• About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • 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
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Tag:

Poland

  • ConcertsPremières

    Symphony Hall, Birmingham: CBSO Youth Orchestra

    by 5:4 February 28, 2023 • 15:47
    February 28, 2023 • 15:47

    i headed up the M5 to Birmingham last Sunday for a concert given by the CBSO Youth Orchestra at Symphony Hall. For many people in the audience, i suppose the highlight would have been two works by Berlioz: the concert opened with the Roman Carnival Overture and closed with the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Michael Gielen conducts Messiaen, Szymanowski & Penderecki

    by 5:4 November 4, 2022 • 16:10
    November 4, 2022 • 16:10

    Twentieth century music is at an interesting point in its history from the perspective of recordings. Contemporary music, for obvious reasons, is always the most under-represented, whereas works from the last hundred years are beginning to reach the stage where’s there’s a more meaningful range of recordings available. In the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Stefan Węgłowski – PHASE_1_4

    by 5:4 September 14, 2022 • 09:25
    September 14, 2022 • 09:25

    One of my unexpected highlights of 2017 was the album Contemporary Jewish Music by Polish composer Stefan Węgłowski, a mesmerising sequence of electroacoustic responses to a variety of Jewish sources, utterly transforming them while retaining tangible links to their origins. His latest release, PHASE_1_4, makes that album sound like an…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00
    May 2, 2022 • 05:00

    The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Aleksandra Gryka – Interialcell

    by 5:4 November 16, 2021 • 15:26
    November 16, 2021 • 15:26

    How have i never heard the music of Aleksandra Gryka before? That’s the question i’ve kept wondering while exploring Interialcell, a new CD featuring five works of hers performed by Klangforum Wien. It’s left me disappointed at making what is, for me, such a very late discovery (her worklist goes…

    Read more
    2 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Marcin Stańczyk – Mosaïque

    by 5:4 November 8, 2021 • 15:43
    November 8, 2021 • 15:43

    Some composers you encounter all the time; others not so much. i’ve only come into contact with Marcin Stańczyk‘s music on one occasion: back in 2017, at the UK première of some drops… for double-bell trumpet and ensemble. Until, that is, just recently, when i began immersing myself in a…

    Read more
    3 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Krzysztof Penderecki – Complete Music for String Quartet & String Trio

    by 5:4 June 16, 2021 • 14:34
    June 16, 2021 • 14:34

    It must have been a strange experience for anyone smitten by the music of Krzysztof Penderecki during the 1960s and early 1970s, falling in love with the bold, abrasive, raw abstract shapes and sound forms unleashed in works such as Emanations (1959), Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Announcements

    Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020)

    by 5:4 March 29, 2020 • 16:45
    March 29, 2020 • 16:45

    i feel terribly sad to have just read the news on the Schott website that Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki has died today. Composers impact on our lives in unique and unpredictable ways, and for me, Penderecki’s music has been an omnipresence. When i was still at school, just at the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Zbigniew Karkowski – Encumbrance

    by 5:4 August 9, 2019 • 16:06
    August 9, 2019 • 16:06

    In recent years, one of the most vividly memorable Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festivals was 2017, when the work of Polish composer Zbigniew Karkowski was prominently featured. Huddersfield is in fact the only place in the UK that i’ve ever had the opportunity to experience Karkowski’s music performed live, which suggests…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Zbigniew Karkowski – Live in Lyon; UEXKULL

    by 5:4 January 24, 2019 • 06:00
    January 24, 2019 • 06:00

    One of my absolute favourites at the most extreme end of pretty much all musical continua is Polish composer Zbigniew Karkowski. Karkowski died just over five years ago, and digesting his legacy is something i’ve been attempting to do since his passing. While there are plenty of available recordings of his…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2018: Philip Venables – Venables Plays Bartók; Laura Mvula – Love Like A Lion (World Premières); Agata Zubel – Fireworks (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 22, 2018 • 06:00
    August 22, 2018 • 06:00

    The last few Proms premières have been, to put it mildly, an extremely mixed bag. By far the most excruciating of them was Venables Plays Bartók, a violin concerto of sorts by Philip Venables, given its first performance last Friday by Pekka Kuusisto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo. As its title…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsInterviews

    Proms 2018: pre-première questions with Agata Zubel

    by 5:4 August 18, 2018 • 06:00
    August 18, 2018 • 06:00

    Tomorrow morning’s Prom concert, given by the European Union Youth Orchestra, includes the first UK performance of Fireworks, a recent work by Polish composer Agata Zubel. In anticipation of that, here are her answers to some of my pre-première questions (i’ve provided some information in lieu of answers for the final three…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Premières

    HCMF revisited: Marcin Stańczyk – some drops… (UK Première)

    by 5:4 November 14, 2017 • 12:27
    November 14, 2017 • 12:27

    Some make their journeys alone. Others get together, as couples or in small gatherings. They connect and they divide. This may seem unpredictable. But you can guess which paths they will take. In the end, most of them follow their forebears. It’s gravity, apparently. While some composers persist in providing…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Concerts

    Nowy Teatr, Warsaw: Wojtek Blecharz – Body-Opera

    by 5:4 July 29, 2017 • 16:44
    July 29, 2017 • 16:44

    At the 2016 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the world première of Body-Opera by Polish composer Wojtek Blecharz didn’t exactly go to plan. Located at The Hepworth Wakefield – and set up somewhat hurriedly in the aftermath of the awarding of The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture that had recently taken place – an ensuing…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Markus Reuter, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Arditti Quartet, Eric Craven, Audiobulb, Zbigniew Karkowski, Nordvargr, Stockhausen

    by 5:4 January 26, 2015 • 22:28
    January 26, 2015 • 22:28

    It’s a while since i’ve had a chance to survey new releases, so there’s quite a few that are overdue being highlighted. Some of them appeared on my recent Best Albums of the Year list, such as Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s Aerial, out on Deutsche Grammophon. As i’ve mentioned in my previous articles…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail

Join 2,146 other subscribers.

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

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Rss
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© 2008-2023 Simon Cummings

5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • 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
    • Submission Contact Form