Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music - Tapa blanda

"In this book, Jonathan Cross studies the sources of Birtwistle's art and presents an account of his musical, aesthetic, and dramatic preoccupations through an exploration of such topics as myth, theater, ritual, pastoral, pulse, and line." * Chamber Music * "This is a lucid, detailed, and eloquent study of a powerful, uncompromising composer. It will surely deepen understanding and maybe even enjoyment of Birtwistle's formidably difficult music." * American Record Guide * "Excellently written... recommended to very serious music libraries." * Choice * "Jonathan Cross... makes these complex works accessible to the non-specialist... Cross's accounts of the operas... are among the most interesting passages, managing simultaneously to convey a sense of what the music 'sounds like' and an idea of its wider resonances." -- Michael Downes * Times Literary Supplement *

Sir Harrison Birtwistle is the most original, the most challenging, and the most controversial British composer of our time. His notoriously angular music is at once defiantly modernist and deeply indebted to the traditions, medieval and modern, of English music. Birtwistle composes for ensembles of every size and shape but is perhaps best known for his music for the opera stage. His opera Gawain, possibly his most famous work, is fully characteristic in its marriage of a modernist musical language and a mythic subject. Accessible to anyone with an interest in modern music, this book uncovers the sources of Birtwistle's art and presents a critical account of his musical, dramatic, and aesthetic preoccupations through an exploration of such topics as theater, myth, ritual, pastoral, pulse, and line. It places Birtwistle in a broad cultural context, examining the composers and painters who have influenced his work.