HAPPY NEW YEAR! i want to give a loud shout out of thanks to all of you who have supported 5:4 during the last year, especially my most excellent posse of Patrons. As always, i’m starting the new year with a look back at the best albums of 2022, in…
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Rebecca Saunders
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So here they are, crowning this year’s 5:4 Best Albums list, the most imaginative, extraordinary and downright amazing releases of 2022.
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People doing interesting things to objects doesn’t necessarily create interesting music. Can we agree on that? i don’t think that’s a particularly outrageous thing to say, though there were a number of times during my six days at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival when i found myself wondering otherwise.…
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In 2018, when exploring the music of Rebecca Saunders in that year’s Lent Series, i made the following remark regarding recordings of her music: The fact that i’ve explored Rebecca Saunders’ recorded output over four articles suggests that she’s well represented by recordings of her work. But almost half of…
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It’s Rebecca Saunders‘ birthday, so behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a short work of hers investigating slide guitar techniques. Composed in 2018, Study For Metal Bottle Necks comes across as rather different in tone from the majority of Saunders’ work. The usual liminal balance between abstraction and emotional heft…
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The last time i wrote about a Birmingham Contemporary Music Group concert, i began the article with an observation, a complaint and a plea; this time, i’m starting with a shock and a nice surprise. The shock comes from the realisation that that previous concert took place no fewer than…
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CD/Digital releases
Listening, isolated: solo music by Brian Ferneyhough, Sam Hayden, Olga Neuwirth, Rebecca Saunders and Salvatore Sciarrino
by 5:4Considering that most of us have been spending the last 12 months in varying forms of isolation, it seems a fitting time to focus on music for solo instruments. German label Kairos clearly feels the same way, as they’ve recently brought out a short series of five albums, each titled…
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A very Happy New Year to you all! As always, i want to begin 2021 by thanking all of you around the world who have followed and supported 5:4 during the last year, most especially and above all to my growing number of esteemed and beloved Patrons. i don’t think…
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It’s something of a relief knowing that this year, finally, is poised to become a memory, consigned to history. But before it does, here’s the second part of my 40 Best Albums of 2020, each of which has wonderfully demonstrated that this year has had a lot more going for…
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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,…
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One of the foci of this year’s Lent Series exploring larger-scale works is where time and material become convoluted. In the case of the next work i’m exploring, this kind of convolution applies not only to the music but also to the text that inspired it. Yes by Rebecca Saunders…
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i’m going to start with an observation, a complaint and a plea. Yesterday evening’s concert given by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group featured four pieces of music that together lasted one hour and two minutes. The actual concert lasted more than double that length. It continues a trend that appears to…
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The latest concert given by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, last Sunday, was an extended celebration for the 85th birthday of Britain’s most radical musical octogenarian, Harrison Birtwistle. In fact, the occasion was marked by not one but two back-to-back concerts, the first of which gave prominence to performers taking part…
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Since the appointment of Stephan Meier as artistic director in 2016, it’s been good to see Birmingham Contemporary Music Group starting to move beyond the relative safety that typified its mainstream-centric vision in preceding years. The group’s most recent concert, last Thursday, featured two British works alongside music by composers…
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ConcertsFestivalsPremières
HCMF 2018: Ensemble Musikfabrik, Christian Marclay: Investigations
by 5:4It’s not unusual, considering HCMF’s openness to stepping outside the bounds of convention, for a new work at the festival to have to overcome how extraordinary it is. That was certainly the case in Huddersfield Town Hall yesterday afternoon, where Christian Marclay‘s Investigations received its world première. It wasn’t just…
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ConcertsFestivalsPremières
HCMF 2018: Ensemble Musikfabrik, Christian Marclay: To be continued
by 5:4On the opening night of last year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, i remember pondering about the shift in tactic regarding the festival’s opening gambit. In 2017, there was a move away from the full-throttle shock and awe that has often typified HCMF’s opening nights, but the first concert of the…
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…this is the room’s essence not being now look closer mere dust dust is the skin of a room history is a skin the older it gets the more impressions are left on its surface look again… These words, spoken by the narrator in Samuel Beckett’s 1975 play The Ghost…
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Before i conclude my survey of the available recordings of Rebecca Saunders‘ music, i want to flag up some omissions. There are three works that i’m not able to discuss at this point as i haven’t yet got hold of copies of the discs on which they’re featured: rubricare (2005) which…
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As i’ve noted in previous articles in this Lent series, there are very strong and clear themes and interests – obsessions, even – running through Rebecca Saunders‘ music, with concomitant aspects of overlap and even tautology from work to work. In this respect, Saunders’ entire output can be heard as the…
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Continuing my survey of recordings of Rebecca Saunders‘ music, i’m looking today at a cluster of pieces featured on compilations as well as a couple of standalone releases. The last work i wrote about, still, initially bore the provisional title rage, and while Saunders ultimately pulled back from this in…
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