The music of Jakob Ullmann (b. 1958) is notable for its protracted structural stasis and delicacy; its fusion of rigorously engineered notational systems, abstract graphical elements and Byzantine iconography; and – above all – its unrelenting quietness. This article offers a rare view into Ullmann's compositional practices, with a specific focus upon the role of fragility in the work. Exploring this concept of fragility as a musical feature, this article considers a number of Ullmann's works from the perspectives of the compositions and their scores, the performance and the agency of performers and, finally, how audiences may listen to this fragility. The article concludes with a consideration of the importance of fragility to Ullmann's oeuvre, and of how it might help us to further understand his music.

‘Synthrumentation’ is a technique for the resynthesis of speech with acoustic instruments developed by the composer Clarence Barlow in the early 1980s. Over the past decade instrumental speech synthesis has been thematised by a diverse range of composers (e.g. Peter Ablinger and Jonathan Harvey); however, Barlow's work is rarely accorded the credit it deserves for the pioneering role it played in this field. This article seeks to explain the basic mechanics of the synthrumentation technique and to demonstrate its practical application through an analysis of Barlow's ensemble piece Im Januar am Nil composed between 1981 and 1984. It should become apparent that Barlow never uses synthrumentation in its conceptually pure form, but rather its realisation is always integrated into an overarching musical context, which reflects Barlow's general approach to musical invention allowing different factors to interact.

Between 1976 and 1986 the Dutch group Hoketus were central to the creation of the sound and aesthetic of the Hague school. Through their rehearsal process they challenged and redefined the role of the composers who wrote for them in relation to the ensemble, and in doing so they challenged conventional notions of composer privilege and power. While not going as far as free improvisation groups in erasing the boundaries between composers and performers, they created a situation in which traditional hierarchies were overturned. Without ever claiming co-ownership of the resulting works, the group actively participated in the creative process and so could claim a higher degree of ownership and responsibility for the music they played than is usually the case.

The electric guitar is one of the most iconic musical instruments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and, due to its ubiquitous use in much rock and popular music, it has developed a strong cultural identity. In recent years, as the electric guitar has become increasingly common in contemporary concert music, its cultural associations have inevitably shaped how composers, performers and listeners understand music performed on the instrument. This article investigates various issues relating to the electric guitar's cultural identity in the context of Tristan Murail's Vampyr! (1984), in the hope of demonstrating perspectives that will be useful in considering new music for the electric guitar more generally. The article draws both on established analytical approaches to Murail's spectral oeuvre and on concepts from popular music and cultural studies, in order to analyse the influence that the electric guitar's associations from popular culture have in new music.

Composers in academic institutions are increasingly required to describe their activities in terms of ‘research’ – formulating ‘research questions’, ‘research narratives’, ‘aims’ and ‘outcomes’. Research plans and funding applications require one to specify the nature of the original contribution that will be made by a piece of music, even before it is composed. These requirements lead to an emphasis on collaborative work, technology and superficial novelty of format. Yet the very idea that musical composition is a form of research is a category error: music is a domain of thought whose cognitive dimension lies in embodiment, revelation or presentation, but not in investigation and description. It is argued here that the idea of composition as research is not only objectively false but inimical to genuine musical originality.

In this article the Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy reflects upon the research and composition process of his 2006–07 composition Grá agus Bás, written for the Irish sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. The piece is the first to bring together this traditional Irish singing style (literally, ‘old tradition’) with techniques derived from spectral music. In the second part of the article Dennehy reflects on his own relationship with spectralism, his points of inspiration and points of departure from what have come to seem spectral orthodoxies.

Henri Dutilleux was a unique musical figure of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His music is defined by his great sense of lyricism and meticulous control, which, over his life as a composer, had undergone much thought and a gradual sense of change. He inevitably acquired a wide mix of contemporary influences, which added to his poetic vision. Dutilleux's music appears to be a sophisticated understatement, yet at the same time there is an expressive depth and mystery that sets his music apart from any one musical movement or group of his time.

The oeuvre of Austrian composer Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) is based upon extreme musical repetition. In his Monadologie series (2007-present), short samples of pre-existing music form the starting point for a variety of automatically generated looping and transformation processes. The overwriting of pre-existing music results in the creation of meta-compositions that radically alter the listeners' understanding of the original piece.

Sketching a general overview of the composer's aesthetic beliefs and the compositional strategies originating from them, this article focuses on Lang's Monadologie series. It aims to clarify the relationships between the individual pieces of the series, to analyse the musical techniques used to reinterpret pre-existing scores within a contemporary setting and, finally, to interpret the implications that arise from that procedure. The 2009 Monadologie VII: …for Arnold… functions as a historico-analytical case study, from which a deeper insight into the series' hermeneutics can be gained.

Little has been said about Berio's work Formazioni (1987), and even less about Ekphrasis (1996), both large-scale orchestral compositions with non-traditional instrumental groupings. In his book on Berio, David Osmond-Smith gives a brief description of Formazioni, but one would be hard pressed to find any further published material about the piece, save for liner notes in the two available recordings (written by Roger Marsh and Ferdinand Schmatz respectively, and those from the latter coming in the form of abstract poetry). Ekphrasis has received one studio recording, and no published analysis. The two works were completed towards the end of the composer's life, and they demonstrate a refinement of his craft; a much closer look is therefore in order.

The music of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir has been inspired by nature, not in a manner that results in specific pictorial evocation, but in the sense that her reflections on natural phenomenon are catalysts for explorations of a range of compositional polarities, including flow and stasis, stability and volatility, transparency and opacity, and expansion and contraction. Her observation of droning as a natural state has led to a dynamic creative use of drones that challenges and expands commonly held notions of their compositional potential. The article discusses their use, along with other compositional devices and processes, in the delineation of these polarities and the resulting formal structure of selected works for orchestra and chamber orchestra. These resources include disruption devices and morphing techniques that facilitate overlapping and transformation of layers of material. The particular compositional focus of each piece has led to fresh applications of these resources, imparting a distinct character to each piece and contributing to an ongoing renewal of the composer's compositional palette.

While some research results from consistent processes, careful methodologies and detailed planning, much practice-based research resists these strategies, privileging knowledge that remains complex and unstable. This knowledge frequently sits outside sequences of analysis, such as testing or deduction. Yet there is nothing new about the kind of knowledge that resists clarity. In The Progressive Poetics of Confusion in the French Enlightenment, John O'Neal argues for complexity and confusion as essential parts of an Enlightenment project in writing from the eighteenth century, and claims that authors pursued these strategies ‘because they preferred in certain ways to see confusion, not order, as representative of a dynamic new state of mind and society awaiting discovery’. Alongside O'Neal's work, this article considers Gemma Fiumara's The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening, in which confusion is also central. The article explores these ideas in connection with a performance of Michael Finnissy's Confusion in the Service of Discovery. It argues for confusion as a positive aspect of research from beginning to end, rather than as a circumscribed phase that precedes outcomes. The inclusion of a musical performance demonstrates (performs) the different theoretical languages that the prose describes.

This interview with American composer Morton Feldman (1926–1987) has never before been available in English. Recorded in Paris in 1970, when Feldman's music was just at the point of significant change, it was published (in French) by the interviewer, critic Françoise Esselier, in the short-lived journal VH 101 which she co-ran with the Austrian critic Otto Hahn, in a translation by Nicole Tisserand. The original recording seems not to have survived. Here re-translated into English by the pianist and Feldman specialist Ivan Ilić, the interest of its content makes it a valuable addition to the literature on Feldman.

The problematic relationship between UK composers and the Darmstadt Summer Courses is well known. Christopher Fox, Björn Heile and Martin Iddon among others have discussed why this platform for discussion and ideological conflict has not been to this country's taste. This article argues, however, that just such an event organised in the UK would enliven and enrich contemporary music making through increased knowledge exchange and collaboration. After exploring how Darmstadt operates within Germany, and its perception in the UK, a concluding tentative sketch will be made of how such a British Darmstadt might begin, and the benefits it would bring.

This article explores the use of innovatory tonal relations in the music of the American composer Ben Johnston (b. 1926). Johnston's use of a microtonal tuning system employing scales and intervals in extended just intonation is described, and passages from several of his compositions (especially String Quartets nos 2 and 5) are analysed to show the use of these pitch resources in practice. The article also situates Johnston's contribution in the context of older theories of harmony and the mechanics of pitch perception.