London, Europe Brief News- Harrison Birtwistle, British composer renowned as a great modernist whose music is imbued with stubborn power and a sense of unreachable mystery, has died aged 87.
He is perhaps best known for 1972 orchestral work The Triumph of Time, as well as operas The Mask Of Orpheus, Gawain and The Minotaur.
Publishers Boosey & Hawkes and agency Rayfield Allied announced with “deep sadness” that he died at his home in Mere, Wiltshire on 18 April.
The Royal Philharmonic Society called him “a true musical colossus”.
Birtwistle was that surprising thing, a deeply English composer who was also internationally renowned as a great modernist.
His friend and collaborator Martyn Brabbins, music director at English National Opera, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Sir Harrison had an “amazing level of detail” and “everything he did had an overarching sense of dramatic impulse, of characterisation and colour”.
He agreed that “complex and uncompromising” were also ways of describing his work, but that it was always governed by “a massively sincere need to communicate what music can express”.
“He reached a massive audience,” he said, adding: “If you got Harry’s music, it was an irresistible force”.
When asked about criticisms of Sir Harrison’s work, such as the piece Panic from the Last Night of the Proms in 1995, which was described by some newspapers as “a cacophony”, Brabbins said he “cared passionately”.
Panic was the first piece of contemporary music ever to have appeared on a Last Night programme, and Brabbins said the “furore over that piece really affected Harry in a negative way”.
“He was a very sensitive soul although he had a gruff exterior, he was a very creative artist,” he added.
His music has featured in major festivals and concert series in Europe, the US and Japan, attracting international conductors including Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle.
