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Track Listings
| 1. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : I Fantasia 1 |
| 2. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : II Thread suns |
| 3. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : III Frieze 1 |
| 4. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : IV White and Light |
| 5. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : V Fantasia 2 |
| 6. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : VI Psalm |
| 7. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : VII Fantasia 3 |
| 8. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : VIII With Letter and Clock |
| 9. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : IX Frieze 2 |
| 10. "Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : X An Eye, Open" |
| 11. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XI Fantasia 4 |
| 12. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XII Todtnauberg |
| 13. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XIII Frieze 3 |
| 14. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XIV Tenebrae |
| 15. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XV Fantasia 5 |
| 16. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XVI Night |
| 17. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XVII Todesfuge - Frieze 4 |
| 18. Birtwistle : Pulse Shadows : XVIII Give the Word |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
At over an hour long, Pulse Shadows is one of Birtwistle's most significant and important works. It was back in 1989 when the composer first became interested in the poems of the Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan and began setting them as songs. Coupled with the Nine Movements for String Quartet, they form an 18-movement cycle. The fragmentary style of the music is reminiscent of Webern, yet Birtwistle goes much further, freed of self-imposed musical restrictions, and constructs an emotionally taught and highly integrated piece. This is perhaps surprising if we know that in the composer's directions the piece could be played in any order. Part of its integration is achieved in the subject matter, but also the instrumentation--the viola plays as part of the quartet as well as the ensemble. The other reason for its structural success is that, even though each movement is self-generating and self-contained, ideas are merely exposed and are not necessarily developed in other movements, though they simultaneously share the same stylistic nuances. Indeed this is the whole purpose of the piece: are the resulting movements initial ideas?--a pulse, or responses to an initial idea?--a shadow? Whatever they are, the whole is brilliantly performed.--Dominic Sewell
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing stuff,
By
This review is from: Birtwistle: Pulse Shadows (Audio CD)
Wow -- finally got round to this and it's knocking my socks off. Never have I heard HB's writing sound so direct; the performances and recording just emphasise the clarity with which this music is put together. The vocal lines are intensely lyrical, & there's a Bartockian quality to the way short motifs ae developed, repeated etc, and also to the way the string quartet is handled. If you don't know HB's music, this is absolutely definitely the place to start. I'm gobsmacked, really.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A generally successful setting of Paul Celan's poetry mixed with virtuoso string passages,
By Christopher Culver - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Birtwistle: Pulse Shadows (Audio CD)
Wow. I've generally been no fan of the British composer Harrison Birtwistle. Most piece I've heard from him I've found to be grey and directionless, a sort of generic modernism little distinguishable from the work of many other composers. But in his epic work PULSE SHADOWS, Birtwistle has set the poetry of Paul Celan with great effect.
The Romanian-born, German-speaking and French-naturalized Celan was a survivor of Holocaust, but his parents and many Jewish acquaintances perished in the camps. His poetry is concerned with what language might mean after "that which happened" in the war, and his poetry seems to doubt the power to express anything with words at that same time that it moves into stunning linguistic brilliance. If you like 20th century poetry, there's a fine volume of Celan's poetry available with the same translations as found here. Birtwistle's PULSE SHADOWS consists of two interleaved parts. On one hand, there are the Nine Settings of Celan for soprano and chamber ensemble (two clarinets, cello, viola and double bass), where Celan's poems are powerfully articulated in Michael Hamburger's English translations. On the other hand, we hear interspersed between them the Nine Movements for string quartet.. The ensemble pieces are light in musical content, with the vocal line always calm and singable and little instrumental ostentation, but the words of Celan they set are searing. I especially love the setting of "Todtnauberg", the sole poem sung in the original German, where the soprano speaks the English translation after each line as if underscoring it. The string quartet passages in some sense provide a release from the angst of the poetry, but are highly virtuosic and avoid any kind of stability. It's remarkable that PULSE SHADOWS is a combination of two independent works that, what's more, can be played in any order, for the work presented on this disc is entirely coherent. The liner notes are quite informative, containing an essay on the work by Stephen Pruslin and comments by Celan translator Michael Hamburger giving his view of Birtwistle's blend of poetry and music. My only complaint is that they do not give the exact lineup of the Arditti Quartet which performs here. This disc will probably not appeal to listeners who aren't comfortable with at least the music of the Second Viennese School--though it's not Darmstadt-era weirdness and listeners who are willing to go as far as Schoenberg and his vein of expressionism will find much familiar here. Still, if you like contemporary music, this is a disc worth hearing. 7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
By Graham J. Lawrence - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Birtwistle: Pulse Shadows (Audio CD)
A wonderful CD and well recorded. This is the first recording of Birtwistle's that I've heard and I am well pleased with it. It ranks up there with the best of Ligetti, Carter, et alia. No wonder it won the Gramophone mag. "contemporary" award last year. I've already played it many times and it improves with every listen. It will not disappoint.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Point of entry,
By Silenos - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Birtwistle: Pulse Shadows (Audio CD)
Culver's remarks are quite apropos here. Pulse Shadows is a set that arcs back to the expressionist pieces of the Second Viennese school, to the Schoenberg of Pierrot, and perhaps even more to Webern's vocal output. Clearly, those who have yet to find value in such works will have little to gain from Pulse Shadows. Which is unfortunate because this arresting and, yes, emotionally involving piece offers a remarkable point of entry not so much into Birtwistle's own oeuvre (I tend to favor Silbury Air for that purpose) as into that of Paul Celan. Celan's poems present difficulties, not to mention searing emotions, of a resolutely modern kind that would be poorly served by a neo-romantic setting, however much it presumably would please those whose musical evolution stopped somewhere at Mahler. I strongly urge those antipathetic to Birtwistle's set to become acquainted with Celan first: it might change their perspective and enlarge their world.
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