Harrison Birtwistle
Encyclopedia
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH
(born 15 July 1934) is a British contemporary composer.
, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester
. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have lessons with the local bandmaster. He became proficient enough to play in the local military-style band
, and also played in the orchestra which accompanied Gilbert and Sullivan
productions and the local choral society's performances of Messiah
. Birtwistle composed from around this time, later describing his early pieces as 'sub Vaughan Williams
'.
In 1952 he entered the Royal Manchester College of Music
in Manchester on a clarinet scholarship. While there he met fellow composers Peter Maxwell Davies
and Alexander Goehr
, who, together with pianist John Ogdon
and conductor Elgar Howarth
, formed the New Music Manchester
group, dedicated to the performances of serial and other modern works.
Birtwistle left the college in 1955 then studied at the Royal Academy of Music
and afterwards made a living as a schoolteacher. In 1957 he spent a short period of time in the sales office of Bells Asbestos and Engineering in Slough. In 1965 a Harkness Fellowship
gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in the United States and he decided to dedicate himself to composition.
In 1975 Birtwistle became musical director of the newly established Royal National Theatre
in London, a post he held until 1983. He has been honoured with a knighthood (1988) and as a Companion of Honour (2001). From 1994 to 2001 he was Henry Purcell
Professor of Composition at King's College London
. Birtwistle was the 1987 recipient of the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award
for Music Composition. in 1995 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
.
At the 2006 Ivor Novello Awards
he criticised pop musicians at the event for performing too loudly and using too many clichés.
The artist Adam Birtwistle
is his son.
, a phrase invented as a parallel to the Second Viennese School
to refer to Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies. The phrase has since somewhat fallen out of use, since the three composers were united only by their early studies in Manchester, not by a common musical style. Birtwistle's music is complex, written in a modernistic manner with a clear, distinctive voice.
His early work is sometimes evocative of Igor Stravinsky
and Olivier Messiaen
(composers he has acknowledged as influences) and his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound is sometimes compared to that of Edgar Varèse. His early pieces made frequent use of ostinati
and often had a ritualistic feel. These have been toned down in recent decades as he has adapted and transformed the techniques into more subtle methods. With its strong emphasis on rhythm, the music is often described as brutal or violent, but this analysis mistakes the strong sound world for an attempt to evoke violent actions. The explicit violence of his first opera Punch and Judy – in which the murder of Judy by her husband is much more shocking when performed live on stage than by glove puppets in the classic British seaside entertainment
– can easily be misinterpreted as a clue to the intention of his abstract music. The style is stark and uncompromising.
Birtwistle's favourite image for explaining how his pieces work is to compare them to taking a walk through a town—especially the sort of small town more common in continental Europe than Britain. Such a walk might start in the town square. Having explored its main features, we would set off down one of the side streets. As the walk continues, we might glimpse the town square down different streets, sometime a long way off, other times quite close. We may never return to the square in the rest of the walk or we may visit a new part of it that was not explored initially. Birtwistle suggests that this experience is akin to what he does in the music. His image conveys the way that a core musical idea is altered, varied and distorted as the piece of music progresses. The core music forms a reference point to which everything else is directed, even when we are walking in a completely different direction. Sometimes we will be less aware that it is the same musical material we are hearing; sometimes we may have been listening for a while before realising that we have heard this music before (just as one might have been looking up the street before realising that it is the town square that can be glimpsed through the traffic). He is not, therefore, suggesting that we imagine this walk through the town as a literal explanation of what is happening in the music; he does not 'recreate' the effect in the music (as Charles Ives
does in some of his orchestral pieces).
An early variant of this technique involved literally cutting up the music, the most blatant example being Verses for Ensembles. Having composed a portion of music, Birtwistle would then cut it arbitrarily into a number of sections, which he then rearranged randomly. He would then add introductions, epilogues and music to link them together. This method was intended to give the whole piece unity, by having musical material with its own inner coherence scattered amongst musical material that still related to the core material but did not necessarily relate to itself.
Birtwistle's method of working is also reflected in the events of the first Act of his opera Gawain. Up to the point where the Green Knight
is kneeling in front of Gawain awaiting the axe blow that will cut off his head, the action has proceeded mainly in chronological order. With Gawain holding the axe aloft, the stage is suddenly blacked out and, within a minute, the action has been rewound to the point preceding the Green Knight's entry to the Court of Arthur
. Events are played through again, though compressed and with various small alterations, through the beheading and into the subsequent events. The events on stage are not randomly ordered, but the one event is portrayed from more than one perspective.
For the opera The Mask of Orpheus
, this entailed two sets of singer/actors performing contradictory versions of the one event from the Orpheus myths. This non-linear portrayal of events on stage gives the listener a means of approach to the abstract compositions, with the same musical ideas being repeated but with extensive variation. The result is music that is often very episodic in structure. A clear example occurs in Silbury Air
in which a readily identifiable musical motif
– a blow from the tom-toms followed by scurrying figures from the strings and woodwind – is elaborated in a number of different ways as the piece progresses.
As a result, even when he is not writing a visual piece involving stage action, Birstwistle's music is frequently described as dramatic in construction. The music does not follow the logic and rules of classical forms such as sonata form
, but is structured more like a drama. Furthermore, different musical instruments can almost be seen to take the part of different characters in the drama. This is especially apparent in a performance of Secret Theatre. For various portions of the piece, a number of the instrumentalists perform in a 'soloist' capacity. For this, they leave their normal seat in the orchestral group and stand in a typical concerto soloist's position, returning to the orchestra when they are no longer given that priority. Though not normally signaled by a change of position, this sort of changing role is constantly seen in his music. Related to this is the use of geological imagery to explain the structure of his 1986 orchestral piece Earth Dances
. A number of different layers of musical material are present. At any one time, a layer might be to the fore, while at other times it might be buried deep beneath the other layers and no longer as apparent.
A group of anti-modernist musicians, including composers Frederick Stocken
and Keith Burstein
calling themselves "The Hecklers," organised a demonstration for the first night of the 1994 revival of Gawain at the Royal Opera House
, London. They attended the performance and at its conclusion broke into a tirade of catcalls as part of their campaign to rid contemporary music of anything post-Romantic. Their criticism turned a relatively unimportant revival into a controversial event that attracted greater interest than it otherwise might have.
Birtwistle gained notoriety in 1995 when Panic was première
d on a live BBC television broadcast, in a prominent and unusual setting, on the second half of the Last Night of the Proms, which traditionally features mainstream, popular and patriotic music. Press response was critical.
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
(born 15 July 1934) is a British contemporary composer.
Life
Birtwistle was born in AccringtonAccrington
Accrington is a town in Lancashire, within the borough of Hyndburn. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, north of Manchester city centre and is situated on the mostly culverted River Hyndburn...
, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have lessons with the local bandmaster. He became proficient enough to play in the local military-style band
Concert band
A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
, and also played in the orchestra which accompanied Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
productions and the local choral society's performances of Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
. Birtwistle composed from around this time, later describing his early pieces as 'sub Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
'.
In 1952 he entered the Royal Manchester College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
in Manchester on a clarinet scholarship. While there he met fellow composers Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
, who, together with pianist John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
and conductor Elgar Howarth
Elgar Howarth
Elgar Howarth is an English conductor and composer.Howarth was educated in the 1950s at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music , where his fellow students included the composers Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and the...
, formed the New Music Manchester
New Music Manchester
New Music Manchester refers to a group of English composers and performers who studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester University in the 1950s...
group, dedicated to the performances of serial and other modern works.
Birtwistle left the college in 1955 then studied at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
and afterwards made a living as a schoolteacher. In 1957 he spent a short period of time in the sales office of Bells Asbestos and Engineering in Slough. In 1965 a Harkness Fellowship
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowships are a programme run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. They were established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States...
gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in the United States and he decided to dedicate himself to composition.
In 1975 Birtwistle became musical director of the newly established Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London, a post he held until 1983. He has been honoured with a knighthood (1988) and as a Companion of Honour (2001). From 1994 to 2001 he was Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
Professor of Composition at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
. Birtwistle was the 1987 recipient of the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, United States. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology...
for Music Composition. in 1995 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
The international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste on behalf of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung , established in 1972. The foundation was established by Ernst von Siemens...
.
At the 2006 Ivor Novello Awards
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They are presented annually in London by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and were first introduced in 1955.Nicknamed The Ivors, the awards take place...
he criticised pop musicians at the event for performing too loudly and using too many clichés.
The artist Adam Birtwistle
Adam Birtwistle
Adam Birtwistle is a British artist whose idiosyncratic portraits of composers and musicians are represented in the National Portrait Gallery.-Biography:...
is his son.
Style
It is not easy to link Birtwistle's music to any particular school or movement. For a time, he was described as belonging to the Manchester SchoolNew Music Manchester
New Music Manchester refers to a group of English composers and performers who studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester University in the 1950s...
, a phrase invented as a parallel to the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
to refer to Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies. The phrase has since somewhat fallen out of use, since the three composers were united only by their early studies in Manchester, not by a common musical style. Birtwistle's music is complex, written in a modernistic manner with a clear, distinctive voice.
His early work is sometimes evocative of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
(composers he has acknowledged as influences) and his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound is sometimes compared to that of Edgar Varèse. His early pieces made frequent use of ostinati
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
and often had a ritualistic feel. These have been toned down in recent decades as he has adapted and transformed the techniques into more subtle methods. With its strong emphasis on rhythm, the music is often described as brutal or violent, but this analysis mistakes the strong sound world for an attempt to evoke violent actions. The explicit violence of his first opera Punch and Judy – in which the murder of Judy by her husband is much more shocking when performed live on stage than by glove puppets in the classic British seaside entertainment
Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy is a traditional, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character...
– can easily be misinterpreted as a clue to the intention of his abstract music. The style is stark and uncompromising.
Birtwistle's favourite image for explaining how his pieces work is to compare them to taking a walk through a town—especially the sort of small town more common in continental Europe than Britain. Such a walk might start in the town square. Having explored its main features, we would set off down one of the side streets. As the walk continues, we might glimpse the town square down different streets, sometime a long way off, other times quite close. We may never return to the square in the rest of the walk or we may visit a new part of it that was not explored initially. Birtwistle suggests that this experience is akin to what he does in the music. His image conveys the way that a core musical idea is altered, varied and distorted as the piece of music progresses. The core music forms a reference point to which everything else is directed, even when we are walking in a completely different direction. Sometimes we will be less aware that it is the same musical material we are hearing; sometimes we may have been listening for a while before realising that we have heard this music before (just as one might have been looking up the street before realising that it is the town square that can be glimpsed through the traffic). He is not, therefore, suggesting that we imagine this walk through the town as a literal explanation of what is happening in the music; he does not 'recreate' the effect in the music (as Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
does in some of his orchestral pieces).
An early variant of this technique involved literally cutting up the music, the most blatant example being Verses for Ensembles. Having composed a portion of music, Birtwistle would then cut it arbitrarily into a number of sections, which he then rearranged randomly. He would then add introductions, epilogues and music to link them together. This method was intended to give the whole piece unity, by having musical material with its own inner coherence scattered amongst musical material that still related to the core material but did not necessarily relate to itself.
Birtwistle's method of working is also reflected in the events of the first Act of his opera Gawain. Up to the point where the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In the poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his...
is kneeling in front of Gawain awaiting the axe blow that will cut off his head, the action has proceeded mainly in chronological order. With Gawain holding the axe aloft, the stage is suddenly blacked out and, within a minute, the action has been rewound to the point preceding the Green Knight's entry to the Court of Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
. Events are played through again, though compressed and with various small alterations, through the beheading and into the subsequent events. The events on stage are not randomly ordered, but the one event is portrayed from more than one perspective.
For the opera The Mask of Orpheus
The Mask of Orpheus
The Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on May 21, 1986 to great critical acclaim. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews...
, this entailed two sets of singer/actors performing contradictory versions of the one event from the Orpheus myths. This non-linear portrayal of events on stage gives the listener a means of approach to the abstract compositions, with the same musical ideas being repeated but with extensive variation. The result is music that is often very episodic in structure. A clear example occurs in Silbury Air
Silbury Air
Silbury Air is a musical composition for chamber ensemble by the English composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle.Written in 1977 and revised in 2003, it takes as its inspiration the prehistoric mound of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, with its connotations of the spiritual and mysterious: the precise function...
in which a readily identifiable musical motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
– a blow from the tom-toms followed by scurrying figures from the strings and woodwind – is elaborated in a number of different ways as the piece progresses.
As a result, even when he is not writing a visual piece involving stage action, Birstwistle's music is frequently described as dramatic in construction. The music does not follow the logic and rules of classical forms such as sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
, but is structured more like a drama. Furthermore, different musical instruments can almost be seen to take the part of different characters in the drama. This is especially apparent in a performance of Secret Theatre. For various portions of the piece, a number of the instrumentalists perform in a 'soloist' capacity. For this, they leave their normal seat in the orchestral group and stand in a typical concerto soloist's position, returning to the orchestra when they are no longer given that priority. Though not normally signaled by a change of position, this sort of changing role is constantly seen in his music. Related to this is the use of geological imagery to explain the structure of his 1986 orchestral piece Earth Dances
Earth Dances
Earth Dances is a 1986 orchestral work by British composer Harrison Birtwistle. Its title is part of a geological metaphor that is also found in the piece's structure: Birtwistle has divided the orchestra into six 'strata', whose changing relationships reflect those of the earth's geological...
. A number of different layers of musical material are present. At any one time, a layer might be to the fore, while at other times it might be buried deep beneath the other layers and no longer as apparent.
Popular perception
Though well established and widely respected in the classical music world – modules on his music now feature in many university undergraduate music courses – Birtwistle was relatively unknown to the general public until the mid-1990s. Although he had been honoured with a knighthood in 1988, two events brought him to public attention.A group of anti-modernist musicians, including composers Frederick Stocken
Frederick Stocken
James Frederick Stocken is a British classical composer, organist and musicologist.-Background:Stocken's father is British but his mother was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany....
and Keith Burstein
Keith Burstein
Keith Burstein is an English composer, conductor and music theorist. He is noted for his championing of tonal music as a valid contemporary composing style and for the humanitarian dimension of his compositions....
calling themselves "The Hecklers," organised a demonstration for the first night of the 1994 revival of Gawain at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, London. They attended the performance and at its conclusion broke into a tirade of catcalls as part of their campaign to rid contemporary music of anything post-Romantic. Their criticism turned a relatively unimportant revival into a controversial event that attracted greater interest than it otherwise might have.
Birtwistle gained notoriety in 1995 when Panic was première
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
d on a live BBC television broadcast, in a prominent and unusual setting, on the second half of the Last Night of the Proms, which traditionally features mainstream, popular and patriotic music. Press response was critical.
List of major works
For a comprehensive list, see List of compositions by Harrison Birtwistle.Opera
- Punch and JudyPunch and Judy (opera)Punch and Judy is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Stephen Pruslin, based on the puppet figures of the same names. Birtwistle wrote the score from 1966 to 1967. The opera was first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, which had commissioned the work, on 8 June 1968,...
(1967) - The Mask of OrpheusThe Mask of OrpheusThe Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on May 21, 1986 to great critical acclaim. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews...
(1984), winner of the 1987 Grawemeyer AwardGrawemeyer Award (Music Composition)The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition is an annual prize instituted by H. Charles Grawemeyer, industrialist and entrepreneur, at the University of Louisville in 1984. The award was first given in 1985...
in Music Composition. - GawainGawain (opera)Gawain is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by David Harsent. The story is based on the Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The opera was a commission from the Royal Opera House, London, where it was first performed on 30 May 1991. Rhian Samuel has...
(1990) - The Second Mrs KongThe Second Mrs KongThe Second Mrs Kong is an opera in two acts, with music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by Russell Hoban. Glyndebourne Touring Opera first staged the opera on 24 October 1994. The cast included Philip Langridge, Helen Field and Michael Chance. Tom Cairns designed and directed the...
(1994) - The Last SupperThe Last Supper (opera)The Last Supper is an opera with music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle to an English and Latin libretto by Robin Blaser. Birtwistle composed the music over the period written in 1998-1999. The world premiere was given by the Berlin State Opera on 18 April 2000, with the production directed by Martin...
(2000) - The MinotaurThe Minotaur (opera)The Minotaur is an opera in two acts, with 13 scenes by English composer Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by poet David Harsent, commissioned by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. The work premiered at the Royal Opera House on April 15, 2008 and was shown on BBC2 television on June 7,...
(2008)
Other Works
- Tragoedia, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp and string quartet (1965)
- Down by the Greenwood Side, A Dramatic Pastoral (1968–69)
- The Triumph of Time (1971), orchestra
- Grimethorpe Aria (1973), brass bandBrass band (British style)A British-style brass band is a musical ensemble comprising a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 19th century, with a vibrant tradition of competition based around local industry and communities...
- Silbury AirSilbury AirSilbury Air is a musical composition for chamber ensemble by the English composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle.Written in 1977 and revised in 2003, it takes as its inspiration the prehistoric mound of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, with its connotations of the spiritual and mysterious: the precise function...
(1976–77), chamber orchestra - Secret Theatre, for chamber ensemble (1984)
- Yan Tan TetheraYan Tan Tethera (opera)Yan Tan Tethera is a chamber opera by the English composer Harrison Birtwistle with a libretto by the poet Tony Harrison, based on a supernatural folk tale about two shepherds, their sheep, and the Devil. It was first performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 7 August 1986...
, A Mechanical Pastoral, chamber opera (1986) - Earth DancesEarth DancesEarth Dances is a 1986 orchestral work by British composer Harrison Birtwistle. Its title is part of a geological metaphor that is also found in the piece's structure: Birtwistle has divided the orchestra into six 'strata', whose changing relationships reflect those of the earth's geological...
(1986), orchestra - Antiphonies (1992), piano and orchestra
- Panic (1995), alto saxophone, jazz drum kit and orchestra
- Pulse Shadows (9 Movements for string quartet interleaved with 9 Settings of Celan) (1989–96)
- The Axe Manual, for piano and percussion (2000)
- Theseus Game, for large ensemble with two conductors (2002)
- The Io PassionThe Io PassionThe Io Passion is a chamber opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto in English by Stephen Plaice. It was commissioned jointly by the Aldeburgh Festival, Almeida Opera and the Bregenz Festival in Austria.-Performance History:...
(2004), chamber opera - The Corridor (2009), scena for two singers and ensemble
- Angel Fighter (2010), dramatic cantata
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2009–10)
- In Broken Images (2011), for ensemble (after the antiphonal music of GabrieliGiovanni GabrieliGiovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...
)
Sources
- Adlington, R., The Music of Harrison Birtwistle (CUP, 2000)
- Cross, J., Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music (Faber & Faber, 2000)
- Hall, M., Harrison Birtwistle (Robson Books, 1984)
- Hall, M., Harrison Birtwistle in Recent Years (Robson Books, 1998)
External links
- Biography on publisher's website
- Sir Harrison Birtwistle biography and works on the UE website (publisher of his music until 1994)
- Photographs in the National Portrait Gallery
- Service, Tom. "The Beast Within". The Guardian, 11 April 2008. An interview with Birtwistle about The Minotaur.