Harrison Birtwistle

Harrison BirtwistleSir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH (born July 15, 1934) is one of Britain's most significant contemporary composers.

Life
Birtwistle was born in Accrington in Lancashire and in 1952 entered the Royal Manchester College of Music in Manchester on a clarinet scholarship. While there he met fellow composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr, who, together with pianist John Ogdon and conductor Elgar Howarth, formed the New Music Manchester group, dedicated to the performances of serial and other modern works.

Birtwistle left the college in 1955, then studied at the Royal Academy of Music and afterward made a living as a schoolteacher. In 1965 a Harkness Fellowship gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in the United States and he decided to dedicate himself to composition.

In 1975 Birtwistle became musical director of the newly-established Royal National Theatre in London, a post he held until 1983. He has been honoured with a knighthood (1988) and as a Companion of Honour (2001). From 1994 to 2001 he was Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King's College London.

At the 2006 Ivor Novello Awards he criticised pop musicians at the event for performing too loudly and using too many cliches. [1]

Style
It would not be easy to fit Birtwistle into any sort of 'school' or 'movement'. For a time he would be referred to as a part of the 'Manchester School', a phrase invented as a parallel to the Second Viennese School to refer to Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies. The phrase has, however, since fallen out of use since the three composers were united only by their early studies in Manchester, not by musical style. His music is complex, written in a modernistic style with a clear, distinctive voice. His early work is sometimes evocative of Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen (composers he has acknowledged as influences), and his technique of juxtaposing blocks of sound is sometimes compared to Edgard Varèse. His early pieces made frequent use of ostinati and often had a ritualistic feel. These have been toned down in recent decades as he has adapted and transformed the techniques into more subtle methods. With its strong emphasis on rhythm, the music is often described as brutal or violent, but this analysis mistakes the strong sound world for an attempt to evoke violent actions. The explicit violence of his first opera Punch and Judy — where the murder of Judy by her husband is so much more shocking when performed live on stage rather than by glove puppets in the classic British seaside entertainment — can be easily misinterpreted as a clue to the intention of his abstract music. The style is stark and uncompromising, but the intent is not to arouse such images. If they were transformed into works of visual art, they would be reproduced in bold primary colours, with little use of subtle shades.

His favourite image for explaining how his pieces work is to compare it to taking a walk through a town, especially the sort of small town more common in continental Europe than Great Britain. Such a walk might start in the town square. Having explored its main features we would set off down one of the side streets. As the walk continues we might glimpse the town square down different streets, sometime a long way off, other times quite close. We may never return to the square in the rest of the walk, or we may visit a new part of it that was not explored initially. Birtwistle suggests that this experience is akin to what he does in the music. His image conveys the way that a core musical idea is altered, varied and distorted as the piece of music progresses. The core music forms a reference point to which everything else is directed, even when we are walking in a completely different direction. Sometimes we will be less aware that it is the same musical material we are hearing; sometimes we may have been listening for a while before realising that we have heard this music before (just as one might have been looking up the street before realising that it is the town square that can be glimpsed through the traffic). He is not, therefore, suggesting that we imagine this walk through the town as a literal explanation of what is happening in the music; he does not 'recreate' the effect in the music (as Charles Ives does in some of his orchestral pieces).

An early variant of this technique involved literally cutting up the music, the most blatant example being Verses for Ensemble. Having composed a portion of music, Birtwistle would then cut it arbitrarily into a number of sections. These might be randomly rearranged, and new introductions and epilogues composed before composing yet more music to link them together. This method was intended to give the whole piece unity, by having musical material with its own inner coherence scattered amongst musical material that still related to the core material but did not necessarily relate to itself.

Another image for what Birtwistle frequently does in his abstract music can be seen in the events of the first Act of his opera Gawain. Up to the point where the Green Knight is knelt in front of Gawain awaiting the axe blow that will cut off his head the action has proceeded in a mainly chronolgical order. With Gawain holding the axe aloft, the stage is suddenly blacked out and within a minute the action has rewound to the point preceding the Green Knight's entry to the Court of Arthur. Events are played through again, though compressed and with various small alterations, through the beheading and into the subsequent events. The events on stage are not randomly ordered, but the one event is portrayed from more than one perspective. For the opera The Mask of Orpheus this entailed two sets of singer/actors performing contradictory versions of the one event from the Orpheus myths. This non-linear portrayal of events on stage gives the listener a means of approach to the abstract compositions, with the same musical ideas being repeated but with extensive variation. The result is music that is often very episodic in structure. A readily audible example occurs in Silbury Air. Here a readily identifiable music motif — a blow from the tom-toms, followed by scurrying figures from the strings and woodwind — is elaborated in a number of different ways as the piece progresses.

As a result, even when he is not writing a visual piece involving stage action, Birstwistle's music is frequently described as dramatic in construction. The music is not following the logic and rules of classic music forms such as sonata form but the structures of a drama. Furthermore, different musical instruments can almost be seen to take the part of different characters in the drama. This is especially apparent in a performance of Secret Theatre. For various portions of the piece, a number of the instrumentalists perform in a 'soloist' capacity'. For this they leave their normal seat in the orchestral group and stand in a typical concerto soloist's position, returning to the orchestra when they are no longer given that priority. Though not normally signalled by the change of position, this sort of changing role is constantly seen in his music. Related to this would be the use of geological imagery to explain the structure of his 1986 orchestral piece Earth Dances. A number of different layers of musical material are used; at any one time a layer might be to the fore, while at other times it might be buried deep under the other layers and no longer as apparent.

Popular perception
Though well established and widely respected in the classical music world — modules on his music now feature in many university undergraduate music courses — Birtwistle was relatively unknown in the general public until the mid-1990s. Although he had been honoured with a knighthood in 1988, two events brought him to public attention.

A group of anti-modernist musicians calling themselves 'The Hecklers', led by Frederick Stocken, attempted to disrupt the first night of the 1994 revival of Gawain at the Royal Opera House, London. Having remained silent throughout the performance, their strategically-placed sympathisers broke into a tirade of catcalls at the conclusion in an attempt to draw attention to their campaign to rid contemporary music of anything post-Romantic. The event, however, backfired on them, for it turned a relatively unimportant revival for the opera house into an event that many more people were keen to attend.

Birtwistle gained particular notoriety in 1995 when Panic was premièred at that year's Last Night of the Proms. His music had not previously been heard in so public a forum and most of the press did not hold back its negative criticism of the piece; traditionally the second half of the concert features mainstream, popular and patriotic music. Although the first half incorporates pieces that reflect the overall theme of each year's season, and modern works, such an uncompromising piece had not previously been programmed.

List of compositions by Harrison Birtwistle

Opera and other dramatised works
Punch and Judy, A tragical comedy or comical tragedy in 1 act (1966–67)
Down by the Greenwood Side, A Dramatic Pastoral (1968–69)
Pulse Field, Frames, Pulse and Interruptions - improvised ballet, for 6 dancers and 9 musicians (1977)
Bow Down, Improvised music theatre, for 5 actors and 4 musicians (1977)
The Mask of Orpheus, Lyric Tragedy in 3 acts (1973–84)
Yan Tan Tethera, A Mechanical Pastoral (1984)
Gawain, Opera in 2 acts, (1990–91, revised 1994 & 1999)
The Second Mrs Kong, Opera in 2 acts (1993–94)
The Last Supper, Opera in 1 act (1998-99)
The Io Passion, Chamber Opera (2003)

Orchestra
Chorales, for orchestra (1960–63)
Nomos, for 4 amplified instruments and orchestra (1967–68)
The Triumph of Time, for orchestra (1971–72)
Melencolia I, for clarinet, harp and 2 string orchestras (1976)
Earth Dances, for orchestra (1985–86)
Endless Parade, for trumpet, strings and vibraphone (1986–87)
Machaut à ma manière, for orchestra (1988)
Gawain's Journey, for orchestra (1991)
Antiphonies, for piano and orchestra (1992)
The Cry of Anubis, for tuba and orchestra (1994)
Panic, for alto saxophone, jazz drum kit and orchestra (1995)
Exody, for orchestra (1997)
Sonance Severance 2000, for orchestra (1999)
The Shadow of Night, for orchestra (2001)
Night’s Black Bird, for orchestra (2004)

Chamber Ensemble without voices
The World is Discovered, 6 Instrumental Movements after Heinrich Isaac, for chamber ensemble (1961)
3 Movements with Fanfares, for chamber orchestra (1964)
Tragoedia, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp and string quartet (1965)
Chorale from a Toy Shop, two versions for different chamber ensembles (1967)
Verses for Ensembles, for 3 instrumental ensembles (1968–69)
Some Petals from my Twickenham Herbarium, for piccolo, clarinet in Bb, glockenspiel, piano, violin and violoncello (1969)
An Imaginary Landscape, for brass, percussion and double basses (1971)
Tombeau in memoriam Igor Stravinsky, for flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet (1971)
Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum, for chamber ensemble or orchestra (1977-78)
Grimethorpe Aria, for brass band (1973)
For O, for O, the Hobby-Horse is Forgot, Ceremony, for 6 percussionists (1976)
Silbury Air, for chamber ensemble (1977)
Secret Theatre, for chamber ensemble (1984)
Salford Toccata, for brass band (1989)
Ritual Fragment, for chamber orchestra (1990)
Fanfare for Glyndebourne, for brass ensemble and timpani (1994)
Slow Frieze, for piano and ensemble (1996)
Bach Measures, for chamber ensemble (1996)
Placid Mobile, for 36 trumpets (1998)
The Silk House Tattoo, for two trumpets and side drums (1998)
Sonance 2000, for brass ensemble (1999)
17 Tate Riffs, for ensemble (2000)
Fanfare, for brass and percussion (2001)
Tenebrae David, for brass ensemble (2001)
Theseus Game, for large ensemble with two conductors (2002)
The Io Passion: Nocturnes, for clarinet and string quartet (2004)
Cantus Iambeus, for thirteen instruments (2005)

Instrumental groups of 5 or fewer performers, without voices
Antiphonies from the Moonkeeper, for trumpet (unpublished)
Berceuse de Jeanne, for piano (unpublished)
Refrains and Choruses, for wind quintet (1957)
Précis, for piano (1960)
Verses, for clarinet and piano (1965)
Linoi, for clarinet in A and piano (1968)
8 Lessons for Keyboards (unpublished; premiered in 1970)
Dinah and Nick's Love Song, for 3 melody instruments and harp (1970)
Sad Song, for piano (1971)
Clarinet Quintet, for clarinet and string quartet (1980)
Pulse Sampler, for oboe and claves (1981)
Duets for Storab, for 2 flutes (1983)
Hector's Dawn, for piano (1987)
An Interrupted Endless Melody, for oboe and piano (1991, B&H)
9 Movements, for string quartet (1991-96)
5 Distances for 5 Instruments, for flute, oboe, clarinet in B flat, bassoon and horn in F (1992)
Hoquetus Petrus, for two flutes and piccolo trumpet (1995)
Harrison’s Clocks, for piano (1997–98)
Ostinato with Melody, for piano (2000)
The Axe Manual, for piano and percussion (2000)
Betty Freedman: Her Tango, for piano (2000)
Saraband, for piano (2001)
Crowd, for solo harp (2005)

Vocal Music (with and without instruments)
Monody for Corpus Christi, for soprano, flute, violin and horn (1959)
Entr'actes and Sappho Fragments, for soprano and instruments (1964)
Carmen Paschale, Motet, for choir and organ (1965)
Ring a Dumb Carillon, for soprano (+ susp cyms), clarinet in Bb and percussion (1964–65)
Cantata, for soprano and instruments (1969)
Nenia: The Death of Orpheus, for soprano, 3 bass clarinets, crotales and piano (1970)
Meridian, for mmezzosoprano, 2 three-part women's’ choirs and instruments (1970–71)
Prologue, for tenor and 7 instruments (1971)
La Plage: 8 Arias of Remembrance, for soprano and 5 instruments (1972)
The Fields of Sorrow, for 2 sopranos, 8-part choir and instruments (1972)
Epilogue, "Full fathom five", for baritone, horn, 4 trombones and 6 tam-tam (1972)
Narration: A Description of the Passing of a Year, for a cappella chorus (1963)
… agm …, for 16 voices and 3 instrumental ensembles (1978-79)
On the Sheer Threshold of the Night, Madrigal, for 4 soloists und 12-voice choir (1980)
Deowa, for soprano and clarinet in Bb (1983)
Songs by Myself, for soprano and chamber ensemble (1984)
Words Overheard, for soprano and chamber orchestra (1985)
4 Songs of Autumn, for soprano and string quartet (1988)
An die Musik', for soprano and chamber ensemble (1988)
4 Poems by Jaan Kaplinski, for soprano and 13 instruments (1991)
9 Settings of Celan (may be performed as a set or individually) for soprano, 2 clarinets, viola, violoncello and contrabass
9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker, for soprano and instrument, not piano (1998–2000)
Love Cries, from the opera The Second Mrs. Kong, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and orchestra (1999)
Three Latin Motets, from The Last Supper, for unaccompanied choir (1999)
The Woman and the Hare, for soprano, reciter and ensemble (1999)
The Gleam, Christmas Carol, for unaccompanied choir (2003)
The Ring Dance of the Nazarene, for baritone, tombak, choir and ensemble (2003)
3 Arias by Bach, for soprano, countertenor and chamber ensemble (2003–04)
26 Orpheus Elegies, for oboe, harp and countertenor (2003–04)
3 Brendel Settings, for baritone and orchestra (2000–04)
Today Too, for tenor, flute and guitar (2004)
Neruda Madrigals, for chorus and ensemble (2004–05)
The Mouse Felt…, for baritone and piano (2005)
Song of Myself, for baritone, double bass and percussion (2006)

Electronic Music
Chronometer, for 2 asynchronous 4-track tapes (1971–72)