Sir Harrison Birtwistle - Pulse Shadows
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CD Details
Artist: Sir Harrison BirtwistleEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2001-11-13
Music Label: Teldec
Soundtracks:
- Fantasia 1
- Thread suns Fadensonnen
- Frieze 1
- White and Light
- Fantasia 2
- Psalm
- Fantasia 3
- With Letter and Clock
- Frieze 2
- An Eye, open
- Fantasia
- Todtnauberg
- frieze 3
- Tenebrae
- Fantasia 5
- Night
- Todesfuge-Frieze 4
- Give the Word
Music reviews of Pulse Shadows
Music Review: A generally successful setting of Paul Celan's poetry mixed with virtuoso string passages
Rating: 4 Stars
Wow. I've generally been no fan of the British composer Harrison Birtwistle. Most piece I've heard from him I've found to be grey and directionless, a sort of generic modernism little distinguishable from the work of many other composers. But in his epic work PULSE SHADOWS, Birtwistle has set the poetry of Paul Celan with great effect.
The Romanian-born, German-speaking and French-naturalized Celan was a survivor of Holocaust, but his parents and many Jewish acquaintances perished in the camps. His poetry is concerned with what language might mean after "that which happened" in the war, and his poetry seems to doubt the power to express anything with words at that same time that it moves into stunning linguistic brilliance. If you like 20th century poetry, there's a fine volume of Celan's poetry available with the same translations as found here.
Birtwistle's PULSE SHADOWS consists of two interleaved parts. On one hand, there are the Nine Settings of Celan for soprano and chamber ensemble (two clarinets, cello, viola and double bass), where Celan's poems are powerfully articulated in Michael Hamburger's English translations. On the other hand, we hear interspersed between them the Nine Movements for string quartet.. The ensemble pieces are light in musical content, with the vocal line always calm and singable and little instrumental ostentation, but the words of Celan they set are searing. I especially love the setting of "Todtnauberg", the sole poem sung in the original German, where the soprano speaks the English translation after each line as if underscoring it. The string quartet passages in some sense provide a release from the angst of the poetry, but are highly virtuosic and avoid any kind of stability. It's remarkable that PULSE SHADOWS is a combination of two independent works that, what's more, can be played in any order, for the work presented on this disc is entirely coherent.
The liner notes are quite informative, containing an essay on the work by Stephen Pruslin and comments by Celan translator Michael Hamburger giving his view of Birtwistle's blend of poetry and music. My only complaint is that they do not give the exact lineup of the Arditti Quartet which performs here.
This disc will probably not appeal to listeners who aren't comfortable with at least the music of the Second Viennese School--though it's not Darmstadt-era weirdness and listeners who are willing to go as far as Schoenberg and his vein of expressionism will find much familiar here. Still, if you like contemporary music, this is a disc worth hearing.
Description of Pulse Shadows
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