Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem

   in Classical Music (Apr, 2014)
Recorded after a memorable Proms UK premiere last year, The Moth Requiem is one of Birtwistle’s most austerely beautiful works. Scored for women’s voices, three harps and alto flute, it movingly pairs Robin Blaser’s poem triggered by a memory of the sounds made by a moth trapped under a piano lid with the hauntingly evocative latin names of moths themselves. The Ring Dance of the Nazarene, featuring a standout contribution from Williams, is similarly striking, as are performances and recording. …
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   in Choir & Organ (May, 2014)
To enter the soundworld of Harrison Birtwistle is to go on a journey of either diverse and inventive complexity or one of contrasting simplicity, either intensely lyrical or disjointed with the addition of innovative scoring. The inventiveness of the composer’s mind produces sounds that are entirely personal to him, his creativity inspired by the texts he is setting. For Ring Dance of the Nazarene, Birtwistle’s favoured collaborator David Harsent has produced a text connected to the Last Supper based on the apocryphal Acts of John. The words of Christ are heard either through the baritone voice – a beautifully intuitive performance by Roderick Williams – or the chorus. Phrase …
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