Harrison Birtwistle | Artist

Sir Harrison Birtwistle CH was an English composer of modern classical music, born 1934 in Accrington, UK. Best known for his operas, The Mask of Orpheus, Gawain, and The Minotaur, all based on mythological subjects, Birtwistle was one of the leading European figures in contemporary music. His works combined modernist aesthetic with mythic power and emotional impact, drawing Inspiration from contemporary art and the rituals of classical mythology and pre-history. He started taking clarinet lessons as a youth and was composing by age 11. In 1952, he won a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied with Richard Hall. There he fell in with a group of like-minded young musicians; Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, John Ogden and Elgar Howarth, with whom he formed the New Music Manchester group, which specialised in performances of modern music. Birtwistle's music is complex, written in a modernistic manner with a clear, distinctive voice, with sounds described as "sonic brashness". His early work is sometimes evocative of Igor Stavinsky and Oliver Messiaen, whom he acknowledged as influences, and his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound can be compared to the style of Edgard Varèse. In addition to his four large-scale Operas, Birtwistle composed hundreds of works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and soloist, which have been performed and recorded by leading artists such as Joanna MacGregor, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Oliver Knussen, Simon Rattle and Andrew Davis. Standout recordings include Punch And Judy (1980), Secret Theatre/Silbury Air (1987), Antiphonies for Piano and Orchestra (1994), Gawain (1996), Earth Dances (1996), The Woman and the Hare (2002), The Axe Manual: For Solo Piano (2004), Theseus Game/Earth Dances (2004), The Minotaur (2008), and Night's Black Bird/Shadow of Night/The Cry of Anubis (2011). On the last night of the 1995 BBC Proms, Birtwistle's work "Panic for Saxophone, Drummer, and Orchestra" was premiered and broadcast to a worldwide audience. It was the first piece of contemporary music ever to be featured at "the Proms" and, according to the Daily Telegraph, it met with incomprehension and even revulsion from many of the 100 million viewers.

Artist Website: wikipedia/Harrison_Birtwistle

Featured Albums: Harrison Birtwistle