A pregnant silence, a peaty belch from the tuba, and the scrape of brass on brass as gears lock into position and judder forward. It’s almost worth making a bingo card for a Harrison Birtwistle première these days, and I’m not complaining. His last big orchestral work, Deep Time, showed worrying signs of him mellowing into some sort of late period. Not here though, he isn’t. Grinding brass cogwheels? Tick. Sudden stillnesses, punctuated by deadpan creakings and poppings? Tick. Primal screeches from the woodwinds, jarring against chords of millstone grit? House!
Birtwistle’s new fanfare achieves a lot in just three minutes, and it’s a handsome gift to Sir Simon Rattle, who was batting for Birtwistle’s music when that was still quite a courageous thing to do. (The title, Donum Simoni MMXVIII, looks like a joke at the expense of Birtwistle’s one-time fondness for po-faced Latin titles.) Today, a Birtwistle première is a status symbol, reserved for the world’s elite ensembles.
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