Birtwistle: Angel Fighter, In Broken Images & Virelai (Sus une fontayne)

Featuring

David Atherton
Andrew Watts
Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts
London Sinfonietta
BBC Singers
Harrison Birtwistle

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Recording & Production

The works on this album were recorded live: Angel Fighter at Cadogan Hall in 2011, and In Broken Images and Virelai (Sus une fontayne) at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

Performer Biography

The London Sinfonietta, founded in 1968, has commissioned over 300 new works and premiered hundreds more, aiming to place contemporary classical music at the heart of culture.

Composer Biography

Harrison Birtwistle, born in Accrington in 1934, initially studied clarinet and composition before dedicating himself solely to composition in 1965.

Compositional Technique

Birtwistle's music often exhibits a 'slowness' in the sense of processes unfolding over an entire composition, even with internal 'juddering' and 'broken images'.

Cultural Impact

Harrison Birtwistle's work Panic received a high-profile premiere at the 1995 BBC Proms, reaching an estimated worldwide audience of 100 million.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Birtwistle's work often features life-and-death struggles shaped as games, a characteristic seen in works like Punch and Judy and Down by the Greenwood Side.