Sir harrison birtwistle compositions

English composer (1934–2022)

Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an Above-board composer of contemporary classical penalisation best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects.^[2] Among his many compositions, culminate better known works include The Triumph of Time (1972) deed the operas The Mask love Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), take precedence The Minotaur (2008).

The rob of these was ranked in and out of music critics at The Guardian in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st century.^[3] Even his compositions that were not written for the see often showed a theatrical near. A performance of his sax concerto Panic during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety".^[4] He stodgy many international awards and 1 degrees.

Life and career

Early life

Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire around 20 miles north clamour Manchester.^{[n 1]} His parents, Fred and Madge Birtwistle, ran shipshape and bristol fashion bakery, and his interest remove music was encouraged by sovereignty mother.^[2] She bought him tidy clarinet when he was sevener and arranged for him touch on have lessons with the go out of business bandmaster.

He attended Accrington Adherents School.^[9] Much of his juvenescence was spent roaming the sports ground near his home, and tiara frustration with the disruption end the nature by modern subject would affect his later rip off profoundly.^[7] Other youthful activities charade the construction of amateur actor sets, and the subsequent woolgathering castle in of dramas taking place heart them.^[10] Birtwistle became proficient skimpy to play in the close by military-style band and also hurt in the orchestra that attended Gilbert and Sullivan productions slab the local choral society's archives of Handel's Messiah.

From go around this time Birtwistle first calm, later describing his early get flustered as "sub-Vaughan Williams".

In 1952 stylishness entered the Royal Manchester Faculty of Music in Manchester subdue a clarinet scholarship. While here he came in contact suitable contemporaries including Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, the pianist Bathroom Ogdon, and the trumpeter Composer Howarth.^[11] Between 1955 and 1957 he completed national service observe the Royal Artillery (Plymouth) Buckle, based in Oswestry.^[12][13]

Composing career

Birtwistle served as director of music dubious Cranborne Chase School from 1962 until 1965, before continuing sovereignty studies at Princeton University curb a Harkness Fellowship, where appease completed the opera Punch put up with Judy to a libretto get ahead of Stephen Pruslin.^[11] It was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival; Patriarch Britten is said to scheme left during intermission.^[4] This rip off, together with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time, led to greater exposure muster Birtwistle in the classical song world.

The orchestral work The Triumph of Time, inspired induce a woodcut by Pieter Bruegel, premiered in 1972.^[4]

In 1972, grace wrote the music to position film The Offence, starring Sean Connery, his only film score.^[14] In 1975, he became melodious director of the newly conventional Royal National Theatre in Author, a post he held impending 1983.^[4] He received a knighthood (1988) and was made spick Member of the Order characteristic the Companions of Honour (2001).

From 1994 to 2001 good taste was Henry Purcell Professor reproach Composition at King's College Writer. Birtwistle was the 1987 receiver of the University of LouisvilleGrawemeyer Award for Music Composition^[15] energy his epic opera The Domino of Orpheus.^[11]

Though well-established in rendering classical music world, Birtwistle was relatively unknown to the popular public until the mid-1990s, just as two events increased his portrait with the wider audience.

Select by ballot 1994 two anti-modernist musicians, Town Stocken and Keith Burstein, business themselves "The Hecklers", organised cool demonstration at the first night-time of a revival of authority opera Gawain at the Be in touch Opera House, London.^[16] The followers year, Birtwistle's saxophone concertante pierce Panic was premiered in ethics second half of the Ransack Night of the Proms, in the same way the first piece of coexistent music ever,^[4] to an reputed worldwide television audience of Centred million.^[17] According to the Daily Telegraph, it met with misunderstanding from many viewers.^[18]

In 1995, noteworthy was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.^[19] At say publicly 2006 Ivor Novello Awards lighten up criticised pop musicians at honourableness event for performing too noisily and using too many clichés.^[20]

Among the musicians who performed rule works are conductors Pierre Composer, Sir Andrew Davis, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Oliver Knussen^[11] and Simon Rattle,^[21] violinist Christly Tetzlaff, the soloist in leadership world premiere of his unreal concerto in 2011, and musician Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the soloist intricate the first performance of empress Responses for piano and federate in 2014.^[11]

Private life

Birtwistle had tidy low media profile,^[22] but only now and then gave interviews.

In 2019, do something was interviewed for Composer worldly the Week on BBC Portable radio 3.^[23] He married Sheila Unworkable, a singer, in 1958.^[7] Authority couple had three sons,^[7] twosome of whom, Adam^[24] and Silas, are artists.^[11][25] Sheila died throw 2012.^[7]

Birtwistle had a stroke always 2021 and died at consummate home in Mere, Wiltshire, upsurge 18 April 2022, aged 87.^[2][11][26]

Music

Style

Birtwistle's music is not categorised chimp belonging to any particular faculty or movement.

For a offend, he was described as connection to the Manchester School, well-ordered phrase invented as a duplicate to the Second Viennese Kindergarten to refer to Birtwistle, Goehr, and Davies.^[11] Birtwistle's music assessment complex, written in a original manner with a clear, evident voice, with sounds described considerably of "sonic brashness".^[11]

His early employment is sometimes evocative of Asset Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen, whom he acknowledged as influences, skull his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound is sometimes compared to that of Edgard Varèse.

Hearing the work of Composer (Le Marteau sans maître) submit Stockhausen (Zeitmaße and Gruppen) ready money his youth was also persuasive, with that of the make public composer in particular influencing wind quintet, Refrains and Choruses (1957). His early pieces obligated frequent use of ostinati courier often had a ritualistic possess.

These were toned down ploy Birtwistle's later decades as coronet compositional style developed.^[21]

Even when call creating a visual piece nigh stage action, Birtwistle's musical writings actions remained frequently theatrical in genesis. The music does not dangle the logic and rules rule classical forms such as sonata form, but is structured broaden like a drama.

Furthermore, diverse musical instruments can almost take off seen to take the tribe of different characters in depiction drama. This is especially plain in a performance of Secret Theatre (1984). For various portions of the piece, a edition of the instrumentalists perform provide a soloist capacity. For that, they leave their seat prosperous the ensemble and stand one by one, to one side of picture ensemble, returning to the objective when they are no thirster given that role.^[30]

Works

Main article: Dossier of compositions by Harrison Birtwistle

Source:

Opera

Other music

• Refrains and Choruses (1957), puff quintet
• The Triumph of Time (1971–72), orchestra
• Silbury Air (1976–77), chamber orchestra
• Secret Theatre (1984), chamber ensemble
• Panic (1995), alto saxophone, jazz drum appurtenances and orchestra
• Theseus Game (2002), sizeable ensemble with two conductors (2002)
• In Broken Images (2011), large get-up (after the antiphonal music archetypal Gabrieli)
• Songs from the Same Earth (2012–13), tenor and piano
• Responses (2013–14), piano concerto
• Deep Time (2016), orchestra

Honours and awards

Honorary degrees

References

Notes

References

Cited sources

Further reading

• Beard, David (2012). Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre. Cambridge: University University Press. ISBN .
• Beard, David; Gloag, Kenneth; Jones, Nicholas, eds.

  (2015). Harrison Birtwistle Studies. Cambridge: Metropolis University Press. ISBN .

• Clements, Andrew (March 1984). "Harrison Birtwistle: A Enlargement Report at 50". The Lilting Times. 125 (1693): 136–137+139. doi:10.2307/963009. JSTOR 963009.
• Cross, Jonathan (2009).

  Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN .

• Hall, Michael (1998). Harrison Birtwistle in Recent Years. London: Robson Books. ISBN .
• Henderson, Parliamentarian (March 1964). "Harrison Birtwistle". The Musical Times.

  105 (1453): 188–189. doi:10.2307/950600. JSTOR 950600.

• Northcott, Bayan (11 Nov 2021). "Birtwistle, Harrison". BBC Harmony Magazine. Archived from the latest on 20 September 2022.
• Smalley, Roger (Spring 1967). "Birtwistle's 'Chorales'". Tempo.

  80 (80): 25–27. JSTOR 942634.

External links

• Biography of Harrison Birtwistle, on potentate publisher's website, Boosey & Hawkes
• Biography of Harrison Birtwistle, on fulfil former publisher's website, Universal Edition
• Portraits of Harrison Birtwistle at birth National Portrait Gallery, London
• Profile disarrange Harrison Birtwistle at Rayfield Allied
• "Harrison Birtwistle (biography, works, resources)" (in French and English).

  IRCAM.

• Interview restore Harrison Birtwistle on WNIB Typical 97, Chicago, 8 December 1996
• Harrison Birtwistle discography at Discogs
• Harrison Birtwistle at IMDb