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orchestra

  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Dobrinka Tabakova – Timber & Steel; Linda Catlin Smith – Nuages (World Premières)

    by 5:4 September 3, 2019 • 20:04
    September 3, 2019 • 20:04

    i’ve often wondered whether, in music today, energy and complexity tend to be mutually exclusive. The whole ‘clocks and clouds’ dichotomy: regularity versus ambiguity, pulse versus drift, clarity versus obfuscation. This is certainly one of the considerations that arises from the latest pair of Proms premières: Dobrinka Tabakova‘s Timber & …

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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: Outi Tarkiainen – Midnight Sun Variations (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 6, 2019 • 12:55
    August 6, 2019 • 12:55

    Composers generally tend to shy away from admitting their music to be overtly autobiographical, but in the case of the latest Proms première, by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen, the piece is a clear extension – a manifestation, even – of the composer’s way of experiencing the world. In her answers …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Metacosmos (UK Première)

    by 5:4 July 29, 2019 • 17:10
    July 29, 2019 • 17:10

    Performed last Monday by an orchestra combining students from the Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School, conducted by Edward Gardner, Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s Metacosmos is a work i know quite well. Anna and i discussed it at length during our Dialogue together, and i explored the piece further following …

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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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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Only Connect 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 31, 2019 • 15:18
    May 31, 2019 • 15:18

    The lack of ostentation in most of the music at this year’s Only Connect festival was perhaps nowhere more conspicuous than in a concert last Saturday devoted to French composer Pascale Criton. Performed by violinist Silvia Tarozzi, cellist Deborah Walker and singers Stine Janvin Joh, Signe Irene Stangborli Time and …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    World Music Days 2019, Estonia (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 13, 2019 • 18:18
    May 13, 2019 • 18:18

    At the northernmost edge of Tallinn, looking out over the Baltic Sea towards Finland, is a huge concrete edifice called the Linnahall. Built during the Soviet occupation, it was constructed as part of the USSR’s hosting of the 1980 Olympic Games, as a coastal hub for the boating events. It’s …

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  • InterviewsThe Dialogues

    The Dialogues: Anna Thorvaldsdottir

    by 5:4 April 27, 2019 • 11:49
    April 27, 2019 • 11:49

    i’m excited to present a new instalment in my series The Dialogues. On this occasion, i’m in conversation with Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, whose music has become increasingly well-known in recent years. In the UK, her work has started to appear with more frequency on concert programmes, and there’s a …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Veronique Vaka – Lendh (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 19, 2019 • 11:24
    April 19, 2019 • 11:24

    To bring this year’s Lent Series to a close, i’m returning to a piece i first heard a few months ago, during Iceland’s Dark Music Days festival. One of the most memorable works from that week in Reykjavík was Lendh, by Canadian composer and cellist Veronique Vaka. In her programme …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Marc Sabat – The Luminiferous Aether (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 15, 2019 • 15:08
    April 15, 2019 • 15:08

    What happens in a composition, both in terms of moment-by-moment activity as well as long-term direction, can sound highly organised and micro-managed or spontaneous and accidental (not necessarily reflecting the way in which they were composed, of course). More interesting is when a piece blurs that distinction and sounds like …

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  • Lent Series

    Peter Maxwell Davies – Symphony No. 9

    by 5:4 April 11, 2019 • 06:00
    April 11, 2019 • 06:00

    Though it lasts only 23 minutes, is cast in a single movement and was described by its composer as being “very modest”, Peter Maxwell Davies‘ Symphony No. 9 is a seriously substantial, thought-provoking work. Composed in 2012, those of a more republican persuasion might be put off by it being …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Judit Varga – …alles Fleisch… (UK Première)

    by 5:4 April 8, 2019 • 16:06
    April 8, 2019 • 16:06

    All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls… Words from the biblical book of 1 Peter, set to music in Brahms’ German Requiem and thereby alluded to in the title of Hungarian composer Judit Varga‘s orchestral work …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Arne Gieshoff – Burr (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 5, 2019 • 11:59
    April 5, 2019 • 11:59

    “You put structures in place, and then they kind of surprise you.” Words said by German composer Arne Gieshoff prior to the first performance of his orchestral work Burr. This seems entirely appropriate, since the piece takes its name and inspiration from burr puzzles, in which pieces of wood are arranged …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Harrison Birtwistle – Donum Simoni MMXVIII (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 30, 2019 • 17:24
    March 30, 2019 • 17:24

    Fanfares are strange things. Short, loud and flamboyant, like hearing an introduction being given by the world’s biggest extrovert. Back in the days when i flirted with being a percussionist, my role in fanfares seemed to amount to little more than providing brief, barely-controlled crashes and bangs at carefully-coordinated moments; …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Catherine Lamb – portions transparent/opaque (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 27, 2019 • 12:16
    March 27, 2019 • 12:16

    I am interested in the long introduction (unfolding) form, in elemental tonal interaction, in aggregation and augmentation, in liminal perceptual states, shifts in density, the filtered atmosphere, and intense, focused experiences. This is how US composer Catherine Lamb summarised her music to me in 2017. On that occasion, they served …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    John Oswald – I’d love to turn (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 23, 2019 • 06:00
    March 23, 2019 • 06:00

    Many people will likely have first encountered the work of Canadian composer John Oswald through one of two things: either the wonderfully weird collection of ‘Mystery Tapes’ he began putting out in the early 1980s or, more likely, his 1989 album that gave the name to a new form of …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Naomi Pinnock – The Field is Woven (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 18, 2019 • 12:55
    March 18, 2019 • 12:55

    The inspiration for Naomi Pinnock‘s 2018 orchestral work The field is woven is a series of paintings from 1979 by Agnes Martin titled The Islands. From a distance, these paintings appear to be squares of off-white blankness, yet on closer inspection details become apparent, in the form of colours and …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Kristin Þóra Haraldsdóttir – In Praise of Darkness (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 13, 2019 • 14:55
    March 13, 2019 • 14:55

    One of the things i particularly enjoy when listening is the sense of not knowing where i am, uncertain of what exactly the music is doing or where it’s going: of being kept, for a time at least, in the dark. It’s this kind of ‘darkness’ that i think typifies …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    James Clarke – Untitled No. 9 (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 10, 2019 • 06:00
    March 10, 2019 • 06:00

    British composer James Clarke‘s output has moved away from having poetic or allusive titles, and for the last 12 or so years his works have either been given a codename indicating the year followed by a letter (e.g. 2013-V) or are simply ‘Untitled’. The fact that the latter are numbered …

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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
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
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