Michael Zev Gordon had an intriguing idea in choosing to centre his new piece – Bohortha – on a visit he made to the small hamlet of this name that lies in a remote Cornwall peninsula, close to the sea: he sought to explore the concept of ‘the passing of time’. So it was that the world première of Bohortha was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on 3 October 2012, opening a programme to also include Mahler's highly emotive Rückert Lieder and was then completely outflanked after the interval by a rare performance of Shostakovich's starkly political Symphony No. 4.