Northern Sinfonia/Zehetmair – review

Sage, GatesheadThis concert was presented to mark the opening of the Radio 3 Free Thinking festival, so it was fitting to start with one of the most arcane musical arguments ever written. Composed in 1906, Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question is an auditory experiment so far ahead of its time as to defy belief.A string orchestra play a hypnotically slow chorale – minimalism 50 years before the style was invented – while a distant trumpet poses transcendental questions that an increasingly...

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