Birtwistle, Sir Harrison (1934-2022), was an English composer. He became a leader in avant-garde (experimental and unconventional) music in the United Kingdom. He was probably best known for his theater pieces. Birtwistle also composed orchestral pieces, chamber works, brass band compositions, and instrumental and vocal works. His music has been described as lyrical and strongly poetic, distinguished by a characteristic use of repeated thematic fragments as a basis for composition.
Birtwistle studied clarinet and composition in the 1950’s at the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music). There, he joined an avant-garde music group that included the composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr, the trumpeter and conductor Elgar Howarth, and the pianist John Ogdon, all British composers and musicians. After a year of further study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, and three years of teaching at an English independent school, Birtwistle concentrated on a career of full-time composition. He also undertook university research and teaching in the United States. Birtwistle served as music director of the National Theatre in London from 1975 to 1983. From 1993 to 1998, he was the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer in residence. And from 1994 to 2001, he was the Henry Purcell professor of composition at King’s College London, University of London.
In 1967, Birtwistle and Maxwell Davies founded the Pierrot Players, an instrumental group set up to perform their contemporary chamber works, which often involved theatrical elements. The group became known as the Fires of London in 1970. Birtwistle’s first opera was Punch and Judy (1968), a harrowing study in violence that helped to establish his reputation as a leading British composer. He went on to receive commissions from the organizers of many international music festivals and from other organizations, and produced many compositions. Among the most important are the vast lyric tragedy The Mask of Orpheus, staged by the English National Opera in 1986; and Gawain, an opera based on the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain was performed by the Royal Opera Company at Covent Garden in 1991 and was revised and performed again in 1994. Birtwistle’s other theatrical works include Down by the Greenwood Side (1969); Yan Tan Tethera (1986), a television opera; The Second Mrs Kong (1994); and The Last Supper (2000).
Birtwistle’s compositions for orchestra include Chorales, which he composed from 1960 to 1963 (premiered 1967); Nomos (1968); The Triumph of Time (1972); Earth Dances (1986); Endless Parade (1987), a trumpet concerto; and Antiphonies (1992) and Slow Frieze (1996), both piano concertos. His works for smaller ensembles include The World Is Discovered (1961); Verses for Ensembles (1969); For O, for O, the Hobby Horse Is Forgot (1976); and Secret Theatre (1984). Panic, a piece for saxophone, drums, and orchestra, was first performed at the Last Night of the British Broadcasting Corporation Promenade Concerts in 1995. In 1998, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered Birtwistle’s orchestral work Exody. Birtwistle also composed for solo voice and choral music.
Harrison Paul Birtwistle was born on July 15, 1934, in Accrington, Lancashire, northern England. Birtwistle was knighted in 1988. In 2001, he was made a Companion of Honour, one of the United Kingdom’s highest honors, given by the monarch to individuals who have done important national service. Birtwistle died on April 18, 2022.
