Birtwistle: Angel Fighter - In Broken Images - Virelai (Sus une fontayne) Andrew Watts

• Harrison Birtwistle (1934-): Angel Fighter
• 1Angel Fighter31:09
• In Broken Images
• 2In Broken Images18:21
• Virelai (Sus une fontayne)
• 3Virelai (Sus une fontayne)03:55
• Total Runtime53:25

Info for Birtwistle: Angel Fighter - In Broken Images - Virelai (Sus une fontayne)

Described by The Guardian as 'hauntingly powerful', Birtwistle's cantata Angel Fighter vividly explores the Biblical story of the struggle between man and divine being from the Book of Genesis. Predictably, for a composer with a long-standing fascination in myth, drama and ritual, it's the physical fight between Jacob and the Angel more than religious significance, that interests Birtwistle: the tension, twists of pulse, sharp accents and jeering chants from the chorus make it feel more like a wrestling match than a life-or-death struggle. Quartertones and string harmonics enhance the otherworldly descent of the Angel from Heaven and librettist Stephen Plaice makes clever use of Enochian, an angelic language 'discovered' by the 16th century alchemist and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee.

In Broken Images, inspired by Gabrieli's multi-choir canzonas, splits the ensemble into four groups (woodwind, brass, strings and percussion) and takes its title from the Robert Graves poem. Birtwistle continues to draw influence from the past in Virelai (Sus une fontayne), a rhythmically intricate realisation of a piece by Johannes Ciconia, who flourished in the late Middle Ages, around the time that Chaucer was writing his Canterbury Tales.

„Angel Fighter is a spare and strikingly original piece of dramatic storytelling. It presents the Old Testament tale of Jacob wrestling an angel as a ritualised game between the tenor Jacob (Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts) and the counter-tenor Angel (Andrew Watts) and climaxes in one of the great dramatic moments in Birtwistle’s concert music.“ (The Guardian)

„Angel Fighter would evoke Bach cantatas if Birtwistle’s gestic pungency did not sweep all before ... In Broken Images — an intriguing meditation on the eponymous Graves poem — might evoke Gabrieli but for the same proviso. The brief Virelai (Sus une fontayne) brilliantly transforms a late-medieval original.“ (Sunday Times)

„Angel Fighter - dramatic and compelling as the title seems to suggest.“ (BBC Radio 3)

„Virelai - a brilliant reimagining of a 3-part medieval piece by flemish composer Johannes Ciconia.“ BBC Radio 3)

Andrew Watts, countertenor
Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, tenor
BBC Singers
London Sinfonietta
David Atherton, conductor

No biography found.

Booklet for Birtwistle: Angel Fighter - In Broken Images - Virelai (Sus une fontayne)