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Lent 2015

  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Rebecca Saunders – Void (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 4, 2015 • 09:27
    April 4, 2015 • 09:27

    To bring my Lent Series to an end, i’ve chosen a work rather fitting to the general atmosphere of Easter Eve, Rebecca Saunders‘ Void, for two percussionists and chamber orchestra. Saunders was recently awarded the 2015 Mauricio Kagel Music Prize, for composers who, among other things, “are forever in search …

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  • Lent Series

    Arne Nordheim – Spur

    by 5:4 March 31, 2015 • 18:53
    March 31, 2015 • 18:53

    For the penultimate work in my Lent Series exploring concertos, i’m turning to the innovative Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim, who died in 2010. He composed Spur for accordion and orchestra 40 years ago; the title is a German word meaning ‘track’ or ‘(foot)print’, which here, in part, relates to the …

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  • Lent Series

    Pierre Boulez – Domaines

    by 5:4 March 26, 2015 • 09:29
    March 26, 2015 • 09:29

    Joyeux anniversaire, Pierre! Today’s the day, the 90th birthday of Pierre Boulez, and, continuing the concerto theme, the piece with which i’d like to celebrate the occasion is Domaines, for clarinet and orchestra, completed in 1969. Typically, the piece began life a decade earlier (early sketches pertaining to it, tentatively …

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  • Lent Series

    Pierre Boulez – Messagesquisse

    by 5:4 March 24, 2015 • 21:17
    March 24, 2015 • 21:17

    The second concerto-esque work by Pierre Boulez that i want to explore this week is Messagesquisse for cello solo and six cellos. The gestation of this piece was very much more straightforward than that of Mémoriale, being composed in 1976 as a 70th birthday present for that great champion of …

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  • Lent Series

    Pierre Boulez – Mémoriale (…explosante-fixe… Originel)

    by 5:4 March 22, 2015 • 12:24
    March 22, 2015 • 12:24

    This week marks the 90th birthday of Pierre Boulez, and to mark the occasion i’m going to explore three of his concerto-esque works, beginning with Mémoriale, composed in 1985. Well, that’s not strictly accurate; one of the characteristic traits of Boulez’s output is an ongoing tendency to rethink and recompose previous …

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  • Lent Series

    György Kurtág – …quasi una fantasia…

    by 5:4 March 18, 2015 • 02:08
    March 18, 2015 • 02:08

    It was many, many years ago (at the 1993 Meltdown Festival, in fact) that i first encountered the music of Romanian composer György Kurtág and became instantly entranced by it. Like Webern, Kurtág is drawn to expressing himself in tiny, fleeting musical acts for modestly-sized instrumental groupings, but unlike Webern …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Brett Dean – The Siduri Dances (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 12, 2015 • 21:16
    March 12, 2015 • 21:16

    From the recorder to the flute, and a typically dramatic concerto for the instrument by Australian composer Brett Dean. Composed in 2007, The Siduri Dances, for flute and string orchestra, began life three years earlier in Dean’s work for solo flute Demons. The inspirational scope here is broader, drawing on …

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  • Lent Series

    Dai Fujikura – Recorder Concerto

    by 5:4 March 6, 2015 • 21:04
    March 6, 2015 • 21:04

    A general shift in register now, from low to high, and to a pair of concertos using a reduced orchestra comprising just strings. Dai Fujikura seems to have written his Recorder Concerto despite himself, describing his initial view of the instrument as a pretty negative one. What makes the piece …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Iancu Dumitrescu – Élan and Permanence (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 2, 2015 • 21:49
    March 2, 2015 • 21:49

    From the cello to the electric guitar, and a curiously strange concerto by Romanian composer Iancu Dumitrescu (husband of Ana-Maria Avram, featured on 5:4 last year). Particularly well-known (and self-described) as a composer with ‘spectralist’ leanings—but not, according to Dumitrescu, in the same way as the French spectralists—his guitar concerto …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Davíð Brynjar Franzson – on Matter and Materiality (World Première)

    by 5:4 February 26, 2015 • 17:50
    February 26, 2015 • 17:50

    Without wishing to appear too biased towards the cello, the next concerto in my Lent series is another work that features that instrument at its epicentre. A few months back, i was enthusing about Davíð Brynjar Franzson‘s radical treatment of the piano; in his new work on Matter and Materiality, …

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  • Lent Series

    Patrick Nunn – Fata Morgana

    by 5:4 February 22, 2015 • 12:44
    February 22, 2015 • 12:44

    The next concerto in my Lent series is another involving solo cello, Fata Morgana by British composer Patrick Nunn. Composed in 2007, this short work—for cello, chamber ensemble and live electronics—takes its title primarily from the character of Morgan le Fay (known among many other names as Fata Morgana), who …

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  • Lent Series

    Alvin Lucier – Slices

    by 5:4 February 18, 2015 • 11:28
    February 18, 2015 • 11:28

    It’s Ash Wednesday, and therefore the start of my annual Lent Series, which this year i’m devoting to contemporary concertos. i’m going to treat the term ‘concerto’ with a certain amount of latitude, focusing primarily on works where one or more soloists act in relation to a larger body of players. …

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  • About
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