Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer who created music in the modern classical style. He is best known for his operas, which often tell stories from myths. Some of his most famous works include The Triumph of Time (1972), The Mask of Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), and The Minotaur (2008). In 2019, The Minotaur was listed by music critics at The Guardian as the third-best piece of the 21st century. Even his non-operatic compositions often had a dramatic style. A performance of his saxophone concerto Panic during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms received widespread attention. He was honored with many international awards and received honorary degrees.

Life and career

Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a town in Lancashire known for its mills, about 20 miles north of Manchester. His parents, Fred and Madge Birtwistle, owned a bakery. His mother encouraged his interest in music and bought him a clarinet when he was seven. She arranged for him to take lessons with the local bandmaster. He attended Accrington Grammar School. Much of his childhood was spent exploring the countryside near his home. He felt upset by how modern technology disrupted nature, and this feeling influenced his later work. As a young person, he built sets for amateur plays and imagined stories happening inside them. He became skilled enough to play in a local military-style band and performed in orchestras that accompanied Gilbert and Sullivan productions and the local choral society’s performances of Handel’s Messiah. Around this time, he began composing, later calling his early pieces "sub-Vaughan Williams."

In 1952, he entered the Royal Manchester College of Music on a clarinet scholarship. There, he met other musicians, including Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, pianist John Ogdon, and trumpeter Elgar Howarth. Between 1955 and 1957, he served in the Royal Artillery (Plymouth) Band, based in Oswestry.

From 1962 to 1965, Birtwistle worked as the director of music at Cranborne Chase School. After that, he studied at Princeton University on a Harkness Fellowship, where he completed the opera Punch and Judy, with a libretto by Stephen Pruslin. The opera premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival. It is said that Benjamin Britten left during intermission. This work, along with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time, helped increase Birtwistle’s recognition in the classical music world. The Triumph of Time, inspired by a woodcut by Pieter Bruegel, premiered in 1972.

In 1972, he wrote the music for the film The Offence, starring Sean Connery. This was his only film score. In 1975, he became the musical director of the newly created Royal National Theatre in London, a role he held until 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and became a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2001. From 1994 to 2001, he taught as the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College London. In 1987, he received the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his opera The Mask of Orpheus.

Although he was well known in classical music circles, Birtwistle was not widely recognized by the general public until the mid-1990s. In 1994, two musicians who opposed modern music styles, Frederick Stocken and Keith Burstein, called themselves "The Hecklers" and organized a protest at the first night of a revival of his opera Gawain at the Royal Opera House in London. The next year, his saxophone piece Panic was played during the second half of the Last Night of the Proms. This was the first contemporary music piece ever performed at that event, watched by an estimated 100 million people worldwide. According to the Daily Telegraph, many viewers found the piece difficult to understand.

In 1995, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. At the 2006 Ivor Novello Awards, he criticized some pop musicians for performing too loudly and using too many common musical phrases.

Musicians who performed his works include conductors Pierre Boulez, Sir Andrew Davis, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Oliver Knussen, and Simon Rattle. Violinist Christian Tetzlaff performed the world premiere of Birtwistle’s violin concerto in 2011. Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed the first version of Birtwistle’s Responses for piano and orchestra in 2014.

Birtwistle had a low profile in the media but occasionally gave interviews. In 2019, he spoke on Composer of the Week on BBC Radio 3. He married Sheila Duff, a

Music

Birtwistle's music is not placed in any specific group or style. At one time, he was linked to the Manchester School, a term created to compare him and other composers like Goehr and Davies to the Second Viennese School. Birtwistle's music is complicated and written in a modern style with a unique sound, often described as loud and bold.

His early works sometimes remind listeners of Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen, whom he said influenced him. His method of placing large blocks of sound next to each other is similar to Edgard Varèse's technique. Hearing the music of Boulez (Le Marteau sans maître) and Stockhausen (Zeitmaße and Gruppen) when he was young also inspired him, especially Stockhausen's work, which influenced his piece Refrains and Choruses (1957). His early compositions often used repeated patterns and had a ceremonial feel. These features became less common in his later work as his style evolved.

Even when not creating a visual piece with stage action, Birtwistle's music often had a dramatic feel. His compositions do not follow traditional rules like sonata form but are structured more like a play. In some works, different instruments seem to act as characters in the drama. This is clear in Secret Theatre (1984), where some musicians leave their usual positions to perform alone before returning to the group.

• Punch and Judy (1966–1967)
• The Mask of Orpheus (1973–84)
• Gawain (1990)
• The Second Mrs Kong (1993–94)
• The Last Supper (2000)
• The Minotaur (2008)
• The Corridor, chamber opera (2009)
• The Cure (2014–15)

• Refrains and Choruses (1957), wind quintet
• The Triumph of Time (1971–72), orchestra
• Silbury Air (1976–77), chamber orchestra
• Secret Theatre (1984), chamber ensemble
• Panic (1995), alto saxophone, jazz drum kit and orchestra
• Theseus Game (2002), large ensemble with two conductors
• In Broken Images (2011), large ensemble (inspired by Gabrieli's antiphonal music)
• Songs from the Same Earth (2012–13), tenor and piano
• Responses (2013–14), piano concerto
• Deep Time (2016), orchestra

Honours and awards

• 1986 – Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, University of Louisville
• 1986 – Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ministry of Culture, France
• 1988 – Knight Bachelor (Kt), Monarchy of the United Kingdom, 1988 Queen's Birthday Honours List
• 1989 – Fellowship, Royal Northern College of Music (FRNCM)

• 1994 – Honorary Fellow, Royal Academy of Arts
• 1995 – Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
• 2001 – Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH), Monarchy of the United Kingdom, 2001 New Years Honours List
• 2003 – Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards Large-scale Composition, London
• 2007 – Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2015 – Wihuri Sibelius Prize

• 1994 – Doctor of Music (D.Mus.), University of Sussex
• 1996 – Doctor of Music (D.Mus.), City, University of London
• 2008 – Doctor of Music (D.Mus.), University of London
• 2010 – Doctor of Music (D.Mus.), University of Cambridge
• 2013 – Doctorate, Bath Spa University
• 2014 – Doctor of Music (D.Mus.), University of Oxford
• 2014 – Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Edge Hill University