Episodes

TitleFirst
Broadcast
Comments
20070929The BBC NOW and horn player David Pyatt perform works by Lindberg and Rautavaara.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20071027The BBC Scottish SO with soprano Catherine Bott in Joe Duddell's Not Waving But Drowning.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20071124Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Cresswell's The Voice Inside.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20071208A programme of music firmly rooted in Northern Europe, with a Finnish conductor, a Lithuanian cellist, and works by Latvian and Estonian composers.

Petri Sakari conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Vasks' Viatore for string orchestra, plus cellist David Geringas joins them for Tuur's Concerto for cello and orchestra.

Petri Sakari conducts the BBC NOW in works by Vasks and Tuur.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080209Featuring music from two composers with strong academic associations: Gordon Downie lectures at the University of the West of England and Robin Holloway at the University of Cambridge.

Downie: forms 6: event aggregates for orchestra

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Grant Llewellyn (conductor)

Holloway: Scenes from Schumann - 7 paraphrases for orchestra

Diego Masson (conductor).

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs works by Downie and Holloway.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080216A touching elegy by British composer Joe Duddell, written in memory of two school friends.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080223The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra perform Jennifer Martin's Hearing Pictures.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080301Two contrasting works for orchestra by Australian Liza Lim and Karen Tanaka from Japan.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080405The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs works by Beethoven, Downie and Goehr.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080503The BBC SSO perform Lyell Cresswell's Concerto for Orchestra and String Quartet.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080531Another chance to hear part of a concert given in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, for the 2002 Edinburgh International Festival. Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in music by two of Scotland's best known contemporary composers.

Stuart MacRae: Sleep at the Feet of Daphne

James MacMillan: Symphony No 2.

A concert from 2002's Edinburgh International Festival with works by MacRae and MacMillan.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080607Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in two contrasting works by Judith Weir exploring the theme of heaven and earth. The first piece uses the image of the forest, a very popular setting among composers, while the second sets the words of Emily Dickinson's poem Moon and Star - with vocals by the BBC Singers.

Weir: Forest for orchestra

Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

Weir: Moon and Star for chorus and orchestra

Martyn Brabbins (conductor).

The BBC SO under Martyn Brabbins perform Judith Weir's Forest and Moon and Star.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080809The BBC Scottish SO in Per Norgard's Concerto in due tempi for orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080830Featuring choral and instrumental music by Chinese emigre composers.

Chen Yi was born in China but now lives in America, and her settings take dialect folksongs from various regions of China, the first a nocturnal lovesong, the second describing gentle sounds at dawn in spring.

Raymond Yiu was born in Hong Kong and lives in the UK, and his 'Calendar of tolerable inventions from around the world' for wind quintet is a witty look at three western inventions: the cuckoo clock, invisible ink and the button.

Chen Yi: The Flowing Stream; Spring Dreams

Raymond Yiu: Calendar of tolerable inventions from around the world

BBC Singers

Lontano

Odaline de la Martinez (conductor).

Featuring music by Chinese emigre composers Chen Yi and Raymond Liu.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20080920With James MacMillan's Sinfonietta, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20081025Two pieces that established the young Britten and Turnage as important orchestral composers in the British music scene of their respective eras.

Britten: Sinfonia da requiem, Op 20

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Jiri Belohlavek (conductor)

Turnage: Your Rockaby

Leonard Slatkin (conductor).

BBC SO/Leonard Slatkin in Britten's Sinfonia da requiem and Turnage's Your Rockaby.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20081122BBC SSO/Carlos Kalmar in Donhanyi's Konzertstucke in D Op 12, with Alban Gerhardt (cello).

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20081129The Phoenix Chorale under Charles Bruffy perform Jean Belmont Ford's Electa.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

The BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra and soloists, linked together by the gospel narration of the Nativity sung by the Trinity Boy's Choir, under the baton of Stephen Jackson perform Vaughan Williams's cantata Hodie, which uses texts from the Bible, Milton and Thomas Hardy.

Carolyn Foulks (soprano)

Robert Johnston (tenor)

Ashley Holland (baritone)

Trinity Boys' Choir

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Stephen Jackson (conductor)

Vaughan Williams: Hodie.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra under Stephen Jackson perform Vaughan Williams's Hodie.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20081206Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge with Stephen Layton in Pawel Lukaszewski's O Antiphons

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20081220Pegasus conducted by Matthew Altham in contemporary Christmas-themed music.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090103The Arditti Quartet give the world premiere of Michael Rosenzweig's String Quartet.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090117The Herold Quartet perform Vaclav Zahradnik: String Quartet No 2 in D.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090124LSO/Gergiev, with Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) in Gubaidulina: In tempus praesens.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090307Halgeir Schlager (organ) performs Petr Eben's Triptychon.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090321Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra/Kangass in Norgard: Fugitive Summer and Constellations.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090328The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano perform Golijov and Gandolfi

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090404Chamber works by Jonathan Harvey, Anthony Payne, James MacMillan and Osvaldo Golijov.

Harvey: Curve with plateaux for cello solo

Timothy Gill (cello)

Payne: Quintet for piano and strings (BBC commission; first performance)

Boris Giltburg (piano)

Alexandra Wood (violin)

Greg Lawson (violin)

James Boyd (viola)

MacMillan: Fourteen Little Pictures

Gould Piano Trio

Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind

Todd Palmer (clarinet)

Members of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090606Two works by modern British composers with unusual approaches to symphonic repertoire. John White's Fifth Symphony is for a group of six players and lasts eight minutes, while Richard Ayres' No 37b is a symphony in all but title even if its individual movements suggest a more subversive approach to the orchestra.

John White: Symphony No 5

Gemini

Peter Wiegold (conductor)

Richard Ayres: No 37b for orchestra

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchetra

Ilan Volkov (conductor).

John White's Symphony No 5 for small ensemble and Richard Ayres's No37b for orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20090711Featuring pianist Ian Brown on Benjamin's Piano figures.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20091003Solo and chamber works by three American composers spanning two generations.

Evan Ziporyn: War Chant

Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Gil Rose (conductor)

David Lang: Wed

Andrew Russo (piano)

William Bolcom: Concerto grosso for saxophone quartet and orchestra

Prism Saxophone Quartet

Gil Rose (conductor).

Solo and orchestral music by Evan Ziporyn, David Lang and William Bolcom.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20091128Music for piano and ensemble by Michael Edwards and Tristan Murail.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20100227Featuring two pieces by British composer Joe Cutler.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20110226Piano music by two British composers - Laurence Crane and Simon Holt.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20110528Highlights from the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion events, featuring the music of Hungarian composer and conductor, Peter Eotvos, played by students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Jules Buckley conducts the Guildhall Jazz Band in 'Paris-Dakar' and David Corkhill directs the Guildhall New Music Ensemble in the 'Sonata per sei'.

Highlights from the recent Total Immersion events, featuring the music of Peter Eotvos.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20111001The BBC Symphony Orchestra in music by Brian Elias and Rolf Wallin.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20120128Ahead of tonight's Total Immersion celebration of Jonathan Harvey's music, a work by one of his erstwhile influences - Milton Babbitt, with whom Jonathan Harvey studied during his time in the USA at the end of the sixties. Babbitt died a year ago tomorrow. The Composers Ensemble, directed by Paul Zukofsky play his 1992 score 'Septet but Equal' scored for three clarinets, piano, and string trio. Mark van de Wiel, Duncan Prescott, clarinets; Robert Ault, clarinet/bass clarinet; Ian Brown, piano; David le Page, violin; Sophie Renshaw, violin; Zoe Martlew, cello.

Milton Babbitt's Septet But Equal (1992). Composers Ensemble directed by Paul Zukofsky.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20120609Music by Australian-born composer Brett Dean, recorded at London's Barbican Hall, as part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion concerts in March:

Wolf-Lieder

Jenavieve Moore, soprano; Guildhall New Music Ensemble, conducted by Brett Dean

The Lost Art of Letter Writing (uk premiere)

Renaud Capucon, violin; BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson.

Two works by Brett Dean from the BBC's Total Immersion events.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20120616Brian Ferneyhough's 1981 score Lemma-Icon-Epigram played by pianist Richard Uttley.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20120707Pianist Rolf Hind plays Ninnananna, by Marco Stroppa, from his collection of fourteen piano miniatures or Estrose, written in the 1990s. And, recorded in the winter of 2010 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Three Summer Pieces, by Martijn Padding, played Ensemble 10/10, directed by Clark Rundell.

A piano miniature by Marco Stroppa and Three Summer Pieces by Martijn Padding.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20120922A preview of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's New German Mythmakers Concert, conducted by Matthias Pintscher, and being broadcast by Hear & Now in October. Hans Werner Henze's 8th Symphony is inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The concert was recorded on 23rd June at City Halls, Glasgow and is part of the Listen Here 2012 Series.

BBC SSO play Hans Werne Henze's 8th Symphony, conducted by Matthias Pintscher.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

20130330Orchestral pieces by Joe Duddell, Gary Carpenter and David Horne, played by the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Mark Heron, in their new Salford studio. Joe Duddell is Reader in Music at Salford University and both Gary Carpenter and Scottish-born David Horne teach composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Joe Duddell: Azalea Fragments

Gary Carpenter: Fred & Ginger

David Horne: Submergence.

The BBC Philharmonic in orchestral works by Joe Duddell, Gary Carpenter and David Horne.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Albert Schnelzer20100710Albert Schnelzer is a young Swedish composer who already has a large number of chamber works to his credit. His music is suffused with two vital elements: dance and song which generate works of either headlong impetuousness or haunting lyricism. From a recent CD, two works that illustrate those extremes: Frozen Landscape, for cello and piano, and Predatory Dances for violin, cello and piano. Tobias Ringborn, violin; Claes Gunnarsson, cello; Francisca Skoogh, piano. Look out for the UK premiere of his 'A Freak in Burbank' at the BBC Proms on August 23rd.

Two works by Swedish composer Albert Schnelzer: Frozen Landscape; Predatory Dances.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Anthony Payne, Anthony Gilbert, Judith Weir20100306Music by three British composers to anticipate tonight's special Hear and Now feature on Jane Manning.

Anthony Payne: The Stones and Lonely Places Sing

Jane's Minstrels conducted by Roger Montgomery

Anthony Gilbert: .into the Gyre of a Madder Dance

RNCM Wind Ensemble, conducted by Clark Rundell

Judith Weir: Piano Concerto

Xak Bjerken, piano; Ensemble X, conducted by Mark Davis Scatterday.

Music by three British composers Anthony Payne, Anthony Gilbert and Judith Weir.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Australian Instrumental Music20090926Solo and chamber works by four Australian composers.

Ross Edwards: More Marimba Dances

Claire Edwardes (marimba)

Peter Sculthorpe: String Quartet No 8

Kronos Quartet

Mark Pollard: Just a moment; One Sweet Moment

Claire Edwardes (vibraphone)

Carl Vine: The Anne Landa Preludes

1. Short Story

2. Filigree

3. Thumper

4. Ever After Ever

5. Two Fifths

6. Milk for Swami Li

7. Divertissement

8. Sweetsour

9. Tarantella

10. Romance

11. Fughetta

12. Chorale

Michael Kieran-Harvey (piano).

Instrumental music from Australia, including a quartet by Peter Sculthorpe.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Bent Sorensen's Shadowplay20120114Three trios come together in a unique, spatially-separated performance of Danish composer Bent Sorensen's Shadowplay. Three works, each of five movements, are interwoven and played in an unbroken thread from different parts of the hall. It enchanted the audience at the 2011 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Taking part are the Trio Aristos, the Scenatet Trio and the Cikada Trio.

Producer Andrew Kurowski.

Trio Aristos, the Scenatet Trio and the Cikada Trio perform Bent Sorensen's Shadowplay.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Birmingham Contemorary Music Group: Ligeti, Webern20130223Birmingham Contemporary Music Group play Ligeti and Webern.

Ligeti: Melodien

Webern: Six Orchestral Pieces, op 6

These two works have relevance to the main work in Hear and Now later on, by Alexander Goehr. Gabriel Levin, the librettist for Goehr's work, 'To These Dark Steps/The Fathers are watching', writes about his emotions in the wake of the Gaza bombing in 2008. He found that only certain modern composers could continue to speak to him - among them Webern, Ligeti, Bartok and Messiaen.

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in Ligeti: Melodien and Webern: Six Orchestral Pieces.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group20091107Birmingham Contemporary Music Group performs music by Luke Bedford and Franco Donatoni.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Brett Dean, Voice Of Angels20120602Voices of Angels, a piano quintet composed in 1996 by Australian composer Brett Dean and recorded during the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion events in March this year. The work calls for an unusual grouping of piano, violin, viola, cello and double-bass. Performed by the Guildhall Chamber Ensemble.

Brett Dean's piano quintet Voices of Angels, given at the BBCSO's Total Immersion events.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Cage-feldman-tenney20091121Music by three pioneering figures in American contemporary music of the mid-20th century: John Cage, Morton Feldman and James Tenney.

John Cage: The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs

Lore Lixenberg (mezzo-soprano)

Philip Thomas (piano)

James Tenney: Blues for Annie

Stephanie Bozzini (viola)

Feldman: Vertical Thoughts II for violin and piano

Sophie Appleton (violin)

James Weeks (piano)

Cage: The Seasons - ballet

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Nicholas Kok (conductor).

Music by John Cage, Morton Feldman and James Tenney.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Causton, Goehr, Saunders20111022Richard CAUSTON: Phoenix

Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth

Alexander GOEHR: Since Brass nor Stone, for String Quartet and percussion

Pavel Haas Quartet/Colin Currie

Rebecca SAUNDERS: Violin Concerto (BBC commission, world premiere)

Carolin Widmann, violin; BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling.

Works by Causton, Goehr and Saunders for orchestra and for string quartet with percussion.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Chansons Francaises20071201Recorded at London's Little Venice Festival, the BBC Singers and conductor David Hill perform choral music by Poulenc, Ravel, Sir Lennox Berkeley (who was friends with both of them), Milhaud, and the great French popular chanteur, Henri Salvador.

Poulenc: Chansons Francaises (Nos 1-4)

Berkeley: There was neither Grass nor Corn; The Midnight Murk

Ravel: Trois Chansons

Milhaud: Quatrains Valaisans

Salvador, arr. Roland Chagnon: Tu reviens; Apres nous

Poulenc: Chansons Francaises (Nos 5-8).

The BBC Singers and conductor David Hill perform choral music.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Choral Music, By Judith Bingham20090131BBC Singers/David Hill in choral music by Judith Bingham. With Gleams of a Remoter World.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

David Bedford, Joseph Phibbs, Morgan Hayes20111126Ahead of tonight's British Composer Awards preview, music by the late David Bedford, Joseph Phibbs and Morgan Hayes.

David Bedford (former chair of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors): Carillon.

Michael Bonaventure, organ.

Joseph Phibbs: The Canticle of the Rose.

Helen-Jane Howells (soprano) Navarra Quartet.

Morgan Hayes: Violin Concerto.

Keisuke Okazaki (vln),

Esbjerg Ensemble/Christopher Austin.

Music by British composers David Bedford, Joseph Phibbs and Morgan Hayes.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

David Bedford's The Song Of The White Horse20111105David Bedford died earlier this month after a life making music that reached across all boundaries and was intended for all people. His 1978 score The Song of the White Horse is a characteristic example. Commissioned for a BBC television documentary, the work charts a journey along an ancient Berkshire footpath between a stone-age burial mound and the famous White Horse of Uffington. Setting words by G.K.Chesterton, it celebrates King Alfred's victory over the Danes at the Battle of Englefield in the 9th century. Set for small ensemble and a children's choir, it famously climaxes with the choir reaching stratospherically high notes by inhaling Helium gas.

Diana Coulson, solo voice

Queens College Choir

Nash Ensemble, conducted by Steuart Bedford.

The late David Bedford's 1978 score The Song of the White Horse.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

David Matthews20130406David Matthews at 70: Clarinet Quartet, Piano Sonata and Cantiga for soprano and orchestra

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

David Sawer, Juste Janulyte, Roger Smalley, Michael Finnissey20111224Choral music from Britain and two works for solo cello performing with itself, several times over.

David Sawer: Stramm Gedichte

BBC Singers/Nicholas Kok

Juste Janulyte: Psalms

Anton Lukoszevieze, cello + electronics

Roger Smalley Echo II for cello & two digital delays: David Pereira (cello)

Michael Finnissy: Beacon Carol

BBC Singers/James Weeks.

Music by David Sawer, Michael Finnissy, Juste Janulyte and Roger Smalley.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Diotima Quartet - Ferneyhough's Sonatas For String Quartet20111112Brian Ferneyhough's epic Sonatas for String Quartet played by the Diotima Quartet - a recording made at the BBC's Total Immersion weekend earlier this year.

I find beautiful whatever stimulates, brings forth positive inner turmoil, makes me feel momentarily more intelligent, spiritual, etc., than I otherwise am,' Ferneyhough observes. Sonatas for String Quartet (1967) marked the ambitious departure point for Ferneyhough's journey on the mind, its 20 movements rich in textural contrasts and expressive silences.

The Diotima Quartet perform Brian Ferneyhough's epic Sonatas for String Quartet.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Dutilleux20100619Time, Shadow and Silence - elements that suffuse the the music of French composer Henri Dutilleux, now in his 90s. He has, arguably, been eclipsed in the public's awareness by the work of his compatriot and near-contemporary, Olivier Messiaen. Yet Dutilleux has always worked meticulously and steadily, creating a huge body of works which are now emerging and being feted as the products of a deeply musical and fastidious philosophical mind. Pre Hear presents two works from the past 45 years: Three Preludes for solo piano from 1973 - 1988 (played by Robert Levin, piano); and The Shadows of Time (1995-97), for orchestra and children's voices, written for Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony who perform it here.

Music by Henri Dutilleux: Three Preludes for solo piano; The Shadows of Time.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Ensemble 10-1020090523Liverpool-based Ensemble 10/10 perform four works specially written for their tenth birthday concert by some of the city's home-grown composers.

Hilary Browning (cello)

Ian Buckle (piano)

Clark Rundell (conductor)

Steve Martland: Reveille for ensemble

Stephen Pratt: Double Act for ensemble

David Horne: Phantom instruments for ensemble

Graham Fitkin: Subterfuge for cello and ensemble.

Clark Rundell conducts Ensemble 10/10 in music by Martland, Pratt, Horne and Fitkin.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Fretwork: New Works For Old Instruments20120407Fretwork in music by Tan Dun, Andrew Keeling, Christopher Robert and Sarah Gaitt.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Hk Gruber20120623H.K.Gruber's 1999 Proms commission, Aerial, performed by Reinhold Friedrich on a variety of trumpets, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. The work presents two landscapes, as if seen from the air and involves the soloist not only playing a host of instruments using different techniques, a cow horn and a modern version of an ancient Swedish instrument but also singing.

HK Gruber conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in his 1999 Proms commission Aerial.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Ian Wilson: Winter's Edge20130615Celebrating British Music: Winter's Edge - the String Quartet no 1 by Belfast-born Ian Wilson. It was composed in 1992, and its theme is Redemption, as exemplified in the New Testament account of the life of St Paul. Elements of conflict, isolation and destiny provided Wilson with the musical spurs for this single-movement work. Performed by the Vanbrugh Quartet for whom it was written.

A performance of Winter's Edge, the first string quartet by Ian Wilson.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Italian Music For Voices, Pianos And Percussion20100130Italian music old and new for voices, pianos and percussion. Exaudi vocal ensemble, directed by James Weeks sing works by Gesualdo, Sciarrino and Scelsi and a variety of hands play Aldo Clementi's curiously fascinating piano pieces

Carlo Gesualdo: Three Tenebrae Responsories (1611) - Omnes amici mei dereliquerunt me; Velum templi scissum est; Tenebrae factae sunt

Exaudi, directed by James Weeks

Aldo Clementi: Madrigale, for piano four hands, glockenspiel and vibraphone (1979)

Mats Persson & Kristine Scholz, piano; Jonny Axelsson, percussion

Salvatore Sciarrino: Responsorio delle Tenebre (2001)

Aldo Clementi: Danze, for two pianos, twelve hands

Mats Persson, Kristine Scholz, Luciana Marques, Ulrica Holmberg, Benedikte Weinreich, Christian Rosenberg

Giacinto Scelsi: Tre canti sacri (1958)

Exaudi, directed by James Weeks.

Italian music for voices, pianos and percussion by Gesualdo, Sciarrino Scelsi, Clementi.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Jonathan Harvey - Speakings20130119Speakings for large orchestra with electronics, by the late Jonathan Harvey, performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov. It was jointly commissioned by the BBC for the 2008 BBC Proms, with Radio France and IRCAM, where Jonathan Harvey spent much time working on new ways of integrating electronics and live instruments. In this work, Harvey 'gives voice' to the orchestra, using a special programme he developed in Paris. Instrumental sounds are captured and transformed to create the characteristic components through which we identify speech and human utterance, which Harvey believed to be fundamental to life and which could transcend it through a 'pure language' toward which the work strives at its end.

A performance of the late Jonathan Harvey's Speakings for large orchestra with electronics

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Jonathan Harvey, Simon Holt, Julian Anderson20100320Music by British composers Jonathan Harvey, Simon Holt and Julian Anderson.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Karen Tanaka, Unsuk Chin20111119Karen Tanaka's beautiful yet brittle piano piece Crystalline echoes Messiaen's piano writing at a distance but conjures an inner-world of reflections and restraint. And from the BBC's 2011 Total Immersion events, a performance of Unsuk Chin's Grawemeyer-award-winning Violin Concerto, played by Jennifer Koh and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Unsuk CHIN: Violin Concerto

Jennifer Koh, violin / BBC SO

Ilan Volkov (conductor)

Karen Tanaka: Crystalline II

Signe Bakke, piano.

Piano music by Karen Tanaka and a recent violin concerto from Unsuk Chin.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Kevin Volans20110205Kevin Volans's Concerto for Piano and Wind Intruments.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Laurence Crane, Howard Skempton And Michael Finnissy20091205Music by three British composers, Laurence Crane, Howard Skempton and Michael Finnissy, whose music represents a particular seam in English music, distinct from the European modernist mainstream.

Laurence Crane: Birthday piece for Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy (piano)

Michael Finnissy: In mense autem sexton

Voces Sacrae

Judy Martin (conductor)

Laurence Crane: Chorale for Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton: Ben Somewhen

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

James Weeks (conductor).

Music by British composers Laurence Crane, Howard Skempton and Michael Finnissy.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Laurence Crane, Michael Nyman20100213As a prelude to tonight's edition of Hear and Now, Pre-Hear festures music by two composers associated with the English experimentalist tradition. Michael Nyman has carved a niche for himself with his personal take on driven minimalist textures, and the characteristic sound of his 'outdoor' band has defined his music as like no other. At the other end of the spectrum, Laurence Crane's enigmatic miniatures seem to float outside time, relishing sweet and astringent harmonies for their own sake.

Laurence Crane: Kierkegaards

Michael Finnissy, piano

Michael Nyman: 3 Quartets

Michael Nyman Band.

Music by two English experimentalist composers: Laurence Crane and Michael Nyman.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Lukas Foss, Goffredo Petrassi20130316Italian Goffredo Petrassi lived through all, if not most of the twentieth century's musical revolution and ferment, from late Romanticism, through neo-classicism to the avant garde. He took a particular attitude to music of the past and composed works that recast the musical idioms of former centuries in modern garb.

Goffredo Petrassi addressed the challenge of creating a new musical identity for himself against a largely late-Romantic background, by re-visiting the pre-Romantic past. His Partita for Orchestra consists of a Galliard, a Chaconne and a Gigue. His palette is one of rich orchestral sonority, not of pared-down austerity.

Goffredo Petrassi: Partita for Orchestra

RAI National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Tamayo.

Goffredo Petrassi's Partita for Orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Lumsdaine-grange20090530Peter Wiegold directs the music ensemble Gemini in two recent works by David Lumsdaine and Philip Grange, recorded in London in 2007.

David Lumsdaine: Mandala III for piano and ensemble (Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh)

Huw Watkins (piano)

Peter Wiegold (conductor)

Philip Grange: A Puzzle of shadows for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano

Alison Wells (soprano)

Peter Wiegold (conductor).

Recent works from David Lumsdaine and Philip Grange from a concert performed by Gemini.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Mozart And Beethoven Reinvented20120630Mozart and Beethoven as reinvented by Anthony Gilbert and Michael Gordon.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Music For Viola And Orchestra20100515Music that puts the viola centre-stage

Thomas Larcher: Still, for viola & chamber orch

Kim Kashkashian (viola), Thomas Larcher (piano), Munich Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies

Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life IV

Marek Konstantynowicz (viola), Norwegian Radio Orchestra, conducted Christian Eggen.

Two works for solo viola and orchestra by Thomas Larcher and Morton Feldman.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

New Music Recorded In Ireland20100116Three works performed by pianist Joanna MacGregor, and two Irish orchestras, from north and south of the border.

Klaas de Vries: Violin Concerto

Hebe Mensinga, violin; Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Maloney

Frederic Rzewski: Winsboro Cotton Mill Blues

Joanna MacGregor, piano

Donnacha Dennehy: Elastic Harmonic, for violin and orchestra

Darragh Morgan, violin; RTE National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Maloney.

New music recorded in Ireland with Joanna MacGregor and the RTE and Ulster Orchestras.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

New Works For Old Instruments20120121Fretwork in contemporary music for viol consort, by Druce, Woolrich and Keeling.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Niccolo Castiglioni20130209Rarely-heard music by the Italian composer Niccolo Castiglioni (1932-1996). Four works, variously for piano, choir and orchestra, featuring Sarah Nicolls, Schola Cantorum Stuttgart and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen.

Castiglioni's music is influenced by his early fascination with the spare, focused and exquisite works of Anton Webern. His mature works retain an element of transparent purity but there are other influences from the European avant-garde of the 50s and 60s together with a innate Romanticism and lyric sensibility.

Inizio di Movimento, for piano

Hymne, for twelve voices

Dulce Refrigerium, for piano

Apreslude, for orchestra

(see also Hear and Now tonight: Knussen conducts the BBC Symphony in his own music).

Music by Niccolo Castiglioni for piano, choir and orchestra.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Nicholas Maw20130601Music by Nicholas Maw: One foot in Eden still, I stand; Little Suite.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Nigel Osborne, Adrian Jack20110122Chamber works - Nigel Osborne's trio The Piano Tuner and Adrian Jack's 6th String Quartet.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Odaline De La Martinez20101127Music by Cuban-born composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez, who founded her new music group Lontano 35 years ago, opening performance channels for composers across the board. Her own work has often been put to one side in the service of music by other composers whom she championed over the years. Tonight thre are two pieces from her own pen, revealing her taste for instrumental colour, lyrical line and passionate utterance.

Litanies (1981) for flute, string trio and harp recalls Martinez's early years in Cuba.

Lontano, with soprano Olivia Robinson, directed by Odaline de la Martinez.

Canciones (1983) based on four early poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.

Soprano Marina Tafur with Martin Allen (percussion) and Shelagh Sutherland (piano).

Music by Cuban-born composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Olga Neuwirth, Mauricio Kagel20110611Music from last year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, inspired by an artist's undiscovered literary manuscripts and a patent application for a new instrument, by Olga Neuwirth and Mauricio Kagel

Olga Neuwirth: In the Realms of the Unreal

Arditti Quartet

Mauricio Kagel: Les Inventions d'Adolphe Sax (UK Premiere)

New London Chamber Choir/ Rascher Quartet conducted by James Weeks.

Music by Olga Neuwirth and Mauricio Kagel from the 2010 Huddersfield Festival.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Peter Sculthorpe20100123Sydney SO/Stuart Challender in orchestral music by Peter Sculthorpe: Kakadu; Mangrove.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Philip Cashian - String Quartet20130112Philip Cashian's String Quartet is one of the twelve works by living British composers selected for revival under the Royal Philharmonic Society 'Encore' scheme, in partnership with BBC Radio 3. This recording was made during the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival last year, performed by the young Zelkova Quartet: Caroline Pether and Simran Singh (violins), Rhiannon James (viola) and Rachel Shakespeare (cello).

Philip Cashian's String Quartet played by the Zelkova Quartet in Huddersfield.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Piano Music From Japan20100522Piano music from Japan, with connections to the world of visual art.

Dai Fujikura's moromoro is a hectic cinematic fantasy, with electronics that disperse the piano's sonority over a much wider canvas than is conventionally available.

Toru Takemitsu's Les yeux clos II is a still-life, drawing its title from a painting by the French Symbolist artist, Odilon Redon

Hiroaki Takenouchi, piano.

Hiroaki Takenouchi performs piano music by Dai Fujikura and Toru Takemitsu.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Pierre Boulez20111217Music by Pierre Boulez, from the London Southbank Centre's Exquisite Labyrinth series.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Pierrot Lunaire20101002Arnold Schoenberg's fantastical expressionist monodrama Pierrot Lunaire ('Moonstruck Pierrot, Three Times Seven Poems by Albert Giraud in German translation by Otto Erich Hartleben') in a recording made at the Sounds New Festival in Canterbury in May.

ENSEMBLE MODERN

Actress: Isabelle Menke

Director: Ilan Volkov

Flute: Dietmar Wiesner

Clarinet: Nina Jan?en

Piano: Hermann Kretzschmar

Violin and Viola: Jagdish Mistry

Cello: Eva B怀cker

recorded in St. Peter's Methodist Church, Canterbury, as part of the Sounds New Festival.

Schoenberg's monodrama Pierrot Lunaire performed at the 2010 Sounds New Festival.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Rain20110115Three scenes with rain as their subject, by Toru Takemitsu, Judith Weir and Barry Guy.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Richard Ayres, Noncerto20120526British composer Richard Ayres is known for his idiosyncratic takes on some of the more hallowed conventions of the orchestral repertory. His series of so-called 'Noncertos' cast the soloist in unusual or unfamiliar (or uncomfortable) scenarios in which the conventional relationship between the individual and the crowd is subverted to tragi-comic effect. In 'No.36' a 'Noncerto' for horn and orchestra, the soloist is an outsider, trying to integrate with the ensemble, whether by calling across mountain peaks (and being its own echo), standing outside the gates of Heaven or narrating a series of silent-film vignettes in a quasi Buster Keaton role. This solo horn here, despite its tumescent Straussian associations, is an uncertain hero ('Noncerto' is a pun on Concerto and the Italian for 'uncertain'). This energetic performance was recorded in the City Halls, Glasgow by Saar Berger (horn) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov.

Saar Berger (horn) and BBC SSO under Ilan Volkov in Richard Ayres: Noncerto (No 36).

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Richard Causton: Chamber Symphony20111015The Philharmonia Orchestra's 'Music of Today' series, curated until recently by composer Julian Anderson, is an opportunity to showcase recent music by some of today's important emerging composers. In February 2011, they gave a portrait concert of 1971-born Richard Causton. This week, Pre-Hear spotlights his Chamber Symphony of 2009, an abstract work cast in two movements. Ryan Wigglesworth conducts.

Richard Causton: Chamber Symphony - Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Rolf Hind-murail20090516Rolf Hind performs Tristan Murail's 1977 piano solo Territoires de l'oubli, recorded at the BBC's Total Immersion weekend. The work is based entirely on the instrument's natural resonances and explores gradual changes in pulse and harmonic colour. Departing from the 20th-century idea of the piano as a percussive instrument, it draws on Murail's interest in the natural overtone series.

The performer is himself also a composer - interested by the resonant qualities of his instrument and a long-time advocate of new music. Many contemporary composers have written for Hind, and in 2005 he made his Carnegie Hall debut, playing music by John Adams at the composer's invitation.

Rolf Hind performs Tristan Murail's extended piano work from 1977, Territoires de l'oubli.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Schiphorst, Daverson, Harvey20120107A preview of two events coming up in Hear and Now later this month. The London Sinfonietta play music recorded at their recent 'Pavilions' concert, to be broadcast on 21st January. And a new CD of music by Jonathan Harvey prefigures the BBC's Total Immersion celebration of Harvey's music, which is aired on Hear and Now on 28 January.

Iris ter Schiphorst Zerst怀ren

Steven Daverson Elusive Tangibility III: Clandestine Haze

London Sinfonietta/Martyn Brabbins

Jonathan Harvey: Ricercare una melodia, for cello and tape

Timothy Gill, cello/Sound Intermedia.

The London Sinfonietta performs music by Schiphorst, Daverson and Harvey.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Steve Martland20130608Steve Martland died suddenly last month. The news shocked the music world; no-one would have anticipated such an event. Many were looking forward to a new creative surge by this composer, known for his forthright views on society, the establishment and music in general. His recent Sea Songs had their world premiere last year and their English premiere in this concert, given by the BBC Singers in February, conducted by Paul Brough. Far from being simple celebrations of the seafaring life, the works explore the social undercurrents that made men go to sea, risking, and often losing, their lives in the process.

The English premiere performance of the late Steve Martland's Sea Songs.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Tabakova, Higgins20130216Music for wind ensemble by Dobrinka Tabakova and Gavin Higgins.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Takemitsu20110409Nexus and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu's From me flows what you call Time.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

The Death Of Balder20080412Kevin Crossley-Holland's version of a 12th-century saga is set to music by Bernard Hughes.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

The Four Sections20100424As Hear and Now spends a few weeks in so-called 'minimalist' territory, a work by one of the fathers of the style, Steve Reich. His 1987 score, The Four Sections in one of his few stand-alone works for full orchestra, designed as a response to Michael Tilson Thomas's urgings for him to compose a concerto for orchestra. The result is a fascinating take on showcasing the orchestral departments, individually and then together. The Four Sections is performed here by the orchestra who gave the UK premiere in 1988 - the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the LSO in Steve Reich's 1987 score The Four Sections.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Thierry Escaich, Jonathan Harvey20110430As a taster for tonight's all-French edition of Hear and Now, two works that explore colour and resonance, characteristics of much contemporary French composition.

Thierry Escaich: Vertiges de la Croix

Orchestre National de Lille, conducted by Michiyoshi Inoue

Jonathan Harvey: Tombeau de Messiaen, for piano and electronics

Jean-Luc Plouvier, piano.

Two works exploring colour and resonance, by Thierry Escaich and Jonathan Harvey.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Trios From Austria20100220Music for trio from Austria: Arnold Schoenberg's influential 1899 score Verklaerte Nacht in the version for piano trio by Eduard Steuermann played by the Fidelio Trio - Darragh Morgan, violin, Robin Michael, cello and Mary Dullea, piano. And Johannes Maria Staud's Sydenham Music, for flute, viola and harp in a recording of its world premiere at the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival, played by members of bcmg: Marie-Christine Zupancic, flute, Christopher Yates, viola and Céline Saout, harp.

Two trios from Austria by Arnold Schoenberg and Johannes Maria Staud.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Unsuk Chin's Su20120512Su, composed in 2009 by Korean composer Unsuk Chin, fuses the sound of the traditional Chinese mouth-blown pipe-organ - the Sheng - with the modern symphony orchestra. It was recorded during the BBC Symphony Orchestra's 'Total Immersion' expose of Unsuk Chin's works and performed by Wu Wei (sheng) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov.

Wu Wei (sheng) and the BBC SO under Ilan Volkov in Unsuk Chin's Su.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music

Widman - Violin Concerto20091024BBC SSO under Ilan Volkov, with Christian Tetzlaff, in Jorg Widman's Violin Concerto.

Companion programme to Hear and Now, offering more of the best new music