Keith Burstein
Encyclopedia
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.
in which he was educated at the Royal College of Music
, and his early compositions were written in the atonal style. Burstein made a dramatic shift towards composing tonally during the late 1980s. In a 2002 interview with The Independent
newspaper, he reflected "What had happened to me was a sort of Damascene conversion, I suppose. I suddenly saw that atonalism was a dead end. Once you accept that melody is everywhere, and always has been, in folk music and pop and rock, you see that it's not reactionary to write a tune.". He began pursuing tonal composition and reinvestigating more traditional forms such as requiem
s, church chorale
s and brass band
music. Although both Burstein (and various critics) have sometimes dubbed his style as "neo-romantic", he has stated that his education in atonalism has informed his musical approach. He has been described by the Hampstead & Highgate Express (in a review of his Symphony No. 1) as "a contemporary master of tonality" and by The Daily Telegraph
as "an ardent new romantic post-modernist."
Burstein has developed his approach into a theory he initially dubbed "Romantic Futurism", realigned as "New Tonalism" and now calls "Super Tonality". He views this approach as a fusion (or reintegration) of atonal and tonal composition - in which tonality is used to release the expressive power of dissonance - and considers it to represent "(a) wider horizon… that carries atonalism and all the other -isms with it, and creates a forward-looking fusion." Super Tonality acknowledges the philosophy and reasoning behind the original atonal experiments of Arnold Schoenberg
, Anton Webern
and others, but strongly questions the dominance of these and related forms in contemporary classical music and in modern music critical theory. Burstein has also suggested that this style of music can be composed by musicians (such as himself) "who were fired in the white heat of the atonal avant-garde and who dedicated themselves to that depth of knowledge and practise within the most highly-charged furnaces of experiment". He has cited Arvo Pärt
as one of the other composers whom he believes is working in this area.
Burstein’s outspoken stance has sometimes led to friction between himself and others in the contemporary classical music establishment. He has accused "moribund atonalist dogma" of having stifled musical debate in the world of contemporary classical music. He has also challenged the idea that "the intrinsic worth of a musical piece is defined solely by its 'intellectual' content; and that the degree of intellectuality is signified entirely by the degree of atonalism involved in its construction."
Burstein is also known for a strong commitment to humanism and to issues of social concern. This is expressed in the subject matter of several of his works, including The Year's Midnight - A Meditation on the Holocaust (2000) and the opera Manifest Destiny
(2004, revised as Manifest Destiny 2011 in 2011), in which would-be suicide bombers reject violence in favour of a desire for peace. He is associated with the Stop The War Coalition
, giving press conferences with Bianca Jagger
and Walter Wolfgang
and performing benefits alongside Julie Christie
and Michael Nyman
.
as Keith Burston, one of the two sons of orchestral violinists Samuel and Barbara Burston. The family surname was an Anglicised version of Burstein, the original Russian-Jewish family name of Samuel Burston's ancestors (who emigrated to the UK in the late nineteenth century). Both Samuel and Barbara Burston had played in the orchestras for the Royal Opera House
and Sadler's Wells Theatre
as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and the BBC Ulster Orchestra
. They also played in the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester (during which time Samuel Burston had enjoyed a close rapport with the conductor Sir John Barbirolli
.)
Keith Burstein reassumed his original family name in the late 1980s, at the same time that he was discovering his own voice as a composer. He has commented that this was part of a process of self-discovery at the time, and not related to religious beliefs. However, he has also noted that his Jewish ancestry perhaps formed a "subliminal linkage" to his decision to compose the Holocaust
-themed choral work The Year’s Midnight in 2000.
-based music teacher Christine Pembridge, Keith Burstein attended the Royal College of Music
from 1977 (where he held two scholarships). While attending the college, he studied composition with Bernard Stevens
and John Lambert
. During this time he was exposed for the first time to the contemporary classical music
of Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Pierre Boulez
, and became a committed enthusiast for atonal and experimental music. After graduation, he studied with Jonathan Harvey
on a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust bursary. Burstein has commented that at the time of his studies there was widespread talk of a "malaise", or "vacuum" in contemporary classical music, but that there were no simultaneous ideas regarding how this problem might be solved.
of the same name). This ensemble existed between 1983 and 1993 and performed works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Harrison Birtwistle
, Edward Elgar
, Brian Ferneyhough
, Oliver Knussen
, Mark-Anthony Turnage
and Luciano Berio
among others. Burstein has subsequently described the ensemble as "an attempt to explore the landscape and to find a pathway forward". The group received considerable critical acclaim during its existence. In a 1986 review of one of their concerts, The Times
newspaper commented that "they played as though their very lives depended upon it."
However, Burstein's priorities were beginning to alter due to his growing interest as a composer in reassessing and reincorporating tonality into contemporary music. Although the Grosvenor Group performed three of Burstein's compositions during its lifetime, these were atonal works inspired by his education at the Royal College of Music. Burstein would eventually sideline his conducting work (and end his commissioning work) in favour of full-time composing.
After the dissolution of the Grosvenor Group, several members went on to join the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
. Burstein continued to compose for varied groups of musicians, covering ensemble pieces, choral and solo vocal music and large-scale orchestral works. Some members of the Grosvenor Group would continue to collaborate with him as part of an occasional musical group called the Keith Burstein Ensemble.
and scored for large chorus, soloists and orchestra. A chamber version of this work has been performed many times, although the full score remains unperformed.
During this period, Burstein premiered his work at a variety of unusual London venues. These included St Bride's Church
, Westminster Cathedral Hall
, the Design Museum
, Conway Hall, and St James Garlickhythe
Church. Other compositions written and performed during this decade included the sixteen-song cycle Songs of Love for vocal soloists and ensemble (1990), the choral/organ piece Hymns Of Benediction (1991), and 1994's Prayer For Peace (another vocal-soloists-and-ensemble piece).
Burstein also wrote two pieces for the 26-piece BT Brass Band - 1991's Eternal City and 1994's Leavetaking. The former was described by The Independent Magazine as "messianic, mystical, visionary... a spectacularly doomy piece for massed brass, all heart – bursting chords and cascading scales", while What's On
Magazine drew attention to the "axis of largely consonant harmonies, lifting stray phrases high above the main architecture."
The Guardian, by contrast, found that Eternal City made "all the intellectual demands of Mills and Boon pulp fiction; it deals in emotional commonplaces. It's music by the yard. The conspiracy among BBC and critics claimed by Burstein and his allies is wrongly identified: it isn't a conspiracy against conservative neo-romanticism, it's against bad music like this". Many years later (in late 2009) Burstein would retrospectively challenge these accusations in the composer's notes on his homepage; pointing out that the sophisticated use of polyphony and dissonance in Eternal City was belied by the review, stating that the BBC and critics had generally represented him fairly, and querying the logic that states that neo-romanticism is inherently conservative.
as being "dignified and beautiful."
In 1996, Burstein met and talked with the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt
, who was subsequently to become a mentor. Pärt was instrumental in gaining Burstein a commission to write music for the nine-hundredth anniversary celebrations of Norwich Cathedral. Pärt had already secured the commission for his own composition I Am The True Vine but opted to split the commission fee and opportunity with Burstein, who contributed his own Missa Brevis to the concerts.
In a 3 June 1997 article announcing the premiere of A Live Flame, The Times
described Burstein as a "composer who used to organise bands of hecklers to go about wrecking performances of modern atonal music, particularly anything by Sir Harrison Birtwhistle." Burstein successfully sued Times Newspapers Ltd. for libel in 2000, pointing out that he had "never interrupted any concert or performance of any sort. It would have been inconceivable to interrupt anybody's performance." In court, it was demonstrated that The Hecklers' demonstration had taken place during the audience applause following the Royal Opera House
performance of Birtwistle
's Gawain
. The booing was deemed by the court to have constituted legitimate comment/response rather than an interruption or "wrecking". Burstein was awarded £8000 in damages.
The last Burstein piece premiered during the 1990s was The Gates Of Time (written for chamber orchestra, choir and soprano soloist). This was commissioned by The Thomas Tallis Society of Greenwich to mark the Millennium. It was premiered at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London, during October 1999.
Two works commissioned for Jewish music ensembles followed. The first of these was The Year’s Midnight - A Meditation on The Holocaust written for chamber orchestra, choir, and tenor/soprano/mezzo-soprano soloists. Commissioned and performed by the Zemel Choir, this work was premiered at St John's, Smith Square, London in 2000 (and broadcast the following year on BBC Radio 4 as part of their Holocaust Memorial Day). Burstein's String Quartet no. 1: Dance Of Death/Dream Of Love was premiered and commissioned by the Bochmann String Quartet (funded by the Jewish Musical Institute) at the Bridewell Theatre in London, March 2002.
During 2001 and 2002, Burstein worked on a science-fiction opera called The Furthering. The first half of the opera was completed and premiered as a run-through at Battersea Arts Centre
, London in May 2002, directed by Stewart Lee
. The opera remains uncompleted, but Burstein now plans to incorporate it into an opera trilogy.
Burstein was profoundly affected by the Al-Quaeda attacks of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. His subsequent work as a composer began to reflect this. Songs Against War (settings of poems by Keith Douglas
, Wilfred Owen
, Lemn Sissay
and Ben Okri
, performed by mezzo-soprano soloist and piano) was premiered at the Cockpit Theatre
in London on October 2001. The pace of world events would inform his next major project - the opera Manifest Destiny
. The first commercial recorded release of a Burstein piece would also happen in late 2001, with the release of Three Preludes (for solo piano) as part of the 'Four Seasons Singles Club: Autumn' release on Day Release Records.
, and the two subsequently wrote the opera Manifest Destiny
.
Manifest Destiny was set in London
, Palestine
, Afghanistan
, Washington DC and Guantanamo Bay and featured a thematic backdrop of the contemporary unrest in the Middle East (including the Second Intifada) and the aftermath of the Al-Quaeda attacks (including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the establishment of Guantanamo Bay.) Its central plot element dealt with the plight, motivations and fate of several Palestinians drawn into the world of suicide bombing tactics, which they ultimately rejected in favour of a wounded yet hopeful peace with their neighbours. The opera also heavily satirised the geopolitical landscape.
The first act was premiered at the Cockpit Theatre
, London, 2003. A subsequent full-length performance (with minimal staging) was put on at the Tricycle Theatre
, London in 2004 (produced by Corin Redgrave
). A fully staged production followed, staged at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For each of these productions, Burstein provided the sole musical accompaniment (on piano). The actors Corin and Vanessa Redgrave helped with the first London production, with Corin as producer. The artist Ralph Steadman
designed the artwork and when the production went up to the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 Steadman donated some sixty of his drawings to use as backdrops.
Manifest Destiny gained a great deal of press attention due to its topical and controversial subject matter, including scenes showing the preparations for a suicide bomb raid and the incarceration and maltreatment of one protagonist in Camp X-Ray
(a scene written prior to public knowledge of the events at Abu-Ghraib. Both Burstein and Edwards were quick to stress that the opera did not endorse the actions of suicide bombers, and in fact displayed them ultimately rejecting their violent course of action. In an interview with a Canadian radio station, Burstein describes the core of the opera as being "one in which despair miraculously turns into hope, violence into compassion, hatred into respect."
Critical response to Manifest Destiny was varied, with some publications praising the opera and others attacking it. The Scotsman on Sunday
described Manifest Destiny as " a dazzling, dark opera... affecting, bold, potent and packed with melodic invention" and praised it for marrying "the personal with the political, the particular and the universal.". The Daily Telegraph, while describing the libretto as "stilted", and the political message as "banal and fatally one-sided", also noted its "rigorous and high-minded" nature with a story "in the environs of Greek tragedy". The British Theatre Guide described it as "a powerful piece, powerfully performed… one to be cherished," and backed up the creators' view that "it is right that opera should take on such subjects".
More negative reviews came from Anna Picard in The Independent
who criticised the "narrowness of its harmonic language and the robotic word-setting" and likened it to "sixth-form satire", and Veronica Lee in the London Evening Standard
who described the libretto as "horribly leaden and unmusical" and the music as "uninspiring", adding, "the idea that there is anything heroic about suicide bombers is, frankly, a grievous insult." The Evening Standard review led Burstein to bring a libel action against Associated Newspapers
, on the grounds that terms used in the review left him open to the risk of state prosecution under both the recently passed Prevention of Terrorism Act
of 2005 (which explicitly names “promotion of terrorism” as a criminal act) and the incoming Terrorism Act of 2006 (at the time, a Terrorism Bill) which featured a retrospective "glorification of terrorism" clause. Burstein's action was unsuccessful and he was subsequently ordered to pay £67,000 in legal fees to the newspaper. Although Burstein subsequently took the case to the European Court of Human Rights
his application was rejected.
The Evening Standard case inspired a subsequent play – The Trainer
, written by David Wilson and Anne Aylor (with co-writes by Burstein). Premiered at Oxford House, London, in March 2009, and subsequently at the Hackney Empire, the play is a fictionalised version of the events of the trial, in parallel with a separate plot strand echoing that of Manifest Destiny
. Actors involved in the production included Corin Redgrave
and Tim Piggott-Smith who played Burstein, Janie Dee and Roger Lloyd-Pack.
In September 2011, Manifest Destiny was revived by the London-based opera company OperaUpClose
. The opera was revised and rewritten for the occasion, and presented in a new form under the title Manifest Destiny 2011.
. A review of the concert performance (from the Hampstead & Highgate Express), described the composer as "a contemporary master of tonality", remarking upon a "sound palette that sparkled with energy" and Burstein's "clear and lucid writing (which) captivated the ear", also noting that there was "no aural gulf" between the piece and Mozart
's Linz Symphony (which was being performed on the same bill). . During the course of his work on the Symphony Burstein received encouragement from the pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy
. The symphony now awaits its world premiere complete.
In 2009 Burstein also completed his Piano Sonata No 2 Perpetually Descending Veils Through Blazes of Light, written for Evelyne Berezovsky, daughter of the concert pianist Boris Berezovsky
. He is currently working on an opera trilogy Revolution 'E.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and music theorist. He is noted for his championing of tonal music
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
as a valid contemporary composing style and for the humanitarian dimension of his compositions.
Musical approach and philosophy (including theory of "Super Tonality")
Keith Burstein's early musical approach was informed by the culture of atonalismAtonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
in which he was educated at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
, and his early compositions were written in the atonal style. Burstein made a dramatic shift towards composing tonally during the late 1980s. In a 2002 interview with The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper, he reflected "What had happened to me was a sort of Damascene conversion, I suppose. I suddenly saw that atonalism was a dead end. Once you accept that melody is everywhere, and always has been, in folk music and pop and rock, you see that it's not reactionary to write a tune.". He began pursuing tonal composition and reinvestigating more traditional forms such as requiem
Requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
s, church chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
s and brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
music. Although both Burstein (and various critics) have sometimes dubbed his style as "neo-romantic", he has stated that his education in atonalism has informed his musical approach. He has been described by the Hampstead & Highgate Express (in a review of his Symphony No. 1) as "a contemporary master of tonality" and by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
as "an ardent new romantic post-modernist."
Burstein has developed his approach into a theory he initially dubbed "Romantic Futurism", realigned as "New Tonalism" and now calls "Super Tonality". He views this approach as a fusion (or reintegration) of atonal and tonal composition - in which tonality is used to release the expressive power of dissonance - and considers it to represent "(a) wider horizon… that carries atonalism and all the other -isms with it, and creates a forward-looking fusion." Super Tonality acknowledges the philosophy and reasoning behind the original atonal experiments of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
and others, but strongly questions the dominance of these and related forms in contemporary classical music and in modern music critical theory. Burstein has also suggested that this style of music can be composed by musicians (such as himself) "who were fired in the white heat of the atonal avant-garde and who dedicated themselves to that depth of knowledge and practise within the most highly-charged furnaces of experiment". He has cited Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
as one of the other composers whom he believes is working in this area.
Burstein’s outspoken stance has sometimes led to friction between himself and others in the contemporary classical music establishment. He has accused "moribund atonalist dogma" of having stifled musical debate in the world of contemporary classical music. He has also challenged the idea that "the intrinsic worth of a musical piece is defined solely by its 'intellectual' content; and that the degree of intellectuality is signified entirely by the degree of atonalism involved in its construction."
Burstein is also known for a strong commitment to humanism and to issues of social concern. This is expressed in the subject matter of several of his works, including The Year's Midnight - A Meditation on the Holocaust (2000) and the opera Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny (opera)
Manifest Destiny is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror....
(2004, revised as Manifest Destiny 2011 in 2011), in which would-be suicide bombers reject violence in favour of a desire for peace. He is associated with the Stop The War Coalition
Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition is a United Kingdom group set up on 21 September 2001 that campaigns against what it believes are unjust wars....
, giving press conferences with Bianca Jagger
Bianca Jagger
Bianca Jagger is a Nicaraguan-born social and human rights advocate and a former actress and model...
and Walter Wolfgang
Walter Wolfgang
Walter Jakob Wolfgang is a German-born British socialist and peace activist.He is currently Vice President and Vice Chair of Labourof the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition...
and performing benefits alongside Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
and Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
.
Family background
Keith Burstein was born in the English coastal town of BrightonBrighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
as Keith Burston, one of the two sons of orchestral violinists Samuel and Barbara Burston. The family surname was an Anglicised version of Burstein, the original Russian-Jewish family name of Samuel Burston's ancestors (who emigrated to the UK in the late nineteenth century). Both Samuel and Barbara Burston had played in the orchestras for 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...
and Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
and the BBC Ulster Orchestra
Ulster Orchestra
The Ulster Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Belfast, the only full-time professional orchestra in Northern Ireland. The orchestra plays the majority of its concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Waterfront Hall...
. They also played in the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester (during which time Samuel Burston had enjoyed a close rapport with the conductor Sir John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
.)
Keith Burstein reassumed his original family name in the late 1980s, at the same time that he was discovering his own voice as a composer. He has commented that this was part of a process of self-discovery at the time, and not related to religious beliefs. However, he has also noted that his Jewish ancestry perhaps formed a "subliminal linkage" to his decision to compose the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
-themed choral work The Year’s Midnight in 2000.
Musical education
Originally tutored in piano by HoveHove
Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...
-based music teacher Christine Pembridge, Keith Burstein attended the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
from 1977 (where he held two scholarships). While attending the college, he studied composition with Bernard Stevens
Bernard Stevens
Bernard Stevens was a British composer.Born in London, Stevens studied English and Music at the University of Cambridge with E. J. Dent, then at the Royal College of Music with R.O. Morris and Gordon Jacob from 1937 to 1940...
and John Lambert
John Lambert (composer)
-Biography:John Arthur Neil Lambert was born at Maidenhead. After obtaining a post at the Royal College of Music, he lived at Brighton for the rest of his life, where he shared a house with organist Timothy Bond. He died at Brighton, a victim of liver cancer....
. During this time he was exposed for the first time to the contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, and became a committed enthusiast for atonal and experimental music. After graduation, he studied with Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey (composer)
Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...
on a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust bursary. Burstein has commented that at the time of his studies there was widespread talk of a "malaise", or "vacuum" in contemporary classical music, but that there were no simultaneous ideas regarding how this problem might be solved.
Early musical career and the Grosvenor Group
Keith Burstein initially made his name as a conductor and commissioner of contemporary music - primarily as founder of chamber ensemble The Grosvenor Group (not to be confused with the property companyGrosvenor Group
Grosvenor is a privately owned property group with offices in 18 cities. It has four regional investment & development businesses in Britain & Ireland, the Americas, Australia and Asia Pacific; an international fund management business, which operates across these markets and in continental Europe;...
of the same name). This ensemble existed between 1983 and 1993 and performed works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, 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...
, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
, Oliver Knussen
Oliver Knussen
Oliver Knussen CBE is a British composer and conductor.-Biography:Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra. Oliver Knussen studied composition with John Lambert, between 1963 and 1969 and also received...
, Mark-Anthony Turnage
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Mark-Anthony Turnage is a prolific English composer of classical music. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller...
and Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
among others. Burstein has subsequently described the ensemble as "an attempt to explore the landscape and to find a pathway forward". The group received considerable critical acclaim during its existence. In a 1986 review of one of their concerts, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper commented that "they played as though their very lives depended upon it."
However, Burstein's priorities were beginning to alter due to his growing interest as a composer in reassessing and reincorporating tonality into contemporary music. Although the Grosvenor Group performed three of Burstein's compositions during its lifetime, these were atonal works inspired by his education at the Royal College of Music. Burstein would eventually sideline his conducting work (and end his commissioning work) in favour of full-time composing.
After the dissolution of the Grosvenor Group, several members went on to join the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe , established in 1981, is administratively based in London. The orchestra comprises about 60 members coming from across Europe. The players pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of eminent chamber groups, and as tutors and professors of music...
. Burstein continued to compose for varied groups of musicians, covering ensemble pieces, choral and solo vocal music and large-scale orchestral works. Some members of the Grosvenor Group would continue to collaborate with him as part of an occasional musical group called the Keith Burstein Ensemble.
Work premiered during the early 1990s
Keith Burstein's first substantial tonal work was the Marchioness Requiem (composed between 1991 and 1993), an eighty-minute work commissioned as a memorial for the victims of the Marchioness disasterMarchioness disaster
The Marchioness disaster occurred on the River Thames in London in the early hours of 20 August 1989. The pleasure boat Marchioness sank after being run down by the dredger Bowbelle, near Cannon Street Railway Bridge. There were 131 people on the Marchioness. Some were members of the crew, some...
and scored for large chorus, soloists and orchestra. A chamber version of this work has been performed many times, although the full score remains unperformed.
During this period, Burstein premiered his work at a variety of unusual London venues. These included St Bride's Church
St Bride's Church
St Bride's Church is a church in the City of London, England. The building's most recent incarnation was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672 on Fleet Street in the City of London, though Wren's original building was largely gutted by fire during the London Blitz in 1940. Due to its location on...
, Westminster Cathedral Hall
Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral in London is the mother church of the Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster...
, the Design Museum
Design Museum
Design Museum is a museum by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in central London, England. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. It was founded in 1989 and claims to be the first museum of modern design...
, Conway Hall, and St James Garlickhythe
St James Garlickhythe
St. James Garlickhythe is a Church of England parish church in Vintry ward of the City of London, nicknamed ‘Wren’s lantern’ owing to its profusion of windows. Recorded since the 12th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher...
Church. Other compositions written and performed during this decade included the sixteen-song cycle Songs of Love for vocal soloists and ensemble (1990), the choral/organ piece Hymns Of Benediction (1991), and 1994's Prayer For Peace (another vocal-soloists-and-ensemble piece).
Burstein also wrote two pieces for the 26-piece BT Brass Band - 1991's Eternal City and 1994's Leavetaking. The former was described by The Independent Magazine as "messianic, mystical, visionary... a spectacularly doomy piece for massed brass, all heart – bursting chords and cascading scales", while What's On
What's On
What's On is a weekly half-hour TV series that airs on Fairchild Television.-Format:Originally started in 1996, the show is currently the longest-running program in Fairchild Television history. "What's On" is a 30 minute informative program that introduces viewers to events happening in and...
Magazine drew attention to the "axis of largely consonant harmonies, lifting stray phrases high above the main architecture."
The Guardian, by contrast, found that Eternal City made "all the intellectual demands of Mills and Boon pulp fiction; it deals in emotional commonplaces. It's music by the yard. The conspiracy among BBC and critics claimed by Burstein and his allies is wrongly identified: it isn't a conspiracy against conservative neo-romanticism, it's against bad music like this". Many years later (in late 2009) Burstein would retrospectively challenge these accusations in the composer's notes on his homepage; pointing out that the sophisticated use of polyphony and dissonance in Eternal City was belied by the review, stating that the BBC and critics had generally represented him fairly, and querying the logic that states that neo-romanticism is inherently conservative.
Work premiered during the late 1990s
In 1995, Burstein composed A Live Flame (In memoriam John Smith MP) for orchestra and tenor. A memorial piece for the late leader of the British Labour Party, it was premiered in 1997 by London Musici at St John's, Smith Square, London, with tenor soloist Richard Coxon. The composition was described by the Sunday Times as being "nothing short of alchemy" and by the London Evening StandardEvening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
as being "dignified and beautiful."
In 1996, Burstein met and talked with the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
, who was subsequently to become a mentor. Pärt was instrumental in gaining Burstein a commission to write music for the nine-hundredth anniversary celebrations of Norwich Cathedral. Pärt had already secured the commission for his own composition I Am The True Vine but opted to split the commission fee and opportunity with Burstein, who contributed his own Missa Brevis to the concerts.
In a 3 June 1997 article announcing the premiere of A Live Flame, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
described Burstein as a "composer who used to organise bands of hecklers to go about wrecking performances of modern atonal music, particularly anything by Sir Harrison Birtwhistle." Burstein successfully sued Times Newspapers Ltd. for libel in 2000, pointing out that he had "never interrupted any concert or performance of any sort. It would have been inconceivable to interrupt anybody's performance." In court, it was demonstrated that The Hecklers' demonstration had taken place during the audience applause following 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...
performance of Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, 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...
's Gawain
Gawain (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...
. The booing was deemed by the court to have constituted legitimate comment/response rather than an interruption or "wrecking". Burstein was awarded £8000 in damages.
The last Burstein piece premiered during the 1990s was The Gates Of Time (written for chamber orchestra, choir and soprano soloist). This was commissioned by The Thomas Tallis Society of Greenwich to mark the Millennium. It was premiered at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London, during October 1999.
Work premiered during the early 2000s (2000-2003)
The success of The Gates Of Time led to a second Millennium commission from The Thomas Tallis Society to mark The Millennium. As with The Gates Of Time, this work was to be premiered at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London. In consequence, Burstein composed a work covering the story of the martyrdom of the church's patron saint - Alfege (for orchestra and choir plus soprano/tenor/bass soloists) was first performed in 2000.Two works commissioned for Jewish music ensembles followed. The first of these was The Year’s Midnight - A Meditation on The Holocaust written for chamber orchestra, choir, and tenor/soprano/mezzo-soprano soloists. Commissioned and performed by the Zemel Choir, this work was premiered at St John's, Smith Square, London in 2000 (and broadcast the following year on BBC Radio 4 as part of their Holocaust Memorial Day). Burstein's String Quartet no. 1: Dance Of Death/Dream Of Love was premiered and commissioned by the Bochmann String Quartet (funded by the Jewish Musical Institute) at the Bridewell Theatre in London, March 2002.
During 2001 and 2002, Burstein worked on a science-fiction opera called The Furthering. The first half of the opera was completed and premiered as a run-through at Battersea Arts Centre
Battersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre is a performance space near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that specialises in music and theatre productions.-History:...
, London in May 2002, directed by Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera...
. The opera remains uncompleted, but Burstein now plans to incorporate it into an opera trilogy.
Burstein was profoundly affected by the Al-Quaeda attacks of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. His subsequent work as a composer began to reflect this. Songs Against War (settings of poems by Keith Douglas
Keith Douglas
Keith Castellain Douglas , was an English poet noted for his war poetry during World War II and his wry memoir of the Western Desert Campaign, Alamein to Zem Zem. He was killed during the invasion of Normandy.-Poetry:...
, Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
, Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay MBE is an award-winning British author and broadcaster of Ethiopian and Eritrean parents.He is known for performances of his poetry and also with jazz fusion groups. He is a playwright, and has worked on radio and television...
and Ben Okri
Ben Okri
Ben Okri OBE FRSL is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri has become the leading figure of his generation of Nigerian writers who have largely abandoned the social and historical themes of Chinua Achebe, and brought together modernist narrative strategies and Nigerian oral and literary...
, performed by mezzo-soprano soloist and piano) was premiered at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre (Marylebone)
The Cockpit Theatre is a Fringe Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit Theatre was designed by Edward Mendelsohn built in 1969-70 by the Inner London Education Authority as a community theatre and is notable as London's first purpose built Theatre In The Round, since the Great Fire of London...
in London on October 2001. The pace of world events would inform his next major project - the opera Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny (opera)
Manifest Destiny is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror....
. The first commercial recorded release of a Burstein piece would also happen in late 2001, with the release of Three Preludes (for solo piano) as part of the 'Four Seasons Singles Club: Autumn' release on Day Release Records.
Manifest Destiny (2004, revived 2011)
In 2003, seeking collaborators for an opera taking the "War on Terror" as its subject, Burstein advertised for a librettist. The post was filled by controversial Welsh playwright Dic EdwardsDic Edwards
Dic Edwards is a British playwright and poet with more than 20 productions to his name. Born in Cardiff Edwards has often found himself at odds with his Welsh background...
, and the two subsequently wrote the opera Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny (opera)
Manifest Destiny is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror....
.
Manifest Destiny was set in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Washington DC and Guantanamo Bay and featured a thematic backdrop of the contemporary unrest in the Middle East (including the Second Intifada) and the aftermath of the Al-Quaeda attacks (including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the establishment of Guantanamo Bay.) Its central plot element dealt with the plight, motivations and fate of several Palestinians drawn into the world of suicide bombing tactics, which they ultimately rejected in favour of a wounded yet hopeful peace with their neighbours. The opera also heavily satirised the geopolitical landscape.
The first act was premiered at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre (Marylebone)
The Cockpit Theatre is a Fringe Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit Theatre was designed by Edward Mendelsohn built in 1969-70 by the Inner London Education Authority as a community theatre and is notable as London's first purpose built Theatre In The Round, since the Great Fire of London...
, London, 2003. A subsequent full-length performance (with minimal staging) was put on at the Tricycle Theatre
Tricycle Theatre
The Tricycle Theatre is located on Kilburn High Road in Kilburn in the London Borough of Brent, England. During the last 30 years, the Tricycle has been presenting plays reflecting the cultural diversity of its community; in particular Black, Irish, Jewish, Asian and South African works, as well as...
, London in 2004 (produced by Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
). A fully staged production followed, staged at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For each of these productions, Burstein provided the sole musical accompaniment (on piano). The actors Corin and Vanessa Redgrave helped with the first London production, with Corin as producer. The artist Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman is a British cartoonist and caricaturist who is perhaps best known for his work with American author Hunter S. Thompson.-Personal life:Steadman was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, and brought up in Towyn, North Wales...
designed the artwork and when the production went up to the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 Steadman donated some sixty of his drawings to use as backdrops.
Manifest Destiny gained a great deal of press attention due to its topical and controversial subject matter, including scenes showing the preparations for a suicide bomb raid and the incarceration and maltreatment of one protagonist in Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of Joint Task Force Guantanamo on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.The first twenty detainees arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002....
(a scene written prior to public knowledge of the events at Abu-Ghraib. Both Burstein and Edwards were quick to stress that the opera did not endorse the actions of suicide bombers, and in fact displayed them ultimately rejecting their violent course of action. In an interview with a Canadian radio station, Burstein describes the core of the opera as being "one in which despair miraculously turns into hope, violence into compassion, hatred into respect."
Critical response to Manifest Destiny was varied, with some publications praising the opera and others attacking it. The Scotsman on Sunday
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
described Manifest Destiny as " a dazzling, dark opera... affecting, bold, potent and packed with melodic invention" and praised it for marrying "the personal with the political, the particular and the universal.". The Daily Telegraph, while describing the libretto as "stilted", and the political message as "banal and fatally one-sided", also noted its "rigorous and high-minded" nature with a story "in the environs of Greek tragedy". The British Theatre Guide described it as "a powerful piece, powerfully performed… one to be cherished," and backed up the creators' view that "it is right that opera should take on such subjects".
More negative reviews came from Anna Picard in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
who criticised the "narrowness of its harmonic language and the robotic word-setting" and likened it to "sixth-form satire", and Veronica Lee in the London Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
who described the libretto as "horribly leaden and unmusical" and the music as "uninspiring", adding, "the idea that there is anything heroic about suicide bombers is, frankly, a grievous insult." The Evening Standard review led Burstein to bring a libel action against Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...
, on the grounds that terms used in the review left him open to the risk of state prosecution under both the recently passed Prevention of Terrorism Act
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, intended to deal with the Law Lords' ruling of 16 December 2004 that the detention without trial of eight foreigners at HM Prison Belmarsh under Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001...
of 2005 (which explicitly names “promotion of terrorism” as a criminal act) and the incoming Terrorism Act of 2006 (at the time, a Terrorism Bill) which featured a retrospective "glorification of terrorism" clause. Burstein's action was unsuccessful and he was subsequently ordered to pay £67,000 in legal fees to the newspaper. Although Burstein subsequently took the case to the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
his application was rejected.
The Evening Standard case inspired a subsequent play – The Trainer
The Trainer
The Trainer is a play by David Wilson and Anne Aylor .-Description:The Trainer is a multi-media play set in a posh gym in the basement of a gentlemen’s club, punctuated with excerpts from the opera Manifest Destiny, news footage from Gaza and inane breakfast TV programmes...
, written by David Wilson and Anne Aylor (with co-writes by Burstein). Premiered at Oxford House, London, in March 2009, and subsequently at the Hackney Empire, the play is a fictionalised version of the events of the trial, in parallel with a separate plot strand echoing that of Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny (opera)
Manifest Destiny is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror....
. Actors involved in the production included Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
and Tim Piggott-Smith who played Burstein, Janie Dee and Roger Lloyd-Pack.
In September 2011, Manifest Destiny was revived by the London-based opera company OperaUpClose
OperaUpClose
OperaUpClose is a resident opera company at the Kings Head Theatre London OperaUpClose is a resident opera company at the Kings Head Theatre London OperaUpClose is a resident opera company at the Kings Head Theatre London (also called "London's little opera house". It started at The Cock Tavern...
. The opera was revised and rewritten for the occasion, and presented in a new form under the title Manifest Destiny 2011.
Recent work (2006-present)
In 2009, Burstein completed Symphony (Elixir), written for and performed by the Southbank SinfoniaSouthbank Sinfonia
Southbank Sinfonia describes itself as "Britain's Newest Orchestra and one of the most exciting projects in music for decades."...
. A review of the concert performance (from the Hampstead & Highgate Express), described the composer as "a contemporary master of tonality", remarking upon a "sound palette that sparkled with energy" and Burstein's "clear and lucid writing (which) captivated the ear", also noting that there was "no aural gulf" between the piece and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Linz Symphony (which was being performed on the same bill). . During the course of his work on the Symphony Burstein received encouragement from the pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...
. The symphony now awaits its world premiere complete.
In 2009 Burstein also completed his Piano Sonata No 2 Perpetually Descending Veils Through Blazes of Light, written for Evelyne Berezovsky, daughter of the concert pianist Boris Berezovsky
Boris Berezovsky (pianist)
- Biography :Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Following his London début at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as "an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power."In May 2005...
. He is currently working on an opera trilogy Revolution 'E.
Performed works
- Songs For Olivier (settings of BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
poems for piano and voice) - premiered by Olivier Ferrer at the Institute of Contemporary ArtsInstitute of Contemporary ArtsThe Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, London, 1988. - Kirsty’s Dream (for two violins and piano) - premiered by The Grosvenor Group at the Institute of Contemporary ArtsInstitute of Contemporary ArtsThe Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, London, 1988. - Clarinet Sonata (for clarinet and piano) - premiered by Andrew Sparling at the University of EssexUniversity of EssexThe University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
, 1990. - Violin & Piano Sonata - premiered by The Grosvenor Group (funding by Westminster Arts Council) at Westminster Cathedral Hall, 1990.
- Piano Quartet No. 1 - premiered by The Grosvenor Group (funding by Westminster Arts Council) at Westminster Cathedral Hall, 1990.
- Songs of Love & Remembrance (sixteen songs for soprano/alto/tenor/bass soloists with ensemble of string quintet, two flutes, clarinet and harp) - premiered by the Grosvenor Group at the Burrell CollectionBurrell CollectionThe Burrell Collection is an art collection in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated in Pollok Country Park on the south side of the city.-History:...
, Glasgow, 1990 (also performed by the Burstein Ensemble at the Purcell RoomPurcell RoomThe Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats....
, London, 1993). - Piano Preludes - premiered and performed by composer (venue unspecified), 1990.
- String Quartet Study - premiered by the Grosvenor Group at Westminster Cathedral HallWestminster CathedralWestminster Cathedral in London is the mother church of the Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster...
, London, 1990. - Heaven’s Embroidered Cloth (for soprano/alto/tenor/bass soloists, string quintet, two flutes, clarinet and harp) - commissioned by Maria Vasconcellos and premiered by the Grosvenor Group at St Bride's ChurchSt Bride's ChurchSt Bride's Church is a church in the City of London, England. The building's most recent incarnation was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672 on Fleet Street in the City of London, though Wren's original building was largely gutted by fire during the London Blitz in 1940. Due to its location on...
, London, 1991. This is an excerpt from Marchioness Requiem (see Unperformed works). - Hymns Of Benediction (for choir and organ) - premiered at St Bride's ChurchSt Bride's ChurchSt Bride's Church is a church in the City of London, England. The building's most recent incarnation was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672 on Fleet Street in the City of London, though Wren's original building was largely gutted by fire during the London Blitz in 1940. Due to its location on...
, London, 1991. - Piano Quartet No. 2 - premiered by Marc Choi (commissioned by Durston House School), 1991.
- Eternal City (for 26-piece brass ensemble) - premiered by the BT Brass Band at the Design MuseumDesign MuseumDesign Museum is a museum by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in central London, England. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. It was founded in 1989 and claims to be the first museum of modern design...
, London, 1991. - Lullaby For Stephen (for cor anglais, harp and piano) - premiered by Danielle Perrett and others live on Classic FM radio, 1993.
- Glittering Horizon (piano sonata) - premiered and performed by composer at the Conway Hall, London, 1994.
- Prayer For Peace (for soprano/alto/tenor/bass soloists, string quintet, two flutes, clarinet and harp) - premiered by the Burstein Ensemble at St James GarlickhytheSt James GarlickhytheSt. James Garlickhythe is a Church of England parish church in Vintry ward of the City of London, nicknamed ‘Wren’s lantern’ owing to its profusion of windows. Recorded since the 12th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher...
Church, London, 1994. - Leavetaking (for 26-piece brass ensemble) - premiered by the BT Brass Band at Southwark CathedralSouthwark CathedralSouthwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge....
, 1994. - A Live Flame (In memoriam John Smith MP) (for orchestra and tenor) - premiered by London Musici (conducted by Richard Coxon) at St John's, Smith Square, London, 1995.
- Missa Brevis (for unaccompanied choir) - commissioned by Norwich CathedralNorwich CathedralNorwich Cathedral is a cathedral located in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Formerly a Catholic church, it has belonged to the Church of England since the English Reformation....
(commission split with Arvo PärtArvo PärtArvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
) and premiered at Norwich Cathedral (alongside the Pärt composition I Am The True Vine), 1996. - The Gates Of Time (for chamber orchestra, choir and soprano soloist) - commissioned by The Thomas Tallis Society of Greenwich to mark the Millennium and premiered at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London, October 1999.
- Alfege (for orchestra and choir plus soprano/tenor/bass soloists) - commissioned by The Thomas Tallis Society to mark The Millennium, and premiered at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London, 2000.
- The Year's Midnight - A Meditation on The Holocaust (for chamber orchestra, choir, and tenor/soprano/mezzo-soprano soloists) - commissioned and performed by the Zemel Choir plus orchestra at St John's, Smith Square, London, 2000 (broadcast premiere on BBC Radio 4 Holocaust Memorial Day 2001).
- Songs Against War (for mezzo-soprano soloist and piano; settings of poems by Keith DouglasKeith DouglasKeith Castellain Douglas , was an English poet noted for his war poetry during World War II and his wry memoir of the Western Desert Campaign, Alamein to Zem Zem. He was killed during the invasion of Normandy.-Poetry:...
, Wilfred OwenWilfred OwenWilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
, Lemn SissayLemn SissayLemn Sissay MBE is an award-winning British author and broadcaster of Ethiopian and Eritrean parents.He is known for performances of his poetry and also with jazz fusion groups. He is a playwright, and has worked on radio and television...
and Ben OkriBen OkriBen Okri OBE FRSL is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri has become the leading figure of his generation of Nigerian writers who have largely abandoned the social and historical themes of Chinua Achebe, and brought together modernist narrative strategies and Nigerian oral and literary...
) - premiered at Cockpit TheatreCockpit Theatre (Marylebone)The Cockpit Theatre is a Fringe Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit Theatre was designed by Edward Mendelsohn built in 1969-70 by the Inner London Education Authority as a community theatre and is notable as London's first purpose built Theatre In The Round, since the Great Fire of London...
, London, October 2001. - String Quartet no. 1: Dance Of Death/Dream Of Love - premiered and commissioned by the (funded by the Jewish Music Institute) at the Bridewell Theatre, London, March 2002.
- Manifest DestinyManifest Destiny (opera)Manifest Destiny is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror....
(opera, libretto by Dic EdwardsDic EdwardsDic Edwards is a British playwright and poet with more than 20 productions to his name. Born in Cardiff Edwards has often found himself at odds with his Welsh background...
) - first act premiered at Cockpit TheatreCockpit Theatre (Marylebone)The Cockpit Theatre is a Fringe Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit Theatre was designed by Edward Mendelsohn built in 1969-70 by the Inner London Education Authority as a community theatre and is notable as London's first purpose built Theatre In The Round, since the Great Fire of London...
, London, 2003: subsequent full productions at Tricycle TheatreTricycle TheatreThe Tricycle Theatre is located on Kilburn High Road in Kilburn in the London Borough of Brent, England. During the last 30 years, the Tricycle has been presenting plays reflecting the cultural diversity of its community; in particular Black, Irish, Jewish, Asian and South African works, as well as...
, London, 2004 and 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: revised and revived 2011 as Manifest Destiny 2011 at the King's Head Theatre, London. - Symphony (Elixir) (for orchestra) - performed by the Southbank SinfoniaSouthbank SinfoniaSouthbank Sinfonia describes itself as "Britain's Newest Orchestra and one of the most exciting projects in music for decades."...
2009.
Recorded works
- Three Preludes (for solo piano), part of 'Four Seasons Singles Club: Autumn' release on Day Release Records, 2001
Unperformed works
- Chamber Symphony, 1989
- Piano Study, 1991
- Marchioness Requiem (for symphony orchestra, large chorus and soprano/alto/tenor/bass soloists), 1990-1993 - commissioned by Maria Vasconcellos in memory of her sons Antonio and Domingos who died in the Marchioness disasterMarchioness disasterThe Marchioness disaster occurred on the River Thames in London in the early hours of 20 August 1989. The pleasure boat Marchioness sank after being run down by the dredger Bowbelle, near Cannon Street Railway Bridge. There were 131 people on the Marchioness. Some were members of the crew, some...
. Part of this work, Heaven’s Embroidered Cloth, was performed in 1991 (see Performed works). - Diasanon Arrives (for symphony orchestra), 1997
- The Same Love (for mezzo-soprano soloist), 2000
- The Ship Of Death (for male vocal quartet - originally written for the Hilliard EnsembleHilliard EnsembleThe Hilliard Ensemble is a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. Founded in 1974, the group is named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard....
), 2003 - Piano Sonata No. 2 (Perpetually Descending Veils Through Blazes Of Light), 2003 (currently awaiting performance)
External links
- Official Keith Burstein website (with news, comment and audioclips)