Jonathan Harvey

. . . luminously scored and graced by a good deal of glorious vocal writing... Paul Griffiths, The Musical Times, January 1981, Instrumentation: 0000 – 1110 – perc(1): claves/2 susp.cym/vib/2 wdbl/2 s...

The vocal writing. . . is economical and pithy, and it is complemented by brilliantly imagined instrumental colours. This is music of great energy and sensuality. . .Arnold Whittall, Gramophone, Octob...

Bhakti was written in 1982, to a commission from IRCAM, Paris. It is in twelve short movements totalling about fifty minutes. There are 36 subsections; each one defined by a certain number of instrume...

Instrumentation: fl(=picc).ob(=ca).ssax – tpt – perc(1): 2 susp.cym/mar/vib/2 congas/tom-t/gong/2 wdbl/bongos/glsp/whip – 2 Yamaha DX7 II synthesizers (1 player) – pno – 2 harp – 2 vln.vla.vlc

'Scena' is a quasi-operatic scene either for singer and ensemble or for a singer-like solo instrument and ensemble. In this case the solo violin proceeds through several dramatic events roughly signal...

The Riot is a work in which virtuoso exhilaration is predominant. The game is to throw around themes which retain their identity sufficiently to bounce off each other sharply, even when combined polyp...

Jonathan Harvey's The Riot was written for HET TRIO and commissioned by Bristol University Music Department, with funds provided in part by South West Arts, especially for the Colston Symposium 19...

Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) was a British composer who studied at St Johns College, Cambridge and Princeton University, and who later taught at various universities and conservatoires across Europe an...

Commissioned by David Hellewell for the Apollo Emsemble with funds provided by the Southern Arts Association. Written for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and tam-tam.

Written for soprano, 3 clarinets and piano.

. . . lush chords and sonorities, ecstatic rhythmic energy within constantly changing metres, intricate birdsong-like arabesques and a primary-coloured approach to the orchestra. Stephen Banfield, The...

Ashes Dance Back was commissioned for the New London Chamber Choir in memory of Judie Campbell, by her husband, Philip. Ashes Dance Back for choir and electronics uses fragments of text from Andrew Ha...

In Quartet no. 3 there is a dialectic between a surface texture which is fleeting and fragmented and an underlying structure which is very strictly repetitive. A number of ‘themes’ (ten, or twenty whe...

Instrumentation: 3(=picc).2(II=ca).2(I=Ebcl.II=Ebcl+bcl).2(II=cbsn) – 4231 – perc(5): vib/glsp/lujon/mcas/xyl/coiled spring/mark tree/BD/tpl.bl/c.bell/mar/siz.cym/crot/gong/t.bells/guiro/4 oriental go...

Commissioned for the traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols in King's College Cambridge on Christmas Eve, 1994. Harvey uses words by Bishop Taylor in a beautiful melody sung by one choir, acco...