Birtwistle, Harrison: Pulse Shadows (1989-96) 64'

9 Settings of Celan interleaved with 9 Movements for String Quartet

Music Text  
Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger (E,G)

Scoring
Solo sop-string quartet-2cl-vla.vlc.db 3 movements from each constituent cycle are published by Universal Edition. The complete work is available on hire from Boosey & Hawkes.

World Premiere
4/29/1996
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Claron McFadden, soprano / Capricorn / Arditti Quartet / Lionel Friend


Press Quotes  
"Pulse Shadows is a consummation of Birtwistle's art... His word-setting has a toughness that keeps faith with the poetry, and his jittery quartet idiom a virtuosity nowhere more apparent than in Todesfuge, a spectacular (spectral) version of a late Beethoven fugue." 
Sunday Times

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