Search - Sir Harrison Birtwistle :: Pulse Shadows

Brilliant

Graham J. Lawrence | Edmonton, Alberta Canada | 11/19/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A wonderful CD and well recorded. This is the first recording of Birtwistle's that I've heard and I am well pleased with it. It ranks up there with the best of Ligetti, Carter, et alia. No wonder it won the Gramophone mag. "contemporary" award last year. I've already played it many times and it improves with every listen. It will not disappoint."

Point of entry

Silenos | 02/22/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Culver's remarks are quite apropos here. Pulse Shadows is a set that arcs back to the expressionist pieces of the Second Viennese school, to the Schoenberg of Pierrot, and perhaps even more to Webern's vocal output. Clearly, those who have yet to find value in such works will have little to gain from Pulse Shadows. Which is unfortunate because this arresting and, yes, emotionally involving piece offers a remarkable point of entry not so much into Birtwistle's own oeuvre (I tend to favor Silbury Air for that purpose) as into that of Paul Celan. Celan's poems present difficulties, not to mention searing emotions, of a resolutely modern kind that would be poorly served by a neo-romantic setting, however much it presumably would please those whose musical evolution stopped somewhere at Mahler. I strongly urge those antipathetic to Birtwistle's set to become acquainted with Celan first: it might change their perspective and enlarge their world."