This article focuses on the six pieces for orchestra, the earliest from 1998 and the most recent from 2011, by the American composer and filmmaker Phill Niblock (b.1933). These works stand apart from Niblock's more usual practice: that of making compositions on tape (later on computer) by superimposing layers of recordings of held tones played by individual instruments, the tones pitch-shifted to make dense, microtonal drone textures. Yet there are many similarities, in intent if not in sounding result. The article examines the manner of construction of the orchestral works, with emphasis on their pitch structure, and describes the performance practice that has grown around them in recent years. It describes Niblock's particular use of microtonal intervals (approximated in his notation in increments of a sixteenth of a tone) in generating both the textures and the overall form of his compositions, as well as the intended spatial distribution of the musicians in several of the pieces.

Although The Triumph of Time is one of Birtwistle's most celebrated early pieces very little has been written about it to date. Probably the most comprehensive analytical review appeared in Michael Hall's 1984 biography Harrison Birtwistle. This was largely valuable for presenting, in the context of a well-informed account of the composer's early output, particular aspects of Birtwistle's intention. Others have added little, while some remarks made by the composer in various interviews have seemed so strangely contradictory that they can only be evaluated by an independent idea of how the structure works from the evidence of the score itself. The method of approach becomes a major aspect of the discussion and analysis presented. In considering the dramatic superstructure, the way detail fits into this, and the relationship with the eponymous Bruegel etching, the aim of the current article has been to consider the work ‘on its own terms’ as far as possible.

The eclectic taste of Thomas Adès has led writers to comment upon the plethora of influences in his music. Adès himself has made no secret of such composers, frequently performing the works of those who have been a particular source of inspiration to him. While the present study initially acknowledges this vast array of disparate styles, the second section considers the extent to which Adès is influencing himself. It identifies certain trends that are evolving across his oeuvre, and central to this is the distinctive treatment of a pair of intervals, evident in the opening bars of almost a quarter of his published works to date.

While the influences of others remain undoubtedly significant to any discussion of Adès, it is now also appropriate to examine the way in which some of the composer's own characteristic gestures form musical relationships between his works.

The sheer quantity and diversity of music being written in Finland today continues to surprise and delight us. But one significant strand in this otherwise egalitarian success story has remained in the shadows: the role of women composers. Kaija Saariaho appears to be the only such figure to hold a truly international reputation, raising basic questions: why should this be so, how are things changing and what kind of music is being produced. Outlining social and political issues that are distinctive to Finland helps to explain the emergence of Saariaho as a role model for younger women composers. It also invites a detailed case study of a leading member of this generation: Lotta Wennäkoski. This focus on an analytical reading of Wennäkoski's compositional process – as evidenced through her orchestral piece Sakara (2003) – reveals how this music communicates so effectively with contemporary audiences.

Large-scale polyrhythms appear in almost every composition Elliott Carter wrote during the 1980s. The roots of this technique can be found in earlier compositions where Carter deliberately combined different simultaneous speeds not only at the musical surface, but also at a deeper, structural level. In A Mirror on which to dwell (1975), he already uses this compositional tool as a form-generating feature. Through the analysis of three songs from this cycle (Anaphora, Insomnia and O Breath), it is shown how the appearance of structural polyrhythms at the musical surface is meticulously organized through pitch organization, instrumentation and the relation with text. The double function of the polyrhythm – as a surface phenomenon and a background structure – is essential for the understanding of this composition. It also shows the difference with Carter's later use of the same technique in the 1980s, where large-scale or structural polyrhythms are more of a constructional nature and remain invisible in the musical score.

This essay traces the development of Justin Connolly's music from the orchestral Antiphonies of 1966 through to the Piano Concerto of 2001–3, showing how within a remarkably consistent idiom there has been a slow process of focal change from a predominantly vertical structuring to a graciously complex, vertically rich, energetic linearity, embracing a wide variety of works on its unhurried journey, and by no means excluding drama and expressivity from its uncompromising idiom. Most of the analytical writing is on the Piano Concerto, which in its way summarizes all that precedes it, showing how a metaphorical labyrinth can be interestingly kaleidoscopic in its richness. The essay also demonstrates how, like several other British composers of his generation, Connolly has found his own individual, structurally significant way of bringing together techniques from the early Renaissance and the 20th century.

As the first systematic 12-tone composition, the Petrarch movement from Schoenberg's Serenade has been associated with ‘newness’. Yet it has conservative features. Medieval notions of isomelody and isorhythm, as well as Renaissance concepts of paralleling a poem's prosody and emotional content, are here. Moreover, 12-tone composition itself is an evolution of ‘Chromatic Completion’ – a technique already flourishing in Haydn and Mozart. Ultimately, what matters most is Schoenberg's understanding of the aesthetics of love. To appreciate this, the essay makes use of the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, founded by the great American poet and scholar Eli Siegel. Beauty, he taught, is ‘a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves’. And love, he explained, has an aesthetic basis: it is ‘proud need’. This essay indicates technical ways in which Schoenberg illustrates the truth of these concepts.

At 65, Howard Skempton is somewhere near the centre of British compositional life: a surprising development for an avowedly ‘experimental’ composer, whose output until his early forties consisted primarily of short pieces written for himself and a few associates. This annotated interview traces Skempton's career, from the early influences of Webern, Feldman and Britten, through the mentorship of Cornelius Cardew and friendship with Michael Parsons, to the influence of text-setting and of the commissioning process on his recent work. Skempton's preoccupation with ‘the sound’ looms large, but is seen to be balanced by an equal concern with questions of structure, and the interview explores issues of continuity both within individual pieces and across his oeuvre, from A Humming Song (1967) for piano to the string quartet Tendrils (2004), the orchestral song-cycle The Moon is Flashing (2007) and the 35-minute, single-movement viola concerto Only the Sound Remains (2009).

Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (1974–77) is one of the most successful operas of the 20th century in terms of the number of performances. Originally, Ligeti had intended to compose an ‘anti-opera’ in the manner of Kagel's Staatstheater, but changed his fundamental compositional approach during the process of composing the work. He realised that a more traditional opera with a clear narrative (unlike Kagel's avant-garde opera) was more suitable, and it therefore became necessary for him to transform his style to one in which the text was audible to an audience. As a result there is very little of his mature micropolyphonic technique in the resulting work, but rather there is an exploration of music from the past, and the use of parody. In composing his opera Ligeti revitalised his approach through a re-engagement with history, but combined with a modernist rigour; thus he was able to create a new and fruitful musical language, and to transform his compositional technique.

This article presents a view of the first meetings between the oboe virtuoso Christopher Redgate and the composers Dorothy Ker and Fabrice Fitch. The article details some aspects of these meetings to highlight the processes that are at play in the earliest stages of collaboration. These processes are both practical (in which information about how the oboe works is uncovered and shared) and philosophical (in which the oboe itself becomes a significant source of new possibilities). The article traces a period during which Redgate was developing a new oboe, working with composers to create new repertoire for the new instrument. Arguing for closer attention to the ‘everyday’ aspects of composers and performers working together, the article explores some of the ways in which Redgate pulls apart his experience of performing to develop new technique and to opening up new possibilities for future composition. I also argue that the oboe, as much as the composer and performer, plays a part in shaping musical outcomes.

The least familiar of Schoenberg's piano pieces, op.33b nevertheless can be seen to illuminate the crucial relationship between material and form. Ostensibly a simple ABABA pattern, the form has a multi-faceted character, whose second half performs a different role from the first and even suggests a different style of musical utterance. The opening material is pianistically awkward and though its formal returns suggest different possibilities, it is the strange and beautiful passage at bar 46 which does most to alter the trajectory of the later stages of the piece. Although this passage sits outside the form, it has a role in the broader narrative of the piece and many of its characteristics are taken up in the coda of the work. The developing sense of a more fluent pianism provides a counterpoise to the ABABA shape and the awkwardness of the opening becomes part of the dialogue between form and material.

This study explores Adams's interpretation of Baroque genres and his creative methods that draw on a relationship between past and present in the Violin Concerto. In this composition, Adams not only revives Baroque musical language through new performance practices, but also draws together diverse musical idioms, creating a way to communicate with our society. Repetition plays a large part in the Violin Concerto, but more in the sense of variation and sequences than of literal repetition. On the other hand, techniques such as the Lombard Snap and “unequal-note’ (notes inégales) are not treated in a traditional way. Structurally, although there is no trace of motivic connexion throughout the work, the music does not lack stylistic unity. The ‘harmonic’ language is generally consonant, which reflects Adams's honor of conventional musical sound. The Concerto certainly demonstrates the composer's creative imagination.

This essay analyses the temporal structure of Roger Reynolds's The Palace (Voicespace IV) for baritone and four-channel computer generated sound (1978). Since 1970, Roger Reynolds has used logarithmically expanding and contracting proportions to define sectional durations in his music to the near-exclusion of other designs. Though this general practice is common to many of the composer‘s works, these proportions are employed in this one's formal structure in an idiosyncratic way that is truly unique to the piece. Using sketches from the composer's Library of Congress archive, the analysis demonstrates that the composer's selection of numerical data used to determine sectional boundaries in The Palace is intimately tied the work's conceptual impetus, Jorge Luis Borges's poem of the same title. Reynolds's formal design also reflects larger trends in Borges's writings, notably his short stories.

In this interview Gubaidulina discusses her understanding of religion and the way in which it relates to her music, by means of symbolism and metaphor. In particular she speaks of her understanding of the Apocalypse as a book of light, greatly influenced by the writings of Fr Aleksandr Men. She talks about the symbolism of instruments in her work, notably percussion, which she sees as a way to the subconscious; her understanding of the role of modernism in music, and the way in which her work connects with this historical process; and also her use of the Fibonacci sequence. The relationship of her music to liturgy is discussed, as is the double path, apparently contradictory, of the artist who composes both liturgical and concert music. The experience of the composer during the profound changes in music during the 20th century, specifically as regards possible intersections between modernism and spirituality, are also discussed.

Walton's Prologo e Fantasia, written at the end of his life, is one of the few completed original works of his final decade. Undoubtedly flawed, it can be seen simply as an exemplar of Walton's failing creative powers and his sheer difficulty in writing any music at all. But it is also possible to discern in it continued experimentation with developing aspects of his language, especially seen in the context of his exploration of similar devices in preceding works. Analysis of his harmony shows development of greater ambiguity in a tonal context. And, while many of his other works contain significant fugal passages, particularly towards their conclusions, the use of a fuga finta here presents a different perspective on a typical Waltonian device. While the work does not stand alongside Walton's most important orchestral achievements, and performances will probably remain relatively few, it does nevertheless provide some interesting insights into the musical language of his post-war music.

The aim of this paper is to re-describe Brian Ferneyhough's compositional practice as an arrangement of medium/form relations in the sense of system theorist Niklas Luhmann. The production process of an artwork is understood as a procedure by which ‘a form is changed for another’, or rather: by which a form becomes a medium for further form distinctions, such that the contingency of the beginning is transformed into the necessity of the final work of art. Based on the preliminary ‘large-scale form’, the fundamental steps in the composition of the first movement of the Fourth String Quartet are observed as recursive operations in a self-referentially closed process of gaining form. Despite its formal closure, the final score's potentiality becomes a medium for further performative and perceptive actualizations. The artwork establishes itself on the level of second order observations, as a difference between the possible and the actual: between medium and form.

Throughout his career, Roger Reynolds has studied perception and used this knowledge in an overt manner to shape many of his compositional decisions. Though this concern affects the ways that he works with many musical parameters, its influence is perhaps most clearly manifested in his global temporal designs. This article examines how he has approached form over the course of his career. Reynolds's initial compositional work from the early 1960s employed formal proportions that were derived from rows. Since 1970 Reynolds has used logarithmically expanding and contracting proportions to define sectional durations in his music to the near-exclusion of other designs. At the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, Reynolds began to look for sources of ‘alternative proportional authority’ such as chaos theory, while in more recent compositions his approach to formal design has been more variable.

• Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2011 Paul Conway

• New York: Nico Muhly Rodney Lister

• Manchester University: Julio d'Escrivain Tim Mottershead

• Aberystwyth: Nicola LeFanu's ‘Dream Hunter’ Paul Conway

• Further reports from Manchester, London and Boston Tim Mottershead, Jill Barlow, Rodney Lister

• Los Angeles: John Adams's ‘The Gospel According to the Other Mary’ Michael Palmese

• London, Royal Opera House: Judith Weir's ‘Miss Fortune’ Paul Conway

• London, Coliseum: Detlev Glanert's ‘Caligula’ Guy Rickards

• London, Barbican Theatre: Glass's ‘Einstein on the Beach’ Keith Potter

• Birmingham, Symphony Hall: Jonathan Harvey's ‘Weltethos’ Arnold Whittall

• Further reports from Huddersfield, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and London Paul Conway, Tim Mottershead, Peter Palmer, Jill Barlow

Any would-be conductor of The Planets needs first to consult Holst's own recordings of 1923 and 1926; then Imogen Holst's The Music of Gustav Holst (3rd edition, in particular Chapter XXVI), and her and Colin Matthews's contributions to the Collected Facsimile Edition, Volume III. Opinions vary as to how far the constraints of the early recording studio affected the composer's interpretation, so the recent discovery of a miniature score with Sir Henry Wood's annotations on the 1931 Prom performance, where Holst had no such inhibitions, is of unusual interest. Its positive attributes, side by side with Wood's merciless exposing of the difficulties encountered by the composer, are all there. Durations of three movements have been added in Holst's writing, and Wood's own timings shed further light although, sadly, muddied by errors and inconsistencies. But there is new food for thought regarding such aspects as the speed of Saturn and a reminder where the central melody of Jupiter is concerned.