Harrison Birtwistle – Complete Piano Works
Axe Manual (2000) , Oockooing Bird, Sad Song, Berceuse de Jeanne, Précis, Hector’s Dawn, Ostinato with Melody, Betty Freeman:Her Tango, Saraband: The Kings’ Farewell, Harrison’s Clocks.
World premiere recording of the Axe Manual “one of Birtwistle’s most important recent works” (The Guardian) with all Birtwistle’s published piano music to date.
From the modal Oockooing Bird to the monumental Axe Manual, Harrison Birtwistle’s pian oworks stretch across his entire compositional career. Whether written for a large public forum or as occasional pieces for friends and family, all the works on this disc reveal a composer committed to exploring the sonorities and physicality of the modern piano in new and exciting ways.
The Axe Manual, a play on its commissioner Emanuel Ax, is a “manual” both in the sense that it is a sort of compendium of rhythmic devices and a manual of keyboards, piano, marimba and vibraphone. Harrison’s Clocks “is a kind of deconstructed clock” says Birtwistle “Clocks have many facets – set of layers of cogs moving at different speeds
“A performance of pianistic poetry that catches the music’s dusky tone” The Times
Nicholas Hodges piano
Claire Edwards percussion
MET CD 1074 CD 70.58 mins Interview with composer and notes by Jonathan Cross in English DDD
Barcode 5028165107421
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