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Luca Francesconi's Sospeso - A Suspension of Disbelief

From Venice, two major world premieres: Luca Francesconi's Sospeso - A Suspension of Disbelief, and Salvatore Sciarrino's Nocturnes.

Tom Service introduces more music from September's Venice Biennale, including two major world premieres for orchestra. Luca Francesconi's Sospeso - A Suspension of Disbelief for amplified orchestra, Fancesconi says, was born of 'episodes of a perhaps unconscious suspension of continuity... Spontaneous epiphanies that defied the teleological effort' and he gnomically adds that 'The scream, the braying of the donkey is perhaps the most convincing demonstration of the existence of God.'

Salvatore Sciarrino's Nocturnes creates an individual, dream-like sound world where references to previous nocturnes and night music emerge from a disconcerting background of mysterious breathing and spooky skittering punctuated by sudden crashes.

From Belfast, another world premiere. Northern Ireland-born Simon Mawhinney's orchestral A Pillar of Light for Haydn commemorates not the composer but Haydn Robarts, who died in 2020, aged 19, from cancer. And Hannah Kendall's Tuxedo: Between Carnival for soprano and ensemble uses, newspaper headlines, Biblical phrases and a text by Jean-Michel Basquiat to disturbing effect.

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2 hours

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Saturday 22:30
91热爆 Radio 3

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Venice Music Biennale

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Music Played

  • Anna Clementi

    Cigarren

    Composer: Thomas Stern. Performer: Anna Clementi. Performer: Thomas Stern.
    • DOPPELMOPPEL Poems by Kurt Schwitters.
    • Corvo Records.

  • Liza Lim

    Shallow Grave

    Performer: The Monochrome Project.

  • Salvatore Sciarrino

    Nocturnes

    Orchestra: Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester. Conductor: Thomas Guggeis.

  • Hannah Kendall

    Tuxedo: Between Carnival and Lent

    Singer: Mimi Doulton. Orchestra: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Conductor: Vimbayi Kaziboni.

  • Elsa Justel

    L'espace re-figure虂

    Performer: Elsa Justel.
    • empreintes DIGITALes.

  • Simon Mawhinney

    A Pillar of Light for Haydn

    Orchestra: Ulster Orchestra. Conductor: David Brophy.

  • Luca Francesconi

    Sospeso - A Suspension of Disbelief

    Orchestra: Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester. Conductor: Thomas Guggeis.

Broadcast

  • Saturday 22:30
    91热爆 Radio 3

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