In the words of painter Francis Bacon, one of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's artistic heroes, 'all art has now become completely a game by which man distracts himself ... the artist must now deepen the game to be any good at all'. Birtwistle's games are, by turns, complex, playful, labyrinthine and ritualistic.
Birtwistle's artistic world is rich, and it pervades this festival: from the exquisite melancholy of John Dowland's songs to the sculptural stillness of the music of Morton Feldmen; from Greek Drama via Renaissance painting to popular cinema. The Birtwistle listener is faced with music that seems utterly fresh but that, somehow, appears to have existed since the beginning of time.
Presented by the Philharmonia Orchestra in association with the South Bank Centre
