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string quartet

  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2024 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2024 • 09:19
    November 30, 2024 • 09:19

    At the more serious end of the expressive spectrum, there was a lot to take in during my long weekend at this year’s HCMF. It was disappointing to witness, in Ann Cleare‘s TERRARIUM, yet another example of that which has become so prevalent at HCMF in recent years, a multimedia …

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  • Festivals

    World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 4)

    by 5:4 July 23, 2024 • 08:55
    July 23, 2024 • 08:55

    This year’s World New Music Days was, not surprisingly, an excellent opportunity to experience that most rare and unknown quantity: Faroese contemporary music. i’ve already mentioned how a significant proportion of composers from the Faroe Islands based their work on extant musical ideas and materials, usually folk-related. However, this wasn’t …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Joan Magrané – Madrigal

    by 5:4 July 12, 2023 • 15:00
    July 12, 2023 • 15:00

    Even as i start to write this opening sentence i feel uncertain about exactly where it’s going to lead. This is, i suppose, a provisional response to the latest release on the Neu label, Madrigal, featuring music by Catalan composer Joan Magrané. i’ve previously encountered Magrané’s work on just one …

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  • 20th CenturyAnniversariesCD/Digital releases

    Ligeti at 100

    by 5:4 May 28, 2023 • 05:00
    May 28, 2023 • 05:00

    Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of György Ligeti, one of the 20th century’s most significant and consistently engaging composers. i’ve been spending time lately with three new releases that together present an excellent overview of Ligeti’s output, from the perspectives of his music for piano, choir and …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 20, 2023 • 15:19
    May 20, 2023 • 15:19

    In previous accounts of my annual pilgrimage to Eesti Muusika Päevad, the Estonian Music Days, i’ve tended to remark on the festival’s insistence on a theme, usually in regard to how innocuous or irrelevant it seemed in relation to the actual concerts. This year, the Tallinn portion of the festival …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Éliane Radigue – Occam Delta XV

    by 5:4 May 12, 2023 • 10:42
    May 12, 2023 • 10:42

    You would think, by now, i’d be getting the hang of this piece. Éliane Radigue‘s Occam Delta XV, conceived for the Bozzini Quartet, has crossed my path on a couple of occasions, first at its UK première in Huddersfield in 2018, a performance that i subsequently explored in more depth, …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Rebecca Saunders – Skin

    by 5:4 November 17, 2022 • 10:46
    November 17, 2022 • 10:46

    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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  • CD/Digital releases

    New Estonian Chamber / Choral / Orchestral Music

    by 5:4 May 16, 2022 • 16:29
    May 16, 2022 • 16:29

    As an appendix to my coverage of this year’s Estonian Music Days, i want to highlight three new anthologies of Estonian contemporary music. Focusing on chamber, choral and orchestral music respectively, and featuring a diverse collection of ensembles and vocal groups, they complement and expand upon a previous series of …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Borealis 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 March 31, 2022 • 14:48
    March 31, 2022 • 14:48

    Even at the first concert of the first day of Borealis 2022, i was realising how much the festival felt different from the norm. i go to a lot of festivals (notwithstanding the upheavals of the last two years), and for the most part, aside from cultural distinctions, they’re all …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Enigma

    by 5:4 October 11, 2021 • 14:23
    October 11, 2021 • 14:23

    i’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with two interesting recent releases of Icelandic music. The first is a short album (an EP really) featuring a string quartet by Anna Thorvaldsdottir titled Enigma. The first thing that struck me, long before actually listening to the music, is that it’s …

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  • AnniversariesPremières

    Éliane Radigue – Occam Delta XV (UK Première)

    by 5:4 January 26, 2020 • 06:00
    January 26, 2020 • 06:00

    To conclude my Éliane Radigue birthday weekend, i’m returning to a work in the Occam series that i’ve briefly written about previously, Occam Delta XV. The piece dates from 2018 and results from a collaboration between Radigue and Quatuor Bozzini. In a way that i hope isn’t too fanciful, the overall …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Quatuor Bozzini – Phill Niblock: Baobab

    by 5:4 March 5, 2019 • 11:47
    March 5, 2019 • 11:47

    One of the more memorable events at last year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival was the late night concert at Bates Mill given by Quatuor Bozzini, featuring music by Éliane Radigue and Phill Niblock. A few weeks ago, the Bozzinis released an album featuring two works by Niblock, including the one …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2018: Simon Holt – Quadriga; Suzanne Farrin – Hypersea (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 21, 2018 • 10:12
    August 21, 2018 • 10:12

    Last Monday at Cadogan Hall, percussionist Colin Currie and the JACK Quartet combined forces to perform two works from the ’80s by Xenakis and two world premières, by Simon Holt and Suzanne Farrin. The points of inspirational origin of these pieces were somewhat different from what one usually encounters in new music, …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2017: Laurent Durupt – Grids for Greed (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 26, 2017 • 12:31
    July 26, 2017 • 12:31

    Last Sunday afternoon, French composer Laurent Durupt‘s new work Grids for Greed was given its first performance by the Van Kuijk Quartet at the second Proms Chamber Music concert, in Cadogan Hall. In his answers to my pre-première questions, Durupt made two remarks that are clearly most important to the …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Cheltenham Music Festival 2017: 21st Century String Quartet, The Hallé

    by 5:4 July 19, 2017 • 16:26
    July 19, 2017 • 16:26

    Here’s a suggestion: if a composer can’t summarise their programme note in fewer than a couple of hundred words, that’s a problem. Is that terribly controversial? Judging by what we were given at the Cheltenham Music Festival last Saturday, it is. This is not a local problem, though, it’s something …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 14, 2017 • 12:05
    May 14, 2017 • 12:05

    In the late evening of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik‘s opening day, inside the town’s small but elegantly decorated Johanniskirche, the JACK Quartet gave the world premières of a pair of works of an entirely different disposition from that of Ferneyhough and Birtwistle, heard earlier that afternoon. Italian-Swiss composer Oscar Bianchi‘s Pathos …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 13, 2017 • 17:57
    May 13, 2017 • 17:57

    i’ve recently got back from the annual Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Witten Days for New Chamber Music), Germany’s annual three-day blow out celebrating the newest iterations of the idiom. It was my first experience of the festival, and i have to say my initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive. The …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    György Kurtág – Clov’s last monologue (a fragment) (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 5, 2017 • 11:06
    March 5, 2017 • 11:06

    For about as long as many people can remember, Romanian composer György Kurtág has been working on his first opera, based on Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. It’s been announced, postponed, re-announced and re-postponed to the point where one begins to wonder if it will ever become a reality, but if all goes …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2015: Colin Matthews – String Quartet No. 5 (European Première); James MacMillan – Symphony No. 4 (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 14, 2015 • 08:00
    August 14, 2015 • 08:00

    At the start of last week, the Proms saw important premières from two veterans of new music, Colin Matthews and James MacMillan. Both composers have a demonstrative relationship with music from earlier times, producing work that often seeks to find a comfortable marriage of old and new, looking back and …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Harrison Birtwistle – Tree of Strings (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 30, 2013 • 21:04
    March 30, 2013 • 21:04

    A couple of summers ago, the Beloved and i could be found on a small boat offshore from the idyllic town of Portree, on the east coast of the Isle of Skye. Taking in caves and sea eagles, we sailed along the edge of the smaller island of Raasay, a …

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
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    • 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
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