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Switzerland

  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Lauren Redhead & Alistair Zaldua – San Servolo Registri Festival Concert

    by 5:4 January 14, 2025 • 09:32
    January 14, 2025 • 09:32

    An interesting album that came out quite late last year is San Servolo Registri Festival Concert, featuring assorted organ-based electroacoustic works performed by Lauren Redhead and Alistair Zaldua. It’s a curious mixture of music, yet while the pieces demonstrate a certain amount of diversity, several of them share aspects in …

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  • Festivals

    World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 2)

    by 5:4 July 9, 2024 • 10:18
    July 9, 2024 • 10:18

    Despite being primarily a chamber music festival, the concerts at this year’s World New Music Days in the Faroe Islands devoted significant time to works involving electronics. Five of these were installations, of which two were noteworthy. One was Ringar í Vatni [Rings in Water] by Faroese musician Heðin Ziska …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2024

    by 5:4 March 13, 2024 • 10:16
    March 13, 2024 • 10:16

    In recent years the Swiss music festival Forum Wallis has broken up its elements into three parts – instrumental, electronic and folk – taking place separately, in different parts of the Valais region. As last year, i just attended the instrumental performances, which took place over two days in Schloss …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Dieter Ammann – Core – Turn – Burst & Unbalanced Instability

    by 5:4 October 5, 2023 • 13:03
    October 5, 2023 • 13:03

    i wish i could remember who once said to me that composing was like a form of time travel. The finished composition has a certain duration, but while working on the piece, the composer can move freely, forwards and backwards through what we might call the “compositional spacetime”, in the …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2023 update

    by 5:4 May 9, 2023 • 11:12
    May 9, 2023 • 11:12

    An occupational hazard with writing about music festivals is the inability of readers to be able to experience any of the music for themselves. However, in the case of this year’s Forum Wallis festival, three of the most interesting performances have been uploaded to Javier Hagen and Ulrike Mayer-Spohn‘s YouTube …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 March 16, 2023 • 09:34
    March 16, 2023 • 09:34

    It doesn’t take long to get the measure of a new music festival – aims, outlook, characteristics – but that doesn’t mean it becomes predictable. i’ve found this to be more than usually true of Forum Wallis, which remains one of the most remote festivals i’ve had the pleasure of …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Berglind María Tómasdóttir – The Lokkur Project

    by 5:4 February 7, 2022 • 17:04
    February 7, 2022 • 17:04

    Among the plethora of releases i’ve received in recent times there’s been a number of especially noteworthy items, either in the form of sizeable box sets or otherwise ‘unusual’ editions, so throughout the course of this month, alongside other things, i’ll be exploring some of them. Surely the strangest (and, …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Fritz Hauser – Spettro; Bryn Harrison – Time Becoming

    by 5:4 April 20, 2021 • 15:11
    April 20, 2021 • 15:11

    i’ve been catching up with the latest pair of releases from the always interesting Neu Records label. In the process, i’ve been contemplating the fact that both of them pull the rug out from under you in terms of what’s certain and uncertain about the music, which often appears to …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Forum Wallis 2020 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 August 24, 2020 • 16:37
    August 24, 2020 • 16:37

    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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  • ConcertsFestivals

    Forum Wallis 2020 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 August 20, 2020 • 14:19
    August 20, 2020 • 14:19

    i’ve often likened going to a music festival to an act of pilgrimage, and that feels especially true of Forum Wallis. The two-and-a-half hour train journey from Geneva, edging round the lake before passing by Montreux and on into the heart of the Swiss Alps, feels akin to leaving behind …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Michel Roth – Im Bau; Decoder Ensemble – Big Data

    by 5:4 April 20, 2020 • 16:42
    April 20, 2020 • 16:42

    Two discs from the Wergo label have lately been getting me thinking a lot about the relationship between content and meaning. Im Bau is the title of an electroacoustic monodrama by Swiss composer Michel Roth that takes its starting point from a short story by Franz Kafka (Der Bau). Quite …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2019 • 15:53
    November 28, 2019 • 15:53

    It’s many, many years since i spent meaningful time in the company of music by Can, so i went to founder member Irmin Schmidt‘s HCMF piano recital last Thursday with precisely no expectations. What transpired was one of the most mesmerising, understated performances that i’ve ever witnessed in St Paul’s …

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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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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2019: Dieter Ammann – Piano Concerto (“Gran Toccata”) (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 23, 2019 • 13:05
    August 23, 2019 • 13:05

    None of the premières so far at this year’s Proms has left me with a more conflicted first impression than Dieter Ammann‘s new Piano Concerto, given its first performance on Monday by Andreas Haefliger with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. The basis for that reaction is wrapped …

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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

    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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  • ConcertsPremières

    Louth Contemporary Music Society: Silenzio Festival, Dundalk

    by 5:4 June 30, 2017 • 12:50
    June 30, 2017 • 12:50

    In terms of outlook (non-partisan), commitment (total to the point of absurdity) and above all its track record during the last eleven (essentially unsung) years, Louth Contemporary Music Society unquestionably deserves to sit alongside the very best contemporary musical festivals. Its most recent, Silenzio, which took place last weekend in …

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  • FestivePremières

    Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols: Carl Rütti – In this season of the year (World Première); Harrison Birtwistle – O my deare hert, young Jesu sweit

    by 5:4 December 26, 2014 • 17:29
    December 26, 2014 • 17:29

    This year’s new carol commissioned by King’s College, Cambridge for the Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols was written by Swiss composer Carl Rütti. There’s not really a great deal one can say about it; Rütti was always going to deliver something cosy and comfortable, which for that reason alone …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: electronic

    by 5:4 October 11, 2014 • 17:45
    October 11, 2014 • 17:45

    Turning to electronic music, i want to highlight several recent releases from the Entr’acte label. Founded in 1999 in London but today based in Antwerp, Entr’acte’s output has always made an impression long before any of the music has been heard. Their approach, not unique but certainly unusual among labels …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2012: Richard Dubugnon – Battlefield Concerto (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 17, 2012 • 12:23
    August 17, 2012 • 12:23

    Concertos are a regular feature among the new works heard at the Proms, but it’s rare to hear one for two pianos; Richard Dubugnon’s Battlefield Concerto, composed for those most characterful and quirky of siblings, Katia and Marielle Labèque, was therefore a refreshing break from the norm. It was given …

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
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    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
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    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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