Germany

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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,…

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,…

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…