Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)

[UB]

Thanks James for that video it gave me a good reason to listen again to a work I have never really enjoyed. Birtwistle's statement that we can choose to listen to different things in a piece at different times is to me perfect for his work because so much of it is written in layers and there is no way to hear everything that is going on at the same time.

[Drasko]

I've run into broadcast recording, from last year's Proms, of Birtwistle's Angel Fighter. It's pretty decent sounding 320 kbps mp3. If there's anyone interested I could upload it to mediafire.

[lescamil]

I've run into broadcast recording, from last year's Proms, of Birtwistle's Angel Fighter. It's pretty decent sounding 320 kbps mp3. If there's anyone interested I could upload it to mediafire.

No need to upload. Our friend at 5:4 uploaded it: http://5-against-4.blogspot.com/2011/08/proms-2011-georges-aperghis-champ.html

[Drasko]

No need to upload. Our friend at 5:4 uploaded it: http://5-against-4.blogspot.com/2011/08/proms-2011-georges-aperghis-champ.html

Excellent! He even has scanned libretto, I have to download that.

[snyprrr]

The Arditti's survey of the two works on Aeon is in the pipeline on Amazon, nice cover!

[cilgwyn]

Harrison Birtwistle,at last! It was getting a bit worrying with Cyril Scott at the top!
Ooh,I like Earth Dances!

[snyprrr]

The Offence (1972)

I saw this ultra creepy Lumet film with Sean Connery and Ian Bannon, and guess whoooo wrote the Music? It is a spare and creepy affair, very familiar to anyone who has seen films from the era... it's totally 'there', sounding like ritual. You haaave to see this movie, but be prepared,... I almost have to call it the perfect horror film; I'd never heard of it, but... wait...

nope, not in my reference...

[snyprrr]

BBC Radio 3: HERE & NOW
Harrison Birtwistle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jqj1n

DURATION: 1 HOUR, 30 MINUTES
Tom Service, in conversation with Sir Harrison Birtwistle,
presents this Birtwistle Portrait concert, specially recorded
at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the London Sinfonietta
conducted by David Atherton

Harrison Birtwistle: Cortege
London Sinfonietta

Harrison Birtwistle: Five Distances for 5 Instruments
London Sinfonietta

Harrison Birtwistle: Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum
London Sinfonietta
David Atherton, conductor

Harrison Birtwistle: In Broken Images (UK premiere)
London Sinfonietta
David Atherton, conductor

No one has the String Quartets on Neos yet?

[petrarch]

No one has the String Quartets on Neos yet?

Looking to get it very soon.

[petrarch]

No one has the String Quartets on Neos yet?

You mean Aeon, right?

[snyprrr]

Book Description
Publication Date: Nov 30 2012 | Series: Music in the Twentieth Century
David Beard presents the first definitive survey of Harrison Birtwistle's music for the opera house and theatre, from his smaller-scale works, such as Down by the Greenwood Side and Bow Down, to the full-length operas, such as Punch and Judy, The Mask of Orpheus and Gawain. Blending source study with both music analysis and cultural criticism, the book focuses on the sometimes tense but always revealing relationship between abstract musical processes and the practical demands of narrative drama, while touching on theories of parody, narrative, pastoral, film, the body and community. Each stage work is considered in terms of its own specific musico-dramatic themes, revealing how compositional scheme and dramatic conception are intertwined from the earliest stages of a project's genesis. The study draws on a substantial body of previously undocumented primary sources and goes beyond previous studies of the composer's output to include works unveiled from 2000 onwards.

[asin]0521895340[/asin]
Product Details
Hardcover: 472 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (Nov 30 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521895340
ISBN-13: 978-0521895347

[...]

[asin]B002HM79XA[/asin]

OH NOES!! Composers wearing CTs. How... how... ELTIST!!

[jlaurson]

Preview of the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( Gawain )

One of the performances I'm most looking forward to at this year's Salzburg Festival is Harrison Birtwistle's Gawain, in a Alvis Hermanis production, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, and featuring the ever strapping and striking Christopher Maltman. Here are some photos (below the jump) of the production (courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Ruth Walz) which will premiere today, June 26th.

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/07/preview-of-2013-salzburg-festival-gawain.html[/url]

[TheGSMoeller]

Birtwistle's fascination with myth and ritual has influenced many of his works and this opera, its libretto by David Harsent, is based on the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with a plot featuring castles, eerie nocturnal apparitions, evil magical powers, amorous entanglements and a singing decapitated head. This production of Gawain for the Royal Opera House, recorded by BBC Radio 3, was supported by the Arts Council of England, The Friends of Covent Garden, The John S Cohen Foundation and The Po-Shing Woo Charitable Foundation. It was originally released on Collins Classics. http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/recording/gawain

[asin]B00JG08G1K[/asin]

Thanks for the posting, James. I'm fascinated with The Minotaur so I'm easily interested in Gawain.

[Mandryka]

Listening to Mask of Orpheus today I was struck by how it resembles Parsifal. Three acts - man, transforming adventure, God. Lots of ritual music. Lots of big arias.

Is this something Cross discusses in his book? I'm teetering on the edge of buying Cross's book.

Anyway the bottom line is Mask of Orpheus = Great opera. I am very impressed with Act 3.

[Mandryka]

Here is the libretto of Act 2 of The Mask of Orpheus

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/93487587

[CRCulver]

Looked at a few Birtwistle videos on YouTube today, was disappointed to find that there were plenty of comments left along the lines that his work is not music but noise. To my ears, Birtwistle just doesn't deserve the ghastly reputation he has among the British public. Sure, he adopted atonality, but so much of his output has a clear line (that whole "processional" style) and doesn't seem any more extreme than Stravinsky. I have a hard time thinking of Birtwistle as avant-garde in the same way as, say, mid-century Darmstadt.

I'm curious to know when it became so popular to jeer Birtwistle. Was it always like this, or did it only start with press coverage of the Gawain protests (led by the nutter Frederick Stocken) and the "Panic at the Proms" making it the thing to do?

[James]

Looked at a few Birtwistle videos on YouTube today, was disappointed to find that there were plenty of comments left along the lines that his work is not music but noise. To my ears, Birtwistle just doesn't deserve the ghastly reputation he has among the British public. Sure, he adopted atonality, but so much of his output has a clear line (that whole "processional" style) and doesn't seem any more extreme than Stravinsky. I have a hard time thinking of Birtwistle as avant-garde in the same way as, say, mid-century Darmstadt.

I'm curious to know when it became so popular to jeer Birtwistle. Was it always like this, or did it only start with press coverage of the Gawain protests (led by the nutter Frederick Stocken) and the "Panic at the Proms" making it the thing to do?

For along time now .. most people out there have been corrupted by a steady diet of pop music .. mostly from the States. It's like junk food, tastes good .. but a steady diet of it is bad for you and over time you lose sight of what real food is. You lose sight of what is good for you and what is bad. Then it becomes too late, and you're a lumbering mass of redundant protoplasm.

Most folks expect simple tunes to hum, and a few stupid words to remember.  The more stupid & cliché the better, and making the leap/adjustment from pop entertainment/trash to real art for most people requires a Herculean effort these days. Just too much 'work', and not an 'easy sell'.

Heaven forbid anyone actually being creative with music & doing something different anymore, but that's never really been widely regarded and flies over most peoples heads. Music after all is just about 'emotions' and being 'cool'.

[bhodges]

A friend alerted me to yet another find on YouTube, Peter Hall's production of The Oresteia: Agamemnon with music by Harrison Birtwistle, produced by the National Theatre in London in 1981. If I understand correctly, Birtwistle's score was not archived, and a performable edition of the music is now lost. There has been some talk of trying to reconstruct it from sound sources like this one.

Part I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7sdZQ1BDs0&feature=player_embedded

Part II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyQNOkLfNE

--Bruce

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Thanks so much for those links Brewski!  I would be very excited to learn of a reconstructed score of that work...Birtwistle is just one of those composers who really does churn out masterpiece after masterpiece.

[snyprrr]

I guess it's time to plow this field... looking at the Discography, there seems to be a couple of routes to go.

1) Earth Dances/Panic

2) ECM Chamber Music, with Piano Trio ??

3) NMC "Blackbird" CD ??

4) Complete Piano Music ??


All I have is the 'Pulse Shadows' Arditti disc, which, eh, I guess it's ok, but not my fav cup of tea. I feel HB is gonna be quite the noise-fest, am I right?

HELPS!!!