Gerhard's first ballet-score, Ariel, came about in 1934 as a result of a meeting between the composer and Leonid Massine which had been engineered by Antal Dorati—though, in the event, Massine rejected the music for ballet purposes as ‘too symphonic’. Two years later, Dorati was the catalyst for a second time when he suggested to Colonel de Basil (for whose company he was then conducting) that Gerhard would be a suitable composer for a Spanish ballet. Wishing to hear some of Gerhard's work, de Basil visited him one evening in Barcelona with Massine and the lead dancer of his company, and Gerhard improvised various pieces in appropriate style for them at the piano. His friend the poet Ventura Gassol—Minister of Fine Arts in the Catalan Government—was also present, at Gerhard's request, to lend moral support. After Gerhard's rendition, the talk turned to possible Spanish subjects for a ballet and the desirability of incorporating traditional Spanish styles of dancing into the choreography; and Gassol proposed an expedition by car to the town of Berga, in the Pyrenees, to see—as a fine illustration of what they were discussing—the ancient folk festivities of ‘Saint John's Fire’ which would be in progress that night.

Howard Skempton's distinctive presence on the British musical scene, and his prolific compositional output since the mid-1960s, have presented commentators with certain challenges as they contemplate which labels to apply, and, for music analysts, which techniques to deploy. Skempton's own comments, in various interviews and essays down the years, remain the ideal starting point, suggest a range of contexts, some of which underpin this study. With reference to a few of his smaller vocal and keyboard compositions, the quality of constantly shifting rather than strictly fixed elements is explored. When pitch materials conform more or less exactly to tonal or modal tradition, rhythm is particularly important as a determinant of subtle shifting. But it is often the case that pitches identities themselves shift between functions best defined as tonal scale degrees at one extreme and post-tonal pitch classes at the other. The result is a very personal and unaggressive kind of modernism.

• Panufnik the Symphonist Paul Conway

• ‘Moonstruck’ – F. G. Scott Songs Calum MacDonald

• Stephen Dodgson & Nicholas Maw Quartets Peter Palmer

• John McCabe, British Viola Music Paul Conway

• Howard Hanson's ‘Merry Mount’ Bret Johnson

• Othmar Schoeck Peter Palmer

• Dallapiccola Tim Mottershead

• Richard Arnell Paul Conway

• Seriously Sibelius Guy Rickards

• Sadie Harrison Jill Barlow

• Additional reviews by Peter Palmer, Paul Conway, Martin Anderson

St Albans: International Organ Festival 2005

The Webern Collection of the Paul Sacher Stiftung inBasel holds a fair copy of an early version of theDrei Stücke für Streichquartett(1913), comprising the song ‘Schmerz, immer Blicknach über’ together with what later became numbers 1and 6 of the Sechs Bagatellen op.9.This document is highly interesting on many counts:here I will mainly discuss one, the existence of adiscarded ending to the third piece (later op.9no.6). This passage is heavily blacked-out in mauvepencil in the manuscript, but the notes, dynamicsand indications can be discerned with a strong lightand magnifying glass.

YUN: My Land, My People!; Exemplum in Memoriam Kwangju. Chorus and State Symphony Orchestra of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, c. Byung-Hwa Kim. Symphonies Nos. 1–5. Filharmonia Pomorska Bydgoszcz, c. Takao Ukigaya. Richard Salter (bar). CPO 999 165-2 (4-CD set)

KLEIBERG: Lamento: Cissi Klein in memoriam1; Symphony No. 1, The Bell Reef2; Kammersymfoni (Symphony No. 2).3 Trondheim Symphony Orchestra c. 1Eivind Aadland, 2Rolf Gupta, 3Christian Eggen. Aurora ACD 5032

FLEM: Piano Concerto; Solar Wind; Ultima Thule per Orchestra.1 Sergei Ouryvaev (pno), St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra c. Alexander Kantorov; 1Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra c. Terje Boye Hansen. Aurora ACD

PERSEN: Over Kors og Krone. Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra c. Christian Eggen. Aurora ACD 5029

NYSTEDT: Apocalypsis Joannis, op. 115. Mona Julsrud (soprano), James Gilchrist (tenor), Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir c. Aril Remmereit. Simax PSC 1241 (2-CD set).

Even a decade and more after the fall of Communism, one regularly hears sorry tales of the difficulties faced by the countries of the east as they adapt to a more liberal order: Russian health-care in meltdown, the Romanian economy struggling, St Petersburg pumping untreated sewage into the Baltic, Belarus still in the grip of a Stalinist despot …. In the circumstances, contemporary music in the Baltics seems to be in remarkably good health, with two longstanding festivals in Estonia, another in Lithuania and a new event emerging in Latvia all providing encouraging testimony of the vigour of the new-music scene in the three republics.

The compositional output of Michael Finnissy includes several major cycles for piano solo, which stand out by reason of their dimensions and their scope. English Country-Tunes (1977/1982–85), Verdi Transcriptions (1972–92/1988–95/2002-), Gershwin Arrangements (1975–88) and Folklore (1993–94) are all long, technically demanding and full of expressive potential. Yet they have been outdone by Finnissy's most recent piano cycle: The History of Photography in Sound (1995–2001), a phenomenal endeavour, lasting over five and a half hours and employing every conceivable means of articulating musical expression and intellectual significance. Speaking of the scope of these works, however, does not merely entail their unusual length – although the extended duration, in comparison to what is considered customary for a solo piano piece, is indeed one of their prominent features. What is more significant here is their scope in terms of the wide array of ideas, concepts and statements that make up the musical text. In that respect, Folklore (like the other pieces mentioned here) is an unrelenting statement, reflecting upon or formulating a critique of many issues that are crucial to late-20th-century human existence. This article tries to demonstrate how all these layers of significance can indeed form the subject of a piece that is supposed to be ‘abstract’ (because textless, instrumental) music.

The idea of commissioning modern preludes to preface well established pillars of the classical repertoire has apparently been done a few years ago with soft new sounds gracing the air as audiences picnicked as a lead up to performances of Mozart's operas at Glyndebourne. Conversely one hears of The Departure of the Queen of Sheba, and other novelties. However, when conductor George Vass, musical director of the Presteigne Festival, commissioned three modern preludes to Handel's Messiah, to celebrate his tenth anniversary at the festival (2002), this must qualify as a ‘first’, and his brainchild. The Presteigne Festival is well known for its commitment to contemporary classical music. This was an ideal opportunity to commission three major British composers, to make their own 21st century ‘commentaries’ on Messiah, using the same instrumental forces available to Handel. As he also directs St Albans Choral Society, they put on the Messiah 25 October 2003, at St Albans Cathedral, prefaced by the three new preludes in the presence of two of the composers, Cecilia McDowall and David Matthews, using Orchestra Nova from the Presteigne Festival.

Aaron Copland was an urban American Jew of Russian extraction born – as he memorably remarked –

on November 14 1900 on a street in Brooklyn that can only be described as drab. It had none of the garish colour of the ghetto, none of the charm of an old New England thoroughfare, or even a pioneer street. It fills me with mild wonder every time I realize that a musician was born on that street. Music was the last thing anyone would ever have connected with that street. In fact, no one ever had connected music with my family or that street. The idea was entirely original with me.

‘To be interested in Satie one must be disinterested to begin with,’ declares John Cage of his contradictory relationship with the older composer. If paradox summarizes this particular discourse between an interested pupil and his predecessor, however, it is both a compositional and musicological discourse exploring the juxtaposition of explicit historicism and aesthetic distance, or ‘disinterest’. The project, or rather the problem, of musical ‘neutrality’ is one that Cage inherited from his idol and subsequently adopted with enthusiasm, as his stubborn pre-occupation with Erik Satie's 1918 symphonic drama, Socrate, evinces. Cage's initial encounter with Satie's work seems quickly to have inspired a commitment to interrogating modernism's engagement with history. Having been introduced to Socrate by Virgil Thomson in a performance that, in Anthony Tommasini's words, ‘profoundly changed Cage, [who] grew to revere Satie’, Cage immediately set out to adapt the score for Merce Cunningham's ballet Idyllic Song in 1947. Denied copyright permission for his two-piano arrangement, Cage resourcefully set out to re-write the musical accompaniment for the ballet (and appease the disobliging publishers) more than two decades later in 1969, retaining Satie's original phrasing in order to preserve Cunningham's choreography and sardonically re-titling the piece Cheap Imitation.

As the first Doctoral Composer-in-Residence of the Royal Opera House and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Philip Venables has – some might say bravely – chosen to adapt 4.48 Psychosis, the last play by the late British playwright Sarah Kane. Brave for several reasons. Kane's work is renowned for its naked, sometimes brutal, expression and themes, and the nihilism and violence of her plays have caused critical uproar in the past. Moreover, her estate has until now been understandably protective of her legacy; Venables's opera, premiered in May, is the first adaptation they have permitted, and came with instructions to remain as true as possible to the text.

The career of any great artist can be divided into broad creative periods denned by discernible traits. Olivier Messiaen is no exception, despte the fact that, when discussing his music, it is now part of the common currency to remark upon the constancy with which he stuck to his idiosyncratic musical language. It is true that some of the techniques and spirit which he used in the first of his works to be published, the Préludes, can still be heard in his final masterpiece Éclairs sur I'au-delà…. Indeed, Messiaen himself encouraged this perception, so that the received wisdom is of the composer as a steady accumulator of techniques for a continually expanding style. On one level, therefore, this is a reasonably accurate interpretation in retrospect of Messiaen's career. However, within this broad quality of consistency, it is possible to detect places where the composer markedly changes direction.

ELLIOTT CARTER: Steep Steps1; Two Diversions2; Oboe Quartet3; Figment No.24; Au Quai5; Of Challenge and of Love6; Figment No.17; Retrouvailles8; Hiyoku9. 1Virgil Blackwell, 2,8Charles Rosen, 3Stephen Taylor, 3Curtis Macomber, 3,5Maureen Gallagher, 3Eric Bartlett, 4,7Fred Sherry, 5Peter Kolkay 6Tony Arnold, 6Jacob Greenberg, 9Charles Neidich, 9Ayako Oshima. Bridge 9128

CARTER: Oboe Quartet1; Four Lauds2; A 6 Letter Letter3; Figments Nos.1–24. ISANG YUN: Piri5; Oboe Quartet6. 1,3,5,6Heinz Holliger, 1,2,6Thomas Zehetmair, 1,6Ruth Killius, 1,4,6Thomas Demenga. ECM New Series 1848/49

MYASKOVSKY: Symphonies Nos. 24 and 25. Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra c. Dmitri Yablonsky. Naxos 8.555376.

The first part of this article was published in Tempo No.194 (October 1995), pp. 2–11, and dealt with Goffredo Petrassi's first two Concertos for Orchestra as well as other works, notably the major choral compositions Coro di Morti and Noche Oscura. At the time Petrassi was 91 years of age and it was intended to complete the article within a few issues' time. Other commitments supervened, however; but the composer's death has given added urgency to the need to publish a second instalment concentrating on his concertos of the 1950s. A third and final instalment, covering Concertos 7 and 8 and some of the remarkable compositions of Petrassi's final period, is planned for 2004.

From the moment Schoenberg saw the need to use the designations Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme, the issue of differentiating material in complex post-tonal scores has been significant. It has formal and textural connotations, and it relates directly to the experience of listening to this music.