大象传媒

This week Donald Macleod meets Sir Harrison Birtwistle, described as 鈥渢he most forceful and uncompromisingly original composer of his generation鈥�. We hear his major compositions, broadly in chronological order, and reveal the preoccupations and processes behind a singular music imagination.

In this episode, Birtwistle talks about his daily working life, and about his early years at what was then the Royal Manchester College of Music.
He tells Donald about how his problems with formal education didn't stop him becoming a voracious reader. Beginning as a clarinettist, he found himself developing a creative inner life beyond being an instrumentalist, and wanting to create a music that didn鈥檛 exist. We also hear about the infamous premiere of his first opera Punch and Judy at Aldeburgh, where much of the audience 鈥� including its commissioner Benjamin Britten 鈥� walked out at the interval.

Oockooing Bird
Stephen Pruslin, piano

Refrains and Choruses
The Galliard Ensemble

Punch and Judy (The Resolve; Passion Aria; Adding Song)
Stephen Roberts, baritone (Punch)
Jan Degaetani, mezzo-soprano (Judy)
David Wilson-Johnson, baritone (Choregos)
The London Sinfonietta
David Atherton, cond.

Tragoedia
Ensemble InterContemporain
Pierre Boulez, cond.

Producer: Iain Chambers