Panic at the proms (perhaps the explanation lies in his background)
This paper has been written as both a celebration of the music of Harrison Birtwistle-"the most forceful and uncompromisingly original British composer of his generation" according to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians - and as a response, at once playful and polemic, to the critics and commentators who struggle to name, claim, frame and contain it within the familiar categories and tropes of contemporary music interpretation. My particular focus is Panic which is exemplary in this respect and what Birtwistle cognoscendi have a habit of referring to as 'his background to 'explain' the idiosyncratic difficulty and difference of his work, as in the quotation cited as my subtitle.
Keyword(s):
1996 ◽
Vol 15
(1)
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pp. 139-150
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Keyword(s):
1976 ◽
Vol 29
(1)
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pp. 153-156
1991 ◽
Vol 9
(3)
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pp. 275-299
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