Author Description

Michael Hall's Harrison Birtwistle in Recent Years brings the reader up-to-date with all this outstanding composer's recent achievements. Sir Harrison Birtwistle has produced some of the most compelling music of our time. No other living composer can match his extraordinary theatrical flair. It informs not only his operas but just about everything he composes from major orchestral works such as The Triumph of Time, Earth Dances and Exody to chamber music such as Pulse Shadows and even miniature piano pieces. In this new study covering everything Birtwistle has written since Yan Tan Tethera, Hall has compiled the most comprehensive account of Birtwistle's work and methods of composition. He shows that although the composer's music may appear to be complex at times, it is in fact based on the varied use of one or two very simple relationships. Birtwistle considers himself to be an inveterate melancholic, but his music reveals that he has a boyish sense of humour and an optimism of spirit which seems to be at odds with his view of himself. However, as Hall makes clear, just about everything Birtwistle does is ambiguous. This is where his poetry lies.