Contemporary Music Round-Up - Spring 2026

As Presto look under the bonnet of a number of contemporary releases from the first quarter, one thing is clear – the appetite for new music making and listening remains as healthy as ever! This round-up is Anglo-American in flavour but is by no means restricted, with music of widely varying moods and speeds.

We begin with a composer whose orchestral music has proved popular – but whose choral music has yet to be fully appreciated. Uncertain Sea, an anthology of music by John Casken, fills a significant gap in the composer’s recorded music canon, thanks to authoritative performances from Peter Broadbent and the Joyful Company of Singers, with whom the composer worked closely in the years leading up to this recording.

Casken lives in Northumberland, and the windswept beauty of the region is felt throughout his music, which has elemental power and a haunting, weather-beaten countenance. Paying deep homage to England’s past, Casken finds power and poise in Cædmon’s Hymn, setting the words of a seventh-century hymn of praise written by a cowherder in the employ of Whitby monastery. Moving forward a mere eight centuries is The Knight’s Stone, where flautist Philippa Davies takes the part of the falcon who has whisked the narrator’s love away. On the wing throughout, she evades capture from the close harmonies of the choir. 

Meanwhile the title track interleaves two poems by Katrina Porteous, one in Northumbrian dialect, and as its “chill wind breathes warm land away”, the deep blue hues of the album’s cover are in evidence. The performances are exemplary, the collection ending on a solemn note as Memorial marks the passing of First World War soldiers from Northumbria who perished, their bodies never found.

Haunting, in a very different way, is the music of Morton Feldman, who in the centenary year of his birth is the beneficiary of some important new releases. The Wergo label has played a key role in preserving Feldman’s music on record, and this collection of Complete Works for Multiple Pianos is a fine place for newcomers to start, with a wide range of styles from Webernian levels of compression and activity to long-breathed meditations.

The musical language of Trio for Two Pianos and Cello is intensely expressive, volatile even, while elsewhere the quiet dynamic brings a different sort of intensity, drawing the listener in. Piece for Four Pianos is strangely compelling, its harmonies held by the quiet dynamic but also by the space between the notes, while Piano (Three Hands) has a calming metronomic regularity. The early piece Two Pianos, where Feldman instructs that “Durations are free. Slow. Soft as possible”, is a moving, minimalist barcarolle. The premiere of the longer form Five Pianos in 1972 featured a remarkable cast, with Feldman joined by Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, David Tudor and John Cage, and here its soft original – just over half an hour – is complemented by a ‘Piano and Voices' version, the five sopranos exhibiting extraordinary voice control but not quite finding the same calm as the instrumental version.

Similarly compelling is the music of Augusta Read Thomas. Where Feldman’s movements are incremental, Thomas reflects the more erratic motion of sunlight. The music on Sol also studies flight and light, the former in a short cello suite Magical Flights Of The Adarna Bird, exploiting opposite ends of the instrument’s register before an elegant and dreamy and dreamy finale.

The album is framed by two pieces sharing the marking “Majestic, luminous, optimistic; always resonant”. The metallic brightness of Solstice Ritual, subtitled ‘Homage to Varèse and Ravel’, is at once striking and otherworldly, and while Equinox Ritual, a ‘Homage to Stravinsky', initially seems less affected by the sun, the same rarefied air is breathed. The drumming rituals speak of awakening, with volleys of more obviously ‘struck’ percussion.

Light Pearls Through Prisms is a vivid musical realisation of its title for solo piano, while the thrilling Illuminations is the most explicitly American sounding of the compositions. The music of ‘Gusty', a Chicago native, thrives on this album in excellent performances and recordings that prove both dazzling and hypnotic.

The music of Michael Finnissy, celebrating his eightieth birthday this year, requires repeated listening, but responds well when the full extent of its direct communication can be appreciated. Finnissy’s prolific output includes works for guitar solo, duo and quartet, collected in a highly satisfying collection by Métier. This is music of past, present and future, shown in an adept reordering of music from the Spanish Renaissance – the Two Cut-Ups of Three Fantasias by Alonso Mudarra finding a studied elegance. Song 17 enjoys greater freedom of movement through registers and rhythms.

Albion on the Road to Hell, meanwhile, begins as a knife through butter, a linear dance of death where the Mēla Guitar Quartet are pushed to the limit, before periods of introspection and more intimate conversation. Normal Deviates explores textures rarely found in guitar duos, with longer phrases in the foreground over quicker, intricate note play behind. However Outcast is the standout piece on the album, with moments of dynamic extreme, where quiet strummed chords are answered by noisy ones. It is a thoughtful but consistently engaging piece, brilliantly played by dedicatee Sam Cave.

Huw Watkins’s credentials as a concert hall composer are gaining with every year, thanks in part to the advocacy of the Hallé, with whom he is Composer in Association. This first album devoted to his music includes the socially distanced premiere of his Symphony No. 2, confirmation that Watkins has something new to say in a familiar form.

Melody plays an important part in Watkins’s musical world, the tonal approach complemented by strong kinetic energy. His fast music in particular generates impressive momentum, giving hooks aplenty for the listener to hang on to. While adhering to sonata form there is a distinct lack of scholarly signposting; rather the work moves instinctively and with satisfying dimensions, especially in the run up to the thrilling finish of the third movement.

The Concerto for Orchestra also breathes new life into a familiar format, with plenty of opportunities for virtuoso display from the orchestra as a whole, rather than in distinct parts. The second movement begins with a serene violin line paying attention if not direct homage to Hindemith, even Copland, while forging a distinctive if slightly elusive style. The Fanfare opening the album helps create anticipation for the longer form pieces.

Unsuk Chin is also a successful exponent of the concerto format, and a new richly colourful album of works for medium-sized orchestra blends the influence of teachers Ligeti and Messiaen with the DNA of her Korean heritage. It also illustrates her flair as a composer for the stage. Gougalōn, Scenes from a Street Theatre, receives a stunningly virtuosic performance from Ensemble Intercontemporain, their rendition of this colourful and eventful suite both balletic and comedic. Chin’s imagination runs riot during the percussive ‘Dramatic Opening of the Curtain’ and the ‘Lament of the Bald Singer’, equal parts poignant and humourous. The xylophone proves the perfect foil for ‘The Grinning Fortune Teller with the False Teeth’, while the finale, ‘The Hunt for the Quack’s Plait’, brings the prepared piano and a large percussion section to the fore.

The Double Concerto of 2002 brings this vivid theatrical characterisation to a more traditional form, though this lean and intensely rhythmic is in a sense a concerto for nineteen athletic players, led by piano and percussion. The virtuosity is incidental to the plot, however, and when the music stops completely around 80% through, each line nearly dying away, the music is briefly and dramatically deflated. Finally, Graffiti alternates feverish activity during its ‘Palimpsest’ movement, before a fever dream labelled Notturno urbano, its spectrum running upwards from gritty double bass to high strings in a state of unease. It is eerie, yet unusually gripping – Unsuk Chin at her imaginative best.