Occasionally, in the history of operatic art, great works, with no pronounced revolutionary tendencies, yet models of simplicity, of sincerity, of artistic integrity, have been subjected to the most savage criticism, as unintelligent as it was undiscerning. We remain astounded at the lack of insight, of common-sense on the part of cultured critics. Even la Traviata was held up for censure as “prurient, foul and hideous”; whereas, in the whole of Verdi's work, there is nothing more poignant and sublime than Violetta's appeal: “Dite alia giovane.” Carmen was stigmatized as “grossly vulgar and vile,” whilst Vincent d'Indy—amazed at the aberrations of men—sadly remarked that the “music seemed crazy to nearly everybody.”

This is not, I fear, the much-needed full critical assessment of Frank Bridge. The very size of his output makes such a task difficult, and it is not helped by the disappearance of several important scores, among them the Cello Concerto (1930) and Enter Spring (1927)—which Britten remembers “as a riot of melodic and harmonic richness, although it is thirty years since I heard it or saw the score.” Performances of his music, at any rate in public, are exceedingly rare, and no-one except Britten has shown any interest in correcting the fact. Fortunately it is possible to outline a rough sketch of Bridge—incomplete and undetailed, but fair so far as it goes—by concentrating on the chamber music, where he is at his most personal; and thus to suggest some of the reasons why, personal affection apart, Britten today cherishes Bridge's memory so warmly.

During the orchestral year just concluded, about 83,000 young people living in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. heard 43 concerts played especially for them by the National Symphony Orchestra. Another 41,000 high-schoolers from all over the United States were our guests for 30 Music for Young America concerts played in the beautiful Pan American Union building between April 17 and May 21, after the close of our regular season.

Howard skempton is a deeply serious composer, but his art is modest and makes no self-conscious effort to impress. Precisely because it is so natural the music seems to tell us a lot about the private person behind the notes. The music's dimensions are equally modest. Most of the piano pieces last little more than a minute or two, and they are ideal for domestic music-making, playing for one's own pleasure or to a friend.

Skempton was born in 1947. He studied composition privately with Cornelius Cardew with whom, together with Michael Parsons, he helped to found the Scratch Orchestra in 1969. Since 1974 he has composed vocal, accordion, and percussion pieces for the many concerts he has given with Michael Parsons. His largest work to date has been Chorales which was given its first performance in 1982 by the Merseyside Youth Orchestra.

Like many other composers, Andrzej Panufnik lost his entire musical oeuvre as a result of the Warsaw Uprising. By then he was already the composer of two symphonies, a piano trio, the Five Polish Peasant Songs and Tragic Overture. This last piece, which he had conducted himself in occupied Warsaw in 1944, had brought him considerable success. Listeners felt its terrifying resonance inaddition to appreciating its masterful construction, and the event remained in many people's memory for years, establishing Panufnik's musical position as a composer as well as a conductor. (Before the war, he had graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory with degrees in both fields, and later studiedconducting at Vienna's Hochschule fur Musik with one of the greatest conductors of the time, FelixWeingartner.) His pre-war compositions, premiered in the late 1930s, had already been very well received by the critics. There was no doubt that Panufnik would play a significant role in post-war Polish musical life.

‘In the winter [of 1910–11 Stravinsky] went with Maurice Ravel to Varese, an Italian town not far from Como, found in a stationer's shop an exercise book and, tempted by its presentation and the quality of the paper, he and Ravel bought one copy each.’ For the next two years Stravinsky carried this book from ‘The Lindens’, a pension in Clarens, to Monte Carlo, Paris, Venice, to his summer home in Ustilug in Russian Volhynia and finally back to the Hotel du Châtelard in Clarens, and in it he wrote the first draft of The Rite of Spring.

On a gloomy winter's night in Dalston what could be better than Kammerklang at Café OTO? Out of the cold and into a packed house – standing room only for many of us, and sauna-like levels of humidity – for an evening in which an audio-visual piece about bells by Christine Sun Kim and a new string quartet by Lisa Illean frame the main event, two new pieces by the Canadian composer Cassandra Miller.

Much of contemporary western art music relies on objectivist and individualistic frameworks of intellect which oppose any focus on subjectivity, embodiment or emotion. These approaches deny composers, players and audiences the powerful experiences facilitated by works which are of body and of emotion. We suggest that by facilitating a return to body and emotion in sound we create potential for deep, cathartic, and transformative psychophysiological states. We argue that these states can create shared experiences that directly resist the isolating, homogenising, socially apathetic and narrowing path paved by frameworks of intellect. This refusal can facilitate collectivised movement towards an ethics of care, through mutuality, solidarity and empathy. This extends further than musical practice and builds potential inroads towards greater social and political transformation. We offer a toolkit of actions and frameworks that enable embodied and emotional sound use: intensity, stillness, improvisation, collectivised praxis and uncanoning.

Although much of the best of Britten's unperformed early music has come to light since his death, there are still a number of substantial works to be discovered. The latest to emerge – appropriately premièred at the Royal College of Music where Britten was a student – is the ballet score Plymouth Town, which he composed during his summer holidays in 1931, following his first year at the College. The idea for a ballet was suggested by Violet Alford, an authority on folklore and particularly Basque dancing, who in July 1931 was a fellow lodger in the house in Bayswater where Britten had a room.

This article seeks to initiate discourse around the vibrant and somewhat uncharted electroacoustic weave that significantly contributes to Ireland's musical tapestry through a consideration of six diverse threads: Softday, Jennifer Walshe, Karen Power, Linda Buckley, Fergal Dowling and Jonathan Nangle. Investigation of Ireland's recent electroacoustic scene will confirm that an emerging DIY aesthetic aligns with international trends of the past decade, with pop-up events, improvisation groups, experimental music collectives and intermedia festivals providing avenues for collaborative and creative expression. It will provide contrasting, yet interconnected examples of what will be termed ‘DIYing’ including a discussion of influences, concepts, practices and brief analyses of works. It is hoped that this article will see the beginning of a wider acknowledgement of the rich musical dialogues that are taking place.

Per Nørgård makes an improbable Grand Old Man. For a start, he's not nearly old enough; though he was 65 on 13 July this year, you wouldn't imagine to look at him that he was much past his mid-forties. Nørgård, moreover, cuts no establishment figure: he is a large, imposing man, with a thatch of reddish-blonde hair splashed on top of a rugby-player's frame that suggests he is about to explode into action at any moment. But Grand Old Man he already is: with the deaths of his teachers Vagn Holmboe (last September, at the age of 88) and Finn Høffding (this March, at an Olympian 98), Nørgård is now the senior figure in Danish music; there are older composers, of course, but none of his international standing. He doesn't act the part, though: his gestures are gentle, his conversation calm. Indeed, he talks about himself and his music with a quiet conviction that draws in the listener like a youngster listening to a bedtime story.

FRITZ BRUN: Symphony No. 9; Aus dem Buch Hiob (Symphonische Dichtung). Moscow Symphony Orchestra c. Adriano. Guild GMCD 7306.

SCHOECK: String Quartet No. 2 in C major. FRITZ BRUN: String Quartet No. 3 in F major. Amar Quartett. Musiques Suisses MGB CD 6238.

HANS SCHAEUBLE: String Quartet op.19. MEINRAD SCHÜTTER: String Quartet. ERICH SCHMID: String Quartet op. 4. casalQUARTETT Zurich. Guild GMCD 7303.

The Swedish compser Anders Eliasson is a dancer on the volcano of desperation and in this respect the successor of Allan Pettersson. On the other hand his structures are extremely vital and concentrated, without resorting to lengths dictated by atmosphere. The trembling density and shivering complexity of his elaborated architectonics are always emotionally accessible, and the incessantly contrasting rhythmic obsessions never fall into additive isolation; the tearing, torturing tension is under constant formal control, due to the absolute singlemindedness in focussing harmonic development. Eliasson interweaves merciless terror and lyricism from another world.

This article is devoted to the music of Paweł Szymański. The author is convinced that an intertextual reading of his music is the most compelling one. Taking into consideration Szymański's two-level technique she interprets his works by means of categories elaborated in the field of literature: intertextuality exponent, interpretant, and text characterised by intertextual play. In the second part of the article two different works are discussed, the first representing the algorithmic, and the second the improvisational method of composing. The author concludes that these works are deeply rooted in tradition and, at the same time, are modern, as well as original, with the interpretants constituting the major source of their originality.

Compared to the central figures of French spectral music, Horaţiu Rădulescu has received relatively little critical attention. Contrasting temperaments, writing styles and surface musical features have led to a tendency to place Rădulescu in opposition to Grisey in particular. In this article I analyse some of Rădulescu's theoretical writing and demonstrate important shared values with the spectral ‘mainstream’. I then examine Das Andere for solo viola, Op. 49 (1983) in detail and compare it to Grisey's solo viola masterpiece, Prologue (1976). In so doing I hope not only to reveal the inner workings of one of Rădulescu's most compelling and approachable pieces, but also to show some common strategies with Grisey, regardless of their radically different aural results.

Brazil's foremost ensemble of the late twentieth century, Grupo Novo Horizonte de São Paulo, transformed Brazilian contemporary music by cultivating a new mixed-chamber repertory and giving sustained support to a generation of emerging composers. That this cosmopolitan group took, then outgrew, the Pierrot ensemble as its cornerstone signals the medium it forged: a localized, evolving spectacle with a richly internationalist heritage. This article offers a panoramic view of the musical, intercultural and historical contexts that underpin Grupo Novo Horizonte's practices and legacy. Analysing landmark works by Sílvio Ferraz, Harry Crowl and others allows us to draw further connections between the group, the Brazilianness of late twentieth-century compositional aesthetic, and the realities of contemporary classical music-making in Brazil.

• Nicholas Maw's ‘Sophie's Choice’ Paul Conway

• Morton Feldman Colin Clarke

• Richard Ayres Peter Reynolds

• Elinor Remick Warren Bret Johnson

• Thomas Adès Paul Conway

• Further reviews Peter Palmer, Colin Clarke, Guy Rickards, Paul Conway, Calum MacDonald, Bret Johnson