and actually real sounds,…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2020 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 August 24, 2020 • 16:37
    August 24, 2020 • 16:37

    As was the case at last year’s festival, most of the concerts at Forum Wallis 2020 focused on works for ensemble. However, while in 2019 the majority of performances involved larger numbers of players, due to the pandemic almost all of the pieces this year were for small chamber groupings,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: Roland Kayn

    by 5:4 July 14, 2020 • 05:00
    July 14, 2020 • 05:00

    A noticeable musical side-effect of the lockdown has been to take the opportunity to reissue composers’ earlier work, usually in some newly-polished or otherwise revised form. Four artists in particular – Roland Kayn, The Hafler Trio [Andrew M. McKenzie], Paul Dolden and irr. app. (ext.) [Matthew Waldron] have reissued work…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Michel Roth – Im Bau; Decoder Ensemble – Big Data

    by 5:4 April 20, 2020 • 16:42
    April 20, 2020 • 16:42

    Two discs from the Wergo label have lately been getting me thinking a lot about the relationship between content and meaning. Im Bau is the title of an electroacoustic monodrama by Swiss composer Michel Roth that takes its starting point from a short story by Franz Kafka (Der Bau). Quite…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Roland Kayn – Scanning

    by 5:4 December 14, 2019 • 22:25
    December 14, 2019 • 22:25

    There aren’t many new releases that require you to free up huge chunks of time in your schedule, but then Roland Kayn isn’t like many composers. Two years ago, 14 hours were required to explore the vast expanse of his A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, which i ended…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Gunnar Geisse – The Wannsee Recordings

    by 5:4 December 3, 2019 • 12:18
    December 3, 2019 • 12:18

    The Wannsee Recordings is a double album by German composer and improviser Gunnar Geisse, released on the NEOS label earlier this year. In some ways, that sentence is about as certain as i can be about the album because, to be honest, i was as impressed by it as i…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Jakob Ullmann – Fremde Zeit Addendum 5; Stefan Fraunberger – Quellgeister #3 Bussd

    by 5:4 October 30, 2019 • 12:27
    October 30, 2019 • 12:27

    i’ve been spending time lately with new releases from two composers towards whose work i’ve hitherto felt almost universally positive. There’s something a little nerve-racking about this, inducing anxiety – and, to an extent, incredulity – that the unfamiliar new will be able to live up to the marvellous old.…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Ultima 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 September 20, 2019 • 17:35
    September 20, 2019 • 17:35

    A golden rule in cinema is “show, don’t tell”, reminding the director it’s invariably more subtle and effective to avoid directly stating the things you want the audience to consider and instead to incorporate them into the medium itself, in the process allowing for a more subtle, rich and wide-ranging…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M. C. B. (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 20, 2019 • 19:22
    August 20, 2019 • 19:22

    A week ago, the Proms saw the world première of a new work by no fewer than 14 composers. Conceived by conductor Martyn Brabbins as a 60th birthday present to himself, the piece is inspired by, and modelled on, the structure and character of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. For this new…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Benjamin Beckman – Occidentalis (European Première); Detlev Glanert – Weites Land (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 13, 2019 • 17:20
    August 13, 2019 • 17:20

    Until last Sunday, among the new works premièred at the Proms there hadn’t been what we’re all used to hearing: namely, a short, ebullient romp that gets a concert up and running. And then, a couple of days ago, the National Youth Orchestra of the USA, directed by Antonio Pappano,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Hans Zimmer – Earth; Alexia Sloane – Earthward (World Premières)

    by 5:4 July 26, 2019 • 11:52
    July 26, 2019 • 11:52

    The most significant love-hate musical relationship of my life has been – and continues to be – with film scores. Few idioms have the power to elevate, charm, horrify, astonish and amaze us more while at the same time displaying the irresistible propensity to eschew all originality and imagination in…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Clemens von Reusner – Electroacoustic Works

    by 5:4 July 5, 2019 • 15:00
    July 5, 2019 • 15:00

    In contemporary electronic music it can be hard to find a good balance between a robust sense of purpose while retaining the possibility of spontaneity. To an extent, the sculpted nature of fixed media works tacitly tends to enforce the former over the latter such that, like the dialogue in…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 June 20, 2019 • 18:53
    June 20, 2019 • 18:53

    The main focus during the five days of concerts at Forum Wallis was on ensemble and chamber music. An important and impressive feature of these concerts was their aesthetic diversity, not showing a marked preference for certain kinds of music-making. This resulted in extremely different – sometimes, practically opposite –…

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5:4
  • About
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    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
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