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Spain

  • CD/Digital releases

    Octavi Rumbau – Pendular Motion

    by 5:4 February 13, 2022 • 05:00
    February 13, 2022 • 05:00

    It’s just over a decade since Spanish label Neu Records was established, and as i’ve explored each new release from them through the intervening years, every single one has seemed not remotely like a regular album, but a special edition. That’s in no small part due to the presentation. From…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 November 29, 2021 • 15:46
    November 29, 2021 • 15:46

    One of my recurring trains of thought during HCMF 2021 was concerned with the notion of continuity. This was, very simply, due to the fact that all of the best things i heard at the festival had an incredibly clear, logical sense running through them that, regardless of their inner…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – music by Schnittke and Pärt; Latvian Radio Choir – Ramon Humet: Light

    by 5:4 July 21, 2021 • 17:43
    July 21, 2021 • 17:43

    This week i’ve been spending time with a couple of new albums that could each be described as being “devotional”. By that i don’t simply mean ‘religious’, although both of them are fundamentally informed by that attitude, one explicitly, the other implicitly. Listening to them has been a thought-provoking experience,…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 27, 2019 • 15:58
    November 27, 2019 • 15:58

    Last week i was able to catch a couple of days of the shenanigans going on at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. It was strange not to be doing my usual thing of setting up camp for the whole shebang, but quite apart from it being better than nothing,…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 June 20, 2019 • 18:53
    June 20, 2019 • 18:53

    The main focus during the five days of concerts at Forum Wallis was on ensemble and chamber music. An important and impressive feature of these concerts was their aesthetic diversity, not showing a marked preference for certain kinds of music-making. This resulted in extremely different – sometimes, practically opposite –…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    José Manuel López López – Horizonte Ondulado

    by 5:4 May 8, 2018 • 14:29
    May 8, 2018 • 14:29

    My ears have recently been extensively tickled by the sound of percussion, courtesy of Horizonte Ondulado (Undulating Horizon), the latest release from the always interesting Neu label, exploring five works for percussion by Spanish composer José Manuel López López. As always, Neu have lavishly produced the album in a beautiful slipcase containing a 60-page…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: Miguel Angel Tolosa, Giulio Aldinucci & Francis M. Gri

    by 5:4 August 2, 2017 • 13:47
    August 2, 2017 • 13:47

    Ephimeral is a recent release of electronic music by Spanish composer and sound artist Miguel Angel Tolosa. Tolosa first got my attention in 2015 with Loner, his superb collaboration with Ingar Zach (which ended up on my Best Albums of 2015) and this disc has got me just as excited. That title,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2014 revisited: Hèctor Parra – L’absència (UK Première)

    by 5:4 November 13, 2015 • 12:41
    November 13, 2015 • 12:41

    HCMF’s 2013 Spanish composer-in-residence Hèctor Parra was represented at last year’s festival in an orchestral work, L’absència, receiving its first UK performance. At only 7½ minutes long, and eschewing heavy brass, it’s tempting to describe L’absència as small-scale, yet it’s a piece that sounds convincingly bigger than it really is.…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2014 revisited: Luis Codera Puzo – π (UK Première)

    by 5:4 November 4, 2015 • 10:18
    November 4, 2015 • 10:18

    One of the most unusual concerts at HCMF 2014 was given by Spanish ensemble CrossingLines. When i say ‘unusual’, perhaps i mean ‘impenetrable’; most of the works in the concert, by composers from Spain and Chile, were challenging to the point of wilful oddity. There was, however, one glorious exception:…

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    HCMF 2013: Quatuor Diotima / edges ensemble

    by 5:4 November 20, 2013 • 14:21
    November 20, 2013 • 14:21

    St Paul’s Hall saw the UK première of no less than two major works last night: one, a large-scale cycle, the other, a full-blown epic. i want to discuss them together, not because they are in any way connected, but because hearing them one after the other brought about interesting…

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    HCMF 2013: Séverine Ballon

    by 5:4 November 19, 2013 • 16:30
    November 19, 2013 • 16:30

    Today’s first concert was given by French cellist Séverine Ballon. Her recital comprised UK premières by Hèctor Parra and Mauro Lanza and a world première by Rebecca Saunders, together with a classic of the repertoire, James Dillon‘s Parjanya-Vata, composed in 1981. It was especially good to hear this again; it’s…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Bernat Vivancos – El davallament de la creu (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 6, 2012 • 09:17
    April 6, 2012 • 09:17

    Having spent two days with Italian music, to mark Good Friday i’m turning to Spain, and the music of Bernat Vivancos. Vivancos was born in Barcelona in 1973 and studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire and in Oslo; having returned to Spain, for the last five years he has been…

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  • Anniversaries

    In Memoriam Tomás Luis de Victoria – Proms 2011: The Tallis Scholars

    by 5:4 August 27, 2011 • 14:12
    August 27, 2011 • 14:12

    400 years ago today, Tomás Luis de Victoria, one of the very finest Renaissance composers, died. To commemorate his passing, a little over three weeks ago the Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Phillips gave a late-night Prom concert dedicated to Victoria’s music. The concert begins with one of the Motecta…

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  • Lent SeriesSeasonal

    The balance of austerity and grief: Victoria – O vos omnes

    by 5:4 March 18, 2008 • 12:28
    March 18, 2008 • 12:28

    One of the greatest difficulties, i feel, with writing music for Holy Week, is the need to be objectively austere, while also expressing some sense of the highly-wrought feelings that pervade the week. i don’t mean in some ghastly “stiff upper lip” way; that would be dishonest and repressed. One…

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