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5:4
Tag:

orchestra

  • AnniversariesPremièresThematic series

    Schnittke Week – Concerto Grosso No. 1, Fragments (World Première) & Symphony No. 4

    by 5:4 November 23, 2010 • 08:29
    November 23, 2010 • 08:29

    The second concert being featured in this week of music by Alfred Schnittke comprised two of his major compositions plus the world première of a work unfinished at his death. It took place on 13 January 2001, and was given by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. The concert …

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  • Premières

    Magnus Lindberg – Al largo (UK Première)

    by 5:4 October 23, 2010 • 11:05
    October 23, 2010 • 11:05

    A little over a week ago, on 13 October, came the first UK performance of Magnus Lindberg‘s new orchestral work, Al largo, given by the London Philarmonic Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä. The title is an interesting one; as well as suggesting the musical term, associated with considerable slowness, the expression …

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  • Premières

    Vale of Glamorgan Festival: World Premières by Arvo Pärt and Arlene Sierra

    by 5:4 October 3, 2010 • 12:10
    October 3, 2010 • 12:10

    On 9 September, a concert given at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, was for the most part concerned with the music of Arvo Pärt, featuring a new work commissioned by the …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Jonathan Dove – A Song of Joys (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 12, 2010 • 08:41
    September 12, 2010 • 08:41

    i think Tom Service put it best, a few years ago, when he described the Last Night of the Proms as a “calcified cadaver”. It is, there’s no question: beneath the merriment and the klaxons lies an occasion that died many, many years ago; it’s a concert in aspic, filled …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Robin Holloway – RELIQUARY – Scenes from the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 11, 2010 • 10:25
    September 11, 2010 • 10:25

    Prize for the longest title bestowed on a piece in this year’s Proms must surely go to Robin Holloway‘s RELIQUARY – Scenes from the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, enclosing an instrumentation of Robert Schumann’s ‘Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart’, given its world première two days ago. Holloway has …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Tansy Davies – Wild Card (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 8, 2010 • 21:59
    September 8, 2010 • 21:59

    The prepenultimate première at this year’s Proms was one i’ve been very much looking forward to: Tansy Davies‘ Wild Card, receiving its first performance this evening. i’m fortunate to have had a number of lengthy conversations with Tansy in the last year or so, and her compositional mind is an …

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  • Festivals

    Proms 2010: James MacMillan – The Sacrifice – Three Interludes (London Première)

    by 5:4 September 8, 2010 • 19:26
    September 8, 2010 • 19:26

    The Proms is now well into its final straight, and the week began with the London première of James MacMillan‘s The Sacrifice – Three Interludes. As the title suggests, MacMillan has extracted the music from his 2007 opera, The Sacrifice. First of the three is “The Parting”, which opens, disarmingly, …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Martin Matalon – Lignes de fuite (UK Première)

    by 5:4 September 4, 2010 • 08:08
    September 4, 2010 • 08:08

    On Thursday evening, the Proms was treated to the UK Première of Argentinian composer Martin Matalon‘s Lignes de fuite (“Lines of convergence”), tackled with obvious relish by the splendid BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by François-Xavier Roth. The work opens, appropriately, with a single static line, passed between the …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Graham Fitkin – PK (World Première)

    by 5:4 September 1, 2010 • 16:35
    September 1, 2010 • 16:35

    Graham Fitkin found himself in a sea of populism and accessibility for the world première of his new work PK, performed at the Proms on Monday. The title of his work comes from a reference to the Cornish village of Porthcurno—home of the well-known Minack Theatre, and where, coincidentally, i …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Albert Schnelzer – A Freak in Burbank (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 30, 2010 • 17:10
    August 30, 2010 • 17:10

    A week ago at the Proms — a more innocent time, before seemingly everyone started talking about Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new work for all the wrong reasons (Beyoncé) instead of the right ones (it’s crap) — came the first UK performance of Swedish composer Albert Schnelzer‘s wonderfully-titled A Freak in Burbank. …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Mark-Anthony Turnage – Hammered Out (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 28, 2010 • 11:15
    August 28, 2010 • 11:15

    Who’s this we see, shambling toward us like an unkempt Elvis Costello? why, it’s Mark-Anthony Turnage, the most unassuming pugilist in contemporary music. No-one likes to pick a fight in sound more than Turnage, and back in the early 1990s, when (thanks largely to Simon Rattle) he first became widely …

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  • Festivals

    Proms 2010: Cage, Cardew, Skempton and Feldman

    by 5:4 August 27, 2010 • 18:09
    August 27, 2010 • 18:09

    A few hours after the bizarre final notes of Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 4 had faded away, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ilan Volkov came to the Royal Albert Hall to present the Proms with a late-night performance of rather more experimental fare. They began with one of …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Arvo Pärt – Symphony No. 4 ‘Los Angeles’ (UK Première) plus Mosolov

    by 5:4 August 26, 2010 • 18:07
    August 26, 2010 • 18:07

    Last Friday evening’s Prom concert, given by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, brought to the UK Arvo Pärt‘s first symphony in almost four decades: his fourth, subtitled (with both geographical and theological connotations) ‘Los Angeles’. However, before Pärt’s work—in an imaginative, even provocative bit of concert programming—came a short …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: James Dillon – La navette (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 25, 2010 • 20:34
    August 25, 2010 • 20:34

    As far back as 1988, in his seminal essay on what was, at the time, laughingly called ‘the New Complexity’, Richard Toop described the Scottish composer James Dillon—even within that narrow niche—as an ‘outsider’. Over two decades on, in Dillon’s sixtieth year, little as changed; he remains relatively unknown within …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Tarik O’Regan – Latent Manifest; Alissa Firsova – Bach Allegro (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 23, 2010 • 10:20
    August 23, 2010 • 10:20

    For this year’s Proms, Saturday 14 August was designated “Bach Day”, and buried beneath all the BWVs were two new works, by Tarik O’Regan and Alissa Firsova, both works described as ‘arrangements’. O’Regan’s approach, as he saw it, was to tease out ‘hidden’ musical lines within the opening movement of …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Simon Holt – a table of noises (London & World Premières)

    by 5:4 July 26, 2010 • 21:16
    July 26, 2010 • 21:16

    This evening’s Proms première came from the pen of one of England’s most intriguing and engaging composers, Simon Holt. Holt’s music betrays little of the generic English sound that plagues so many of the ‘established’ (i.e. published) composers in this land—there’s no trace of the anodyne ‘Faber sound’ here. On …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2010: Gunther Schuller – Where the Word Ends (UK Première)

    by 5:4 July 20, 2010 • 21:15
    July 20, 2010 • 21:15

    At tonight’s Proms, almost a year-and-a-half after its world première, Gunther Schuller‘s Where the Word Ends finally found its way to England. It came in the hands of the splendid WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, in his farewell concert with the orchestra he’s faithfully served …

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  • Premières

    Gigs, gigs, gigs: Proms 2010 / Claude Vivier – Orion (UK Première)

    by 5:4 July 18, 2010 • 13:45
    July 18, 2010 • 13:45

    The Proms season is upon us once again, bringing with it the lively hope of new commissions and world premières. However, a cursory glance at the concert season makes for rather damp reading, the commissions going to an unadventurous gaggle including Mark-Anthony Turnage, David Matthews, Graham Fitkin, Jonathan Dove and …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Bath International Music Festival, Bath Abbey: Dhafer Youssef – Les Ondes Orientales (World Première)

    by 5:4 May 31, 2008 • 23:04
    May 31, 2008 • 23:04

    Last Wednesday, the Beloved and i were at Bath Abbey, for a “Messiaen Centenary Celebration” given as part of the Bath International Music Festival. In addition to Messiaen‘s rarely-performed Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and a keyboard concerto by J. S. Bach, the concert included the world première …

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  • Drama/Documentary

    Interpretations on Record: Messiaen – Turangalîla-Symphonie

    by 5:4 May 23, 2008 • 13:17
    May 23, 2008 • 13:17

    Radio 3 now calls it simply “CD Review”, but a few years back it was known as “Interpretations on Record”. Each programme focuses on a particular composition, examining the available recordings with the intention of choosing one that is arguably better than the others. This is an edition of the …

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Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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5:4
  • About
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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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