Harrison Birtwistle: Angel Fighter/In Broken Images/Virelai

PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN
KURZBESCHREIBUNG
Jüngste Werke Die CD stellt einige der jüngeren Werke des großen britischen Avantgardisten vor: Die Kantate Angel Fighter (2009) thematisiert auf drastische Weise die biblische Geschichte vom Kampf Jakobs mit dem Engel. In Broken Images (2011/2012) ist von den mehrchörigen Canzonen Gabrielis inspiriert. Virelai (2008) ist eine rhythmisch komplexe Umsetzung eines Stückes von Johannes Ciconia (ca.1370/75 - 1412).



Harrison Birtwistle is internationally regarded as one of the most striking and individual composers today. His unique soundworld runs the full gamut from large-scale operatic and orchestral canvases, rich in mythical and primitivist power, to intimate chamber works, contemplative in their lyricism.
One of Birtwistle's most recent works The Cure a co-commission between The Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Music and London Sinfonietta has its World Premiere 12-15 June at Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, and London Premiere at Linbury Studio Theatre, London 1827 June 2015.
Described by The Guardian as 'hauntingly powerful', Birtwistle's cantata Angel Fighter vividly explores the Biblical story of the struggle between man and divine being from the Book of Genesis. Predictably, for a composer with a long-standing fascination in myth, drama and ritual, it's the physical fi ght between Jacob and the Angel more than religious signifi cance, that interests Birtwistle: the tension, twists of pulse, sharp accents and jeering chants from the chorus make it feel more like a wrestling match than a life-or-death struggle. Quartertones and string harmonics enhance the otherworldly descent of the Angel from Heaven and librettist Stephen Plaice makes clever use of Enochian, an angelic language 'discovered' by the 16th century alchemist and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee.
In Broken Images, inspired by Gabrieli's multi-choir canzonas, splits the ensemble into four groups (woodwind, brass, strings and percussion) and takes its title from the Robert Graves poem. Birtwistle continues to draw infl uence from the past in Virelai (Sus une fontayne), a rhythmically intricate realisation of a piece by Johannes Ciconia, who fl ourished in the late Middle Ages, around the time that Chaucer was writing his Canterbury Tales.





REZENSION
The recordings of the cantata Angel Fighter, from 2011, and the ensemble piece In Broken Images, first performed the following year, bring the Birtwistle catalogue almost up to date.The only significant recent works not yet available on disc are the Violin Concerto of 2011 and the piano concerto Responses from last year.While In Broken Images, with its antiphonal instrumental groups and echoes of Giovanni Gabrieli,is the latest addition to the series of pieces Birtwistle has composed for the London Sinfonietta that now stretches back over more than 40 years, Angel Fighter, composed for the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, is a spare and strikingly original piece of dramatic storytelling. It presents the Old Testament tale of Jacob wrestling an angel as a ritualised game between the tenor Jacob (Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts) and the counter-tenor Angel (Andrew Watts) and climaxes in one of the great dramatic moments in Birtwistle's concert music, even if not quite all that theatricality comes across in the recording, which was taken from the UK premiere at the 2011 Proms. --The Guardian

NMC's release contains two long items and a short.Angel Fighter(2010),a dramatic episode from Genesis,in which Jacob wrestles with the Angel,was composed (to words by Stephen Plaice) for Leipzig's Bachfest and would evoke Bach cantatas if Birtwistle's gestic pungency did not sweep all before.This is Radio 3's recording of the excellent Cadogan Hall British premiere.In Broken Images(2011) an intriguing meditation on eponymous Graves poem might evoke Gabrieli but for the same proviso.The brief Virelai(Sus une fontayne)brilliantly transforms a late medieval original. --The Sunday Times - Paul Driver

Anyone in 2015 disposed to expect ageing dinosaurs going through the motions should be struck by the energy and sharpness of response in these recordings…This CD is a pungent and persuasive statement about what properly serious music can achieve today. --Gramophone July 2015

1: Angel Fighter
2: In Broken Images
3: Virelai (Sus Une Fontayne)

Composer: Harrison Birtwistle

Conductor: David Atherton

Number of Discs: 1

Orchestra: London Sinfonietta

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