New Year, New Music; H&N, Sat 5/1/19; 10:00pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What started as a week-long "saturation" of the R3 schedules at the start of the year seems to have shrivelled into a single edition of Hear & Now in which ten various presenters get to introduce a work written in the last ten years that they particularly admire.

George Benjamin (b1960): Written on Skin (Act 1 Scenes 5 & 6); Mahler Chamber Orchestra/the composer.

Larry Goves (b1980): Hollow yellow willow; BBC Philharmonic/Mark Heron

Gavin Bryars (b1943): "Credo" (from the Worcester Ladymass); Trio Mediaeval

Cassandra Miller (b1976): Duet for cello and orchestra; Charles Curtis/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov

Hans Abrahamsen(b1952): '‘I will go out now’' (from Let Me Tell You); Barbara Hannigan/Bavarian Radio Orchestra/Andris Nelsons

Edmund Finnis(b1984): Elsewhere;Daniel Pioro (violin)

James MacMillan(b1959): Stabat Mater ; The Sixteen/Britten Sinfonia/Harry Christophers

Anna Thorvaldsdottir(b1977): Aeriality; Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov

Gerald Barry(b1952): The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 1 excerpt); BCMG/Thomas Ades

Kerry Andrew(b1978): Apples, Plums, Cherries; Juice vocal ensemble

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001wlp

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks ferney for bringing us smoothly into the new year! It will be interesting hearing how each presenter rationalises his or her choices.

[Alison]

Petroc made it sound like a new music ‘season’ when he mentioned what was upcoming on the network!

[MrGongGong]

Some interesting things there , thanks

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Petroc made it sound like a new music ‘season’ when he mentioned what was upcoming on the network!

I did hope that I'd missed something - but there's nothing coming up on the BBC i-Player search engine (apart from archive references to previous years).

[CallMePaul]

There is an interesting article on Anna Thorvaldsdottir in this month's Gramophone, so I will be interested to hear some of her music. Some of the choices seem rather predictable even if there are a few names that I do not know - I had not heard of Cassandra Miller until earlier this morning, for example.

May I take the liberty of making my own selection? This would be: -
Tonu Korvits (b 1969) - Moorland Elegies (2015). This year sees his 50th birthday on 9 April, so it would be great to hear more of this leading Estonian composer's varied musical output. Moorland Elegies is a setting for women's voices and strings of 9 poems of Emily Brontë, set in the original English. I am not aware of any British performances but it would be a good choice for an experienced women's choir.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There is an interesting article on Anna Thorvaldsdottir in this month's Gramophone, so I will be interested to hear some of her music.

Her work has featured on H&N on a number of occasions (I can remember the regular checks that I was spelling her name correctly! )

I had not heard of Cassandra Miller until earlier this morning, for example.

Her 'cello and orchestra work was played on Kate Molleson's choice of "Recordings of the Year" on H&N a couple of weeks ago (I'm wondering if they'll just repeat that bit of the programme on tonight's). Hers is a very interesting Music, that I find quite captivating - as, indeed, I've found most of the other composers in another timbre's Canadian series - but all of them, for me, outmatched by the Music of Linda Catlin Smith.

May I take the liberty of making my own selection? This would be: -
Tonu Korvits (b 1969) - Moorland Elegies (2015). This year sees his 50th birthday on 9 April, so it would be great to hear more of this leading Estonian composer's varied musical output. Moorland Elegies is a setting for women's voices and strings of 9 poems of Emily Brontë, set in the original English. I am not aware of any British performances but it would be a good choice for an experienced women's choir.

Excellent idea, Paul - all recommendations from Forumistas would be welcome. Examples of Korvits' Music are youTubable, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxc_BqhWd8w

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=et&u=https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%25C3%25B5nu_K%25C3%25B5rvits&prev=search

[Bryn]

Of the current threads, this seems the most apposite on which to mention the Bozzini+ double album discussed in this morning's Record Review. Going in search of it, I found https://www.nmcrec.co.uk/huddersfiel...ecords/bozzini . I was attracted to the idea of a high resolution download but find the specifictions quoted somewhat confusion. How can a 24 bit version at the same sample frequency as the 16 bit version require significantly more than double the data (rate)? Hopefully it is the quoted sample frequency which is wrong. Looks like it should be eiher 88.2 or 96 kHz. Does anyone here know for sure?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I did hope that I'd missed something - but there's nothing coming up on the BBC i-Player search engine (apart from archive references to previous years).

The idea seems to be that the ten different pieces in this programme are to be scattered around the main schedules throughout the first week of the year? Not hearing many R3 broadcasts, I can't be sure, but that might explain why there were so many "don't scare the horses" and "this sounds rather like ... " pieces in the selection: MacMillan recycling Penderecki (1960s vintage), Thorvaldsdottir remembering Ligeti from around the same period ... I liked the Bryers and Andrew a capella pieces, but for an edition of H&N found it all rather unadventurous and (for me) uninvolving - it comes to something when George Benjamin seems the most substantial thing on offer. Forumistas' selections elsethread have been much more exciting and vital.

[Bryn]

The idea seems to be that the ten different pieces in this programme are to be scattered around the main schedules throughout the first week of the year? Not hearing many R3 broadcasts, I can't be sure, but that might explain why there were so many "don't scare the horses" and "this sounds rather like ... " pieces in the selection: MacMillan recycling Penderecki (1960s vintage), Thorvaldsdottir remembering Ligeti from around the same period ... I liked the Bryers and Andrew a capella pieces, but for an edition of H&N found it all rather unadventurous and (for me) uninvolving - it comes to something when George Benjamin seems the most substantial thing on offer. Forumistas' selections elsethread have been much more exciting and vital.

Who's this Bryers character?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Who's this Bryers character?

- partner of Alan Brush?