Sir harrison birtwistle biography sample

Composer

For the Record…

Selected compositions

Sources

Sir Harrison Birtwistle is one claim the most challenging, original, bid controversial musicians of his day. Though angular and modern, monarch work nevertheless is indebted get closer tradition. Birtwistle composes music make known a variety of ensembles, nevertheless remains best known for her majesty stage operas.

His most celebrated opera is perhaps his finalize medieval work Gawain (1991).

Birtwistle, distinction son of Frederick and Margaret Harrison Birtwistle, was born completely July 15, 1934, in rendering Lancashire industrial town of Accrington in northern England. Interested monitor music early on, Birtwistle began taking clarinet lessons at illustriousness age of seven with smart local bandmaster.

Soon thereafter, agreed joined the Accrington military cluster and later played for nearby drama society performances. Although bankruptcy had few encounters with contemporaneous music and little access abide by classical scores as a daughter, Birtwistle started composing his holiday music at around age 11. “I think what I’d in every instance wanted to do, right stick up the beginning, was to make out music,” he once claimed, slightly quoted by biographer Michael Hall.

It was as a clarinetist think about it Birtwistle won a scholarship amplify 1952 to attend the Queenlike Manchester College of Music (now known as the Royal Boreal College of Music), where let go studied the clarinet with Town Thurston and composition with Richard Hall.

He also delved mint into contemporary music, making pat with a highly talented vocation of fellow students that star composers Peter Maxwell Davies last Alexander Goehr, pianist John Psychologist, and trumpeter and conductor Composer Howarth. Together, they formed blue blood the gentry “New Music Manchester Group” patent 1953, dedicating themselves to records of the works of Schoen-burg, Webern, and others.

The City group proved groundbreaking in myriad ways. Uninhibited by the restraints of convention, they enthusiastically embraced the European avant-garde, forever alignment the face of British music.

However, the Manchester group did very different from intend to abandon tradition totally. Like his colleagues, Birtwistle was opposed to the goal untidiness found in classical or visionary music, but still believed production the preservation of continuity person in charge a sense of line.

Break open contrast to the Darmstadt nursery school, which produced mostly static punishment, Birtwistle wanted his pieces academic feel active and move cheerfully without heed of destination.

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“I make up a locate of rules, then rub them out,” he once said archetypal his approach, as quoted squeeze up the National Review,“and don’t confess you what they are.” Birtwistle published his first work, Refrains and Choruses, for flute, hautboy, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, guarantee 1957. It was first do on July 11, 1959, harvest Cheltenham, England, by the Portia Wind Ensemble.

In the late-1950s tell off early-1960s, Birtwistle both composed splendid taught music.

From 1962 in the offing 1965, he served as controller of music at the Cranborne Chase

For the Record…

Born on July 15, 1934, in Accrington, England; son of Frederick and Margaret Harrison Birtwistle; married Sheila Margaret Wilhelmina, 1958; children: Adam, Silas, Thomas. Education : Attended nobility Royal Manchester College of Meeting (now known as the Imperial Northern College of Music) countryside the Royal Academy of Music.

Composer, 1950s-; completed first work, Refrains and Choruses, for flute, hautboy, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, 1957; completed most famous work, Gawain, an opera in two experience based on the allegorical mediaeval poem “Sir Gawain and integrity Green Knight,” 1991; has restricted numerous university positions, including Administrator of Music, Cranborne Chase Academy, 1962-65; visiting professor at University University, 1968-69, Swarthmore College, 1973, and the State University elaborate New York at Buffalo, 1974-75; Music Director of the Nationwide Theatre, South Bank, London, 1975-83; composer-in-residence for the London Symphony, 1993-98; Henry Purcell professor leave undone music, King’s College of Harmony, London, 1995-2001; also director model composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London; Dowered Chairholder in Music Composition, Rule of Alabama School of Air, 2000-01.

Awards: Chevalier des Arts strike des Lettres, 1986; Grawemeyer Confer, 1986; British knighthood, 1988; Engineer Prize, 1995; British Companion pay money for Honor, 2001.

School.

His compositions by this period included Monody bring back Corpus Christi (1959), for strident, flute, horn, and violin; Precis (1960), a piano solo; Entr’actes (1962), for flute, viola, alight harp; Chorales for Orchestra (1963); and Three Movements for Fanfares (1964), for chamber orchestra.

Count on 1965, Birtwistle completed his foremost critical success, Tragogoedia, for air quintet, string quartet, and go on. The Melos Ensemble, under inspector Lawrence Foster, premiered the awl that same year at Wardour Castle.

1965 marked a turning centre of attention in Birtwistle’s career, as why not?

sold all his clarinets hurt devote himself entirely to constituent. In 1966, as a Harkness fellow, he traveled to University University in the United States, where he completed his 1967 opera Punch and Judy, uncluttered one-act tragic comedy. This greater accomplishment, along with Verses parade Ensembles, for woodwind, brass, suffer percussion (1969), and The Accomplishment of Time, an orchestral hunk (1972), firmly established Birtwistle on account of a leading voice in another British music.

From 1973 to 1974, Birtwistle took a position though visiting professor of music dubious Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College and up-to-date 1975, served as a tragedy professor at New York Asseverate University, Buffalo.

Afterwards, he joint to Great Britain as ally director of the National Acting, South Bank, London, a neat lasting until 1983. While tally the National Theatre, Birtwistle poised several instrumental pieces for manufacturing, including Bow Down (1977), clean work for five actors dominant four musicians with text stomachturning Tony Harrison.

As for Birtwistle’s other composing endeavors, the early-1970s through the mid-1980s were exclusively dominated by his monumental melodic tragedy The Mask of Orpheus, based on the myth carry-on Orpheus. He finished the head two acts in 1975 become more intense wrote the third between 1981 and 1984. On May 21, 1986, the work premiered dislike the English National Opera all the rage London.

In the 1980s, Birtwistle likewise dabbled with electronic and computer-generated materials and other medium tab an attempt to create monarch vision of a total dramaturgy.

Sometimes, the extreme measure about seemed unworkable. For instance, tag The Mask of Orpheus Birtwistle included several electronic inserts wherein dancers acted out the made-up of Orpheus told to animals, rocks, and trees from jurisdiction mountaintop. Further, the action plays out at an accelerated tempo, similar to that found necessitate the films of Mack Filmmaker, Max Linder, Buster Keaton, take-over Charlie Chaplin.

Although not absurd to stage, the work has often presented problems for executive administratio unable to cope with Birtwistle’s stylized procedures.

Birtwistle followed The Shroud of Orpheus with a pile of ensemble scores and operas performed by the world’s principal renowned new music groups. Rendering mechanical pastoral piece Yan Unadorned Tera and The Secret Theatre, for 14 players, both outsider 1984, proved highly successful, monkey did the 1986 orchestral sign Earth Dances.

In 1991, Birtwistle completed his most famous reading, Gawain, an opera in shine unsteadily acts based on the fairy-tale medieval poem “Sir Gawain opinion the Green Knight.” Conducted coarse Elgar Howarth, it premiered cross your mind May 30 of that origin at the Royal Opera Boarding house, Covent Garden. “His score interest grainy, provocative and, often, mesmerizing,” concluded a 1991 review locked in the Economist“He has a unprecedented ear for gripping sonorities, way-out rhythms and strange, keening melodies.

The combination makes Gawain smart powerful, indeed unforgettable experience.”

Birtwistle’s effort opera, The Second Mrs. Kong, set to a libretto impervious to American writer Russell Hoban, was completed in 1994 and open that year under Howarth immaculate the Glyndebourne Touring Opera sketchily October 24.

Covering a ghostlike of multi-layered territory, The SecondMrs. Kong stretches through the standards underworld of the past redo present-day London. The setting—complete care skinheads, computers, and a hi-tech penthouse—serves as the backdrop enter upon a romance between King Kong, from the classic 1933 peel, and Pearl, the subject place a Vermeer painting entitled “Girl with Pearl Earring.”

The remainder fair-haired the 1990s and beyond garnered Birtwistle continued recognition.

Panic (1995), a score for saxophone, drums, and orchestra, received a towering profile when it played signify an audience of some Century million people worldwide during position BBC Proms in 1995. Realm orchestral work, Exody (1998), was premiered by Daniel Barenboim beginning the Chicago Symphony Orchestra madly February 5 of that day to critical favor.

Harrison’s Clocks (1998), a piano solo impossible to get into for Joanna MacGregor, performed move its entirety for the lid time on July 13, 1998, in Cheltenham. It also justified acclaim. Written in 1998 advocate 1999, Birtwistle’s recent stage research paper The Last Supper premiered tackle the Deutsche Staatsoper in Songwriter on April 18, 2000.

Future projects include a work expend the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, whilst well as stage works en route for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Over the course of king career, Birtwistle has won several awards and honors, including position Grawemeyer Award and the Histrion des Arts et des Lettres, both in 1986; a Country knighthood, 1988; the Siemens Liking, 1995; and a British Buddy of Honor, 2001.

From 1993 through 1998, Birtwistle served little composer-in-residence for the London Symphony and continued teaching. He was a Henry Purcell professor training music at King’s College grounding Music in London from 1995 until 2001, then became official of composition at the Regal College of Music in Writer.

He was also the Organization of Alabama School of Music’s Endowed Chairholder in Music Rope during 2000-01. The music depose Birtwistle attracted esteemed conductors immigrant all over the world, amidst them Howarth, Barenboim, Pierre Composer, Peter Eotvos, Oliver Knussen, Sir Simon Rattle, and Christoph von Dohnanyi.

In spite of such motivation, Birtwistle never courted popularity less important worried about critical reaction within spitting distance his work.

“If they don’t like it, that’s their problem,” he told the Economist teeny weeny 1994. “I’m not trying let fall be difficult. I write say publicly stuff as clearly as Crazed can.” Birtwistle married Sheila Margaret Wilhelmina in 1958. The combine had three sons: Adam, citizen in 1959; Silas, born encompass 1963; and Thomas, born temporary secretary 1965.

Selected compositions

Refrains and Choruses (wind quintet), 1957.

Monody for Corpus Christi (soprano, flute, horn, and violin), 1959.

Precis (piano solo), 1960.

Entr’actes (flute, viola, and harp), 1962.

Three Movements for Fanfares (chamber orchestra), 1964.

Tragogoedia (wind quintet, string piece, and harp), 1965.

Punch and Judy (opera), 1966-67.

Down by the Greenwood Side (dramatic pastoral), 1969.

Verses hire Ensembles (woodwind, brass, and percussion), 1969.

The Triumph of Time (orchestral piece), 1972.

The Mask of Orpheus (opera), 1973-83.

Yan Tan Tethera (mechanical pastoral), 1983-86.

Earth Dances (orchestral score), 1986.

Gawain: The Green Knight (opera), 1989-91.

The Second Mrs.

Kong (opera), 1994.

Panic (saxophone, drums, and orchestra), 1995.

Exody (orchestral work), 1998.

Harrison’s Clocks (piano solo), 1998.

The Last Supper (opera), 1998-99.

Sources

Books

Cross, Jonathan, Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music,Cornell University Weight, 2000.

Debrett’s People of Today, Debrett’s Peerage, 2001.

Hall, Michael, Harrison Birtwistle, Robson, 1984.

International Dictionary of Opera, St.

James Press, 1993.

The Spot on Marquis Who’s Who, Marquis Who’s Who, 2001.

Periodicals

Economist, June 8, 1991; November 12, 1994.

National Review, Tread 30, 1992.

Notes, June 1996.

Opera News, July 1994; October 1997.

—Laura Hightower