Gramophone Awards, Birtwistle (composer)

these are among the most powerful orchestral pieces of recent years...Wigglesworth and the Halle give performances of amazing concentration, accuracy and passion, aided by recorded sound of... — BBC Music Magazine, September 2011, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

This is a wonderful and important release of his powerful and often delicate works. Best, perhaps, to begin with On the Sheer Threshold of the Night, which is a kind of spin-off from The Mask... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2014, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

From Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire to Boulez's Le marteau sans maître and Kurtág's Messages of the late RV Troussova, modernist composers have used the medium of voice with mixed instrumental... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…

…anyone listening to these discs will find many things to savour… It is, inevitably an eclectic mix, but, as in any well-planned song recital, the progressions and juxtapositions are continually... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2009, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

It's almost 40 years since the 1968 premiere of Punch and Judy, celebrated in legend as a rude gesture in the face of Aldeburgh primness, and with hindsight as one of the finest achievements... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…

When these recordings first appeared Birtwistle enthusiasts were still absorbing the impact of three 1986 premieres, Earth Dances, The Mask ofOrpheus and Yan Tan Tethera – works which helped... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…

Birtwistle's opera is about the Orpheus myth, but the familiar story has been fragmented. Each of the principal characters is represented by two singers and a (silent) dancer, and much of what... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…