Pulse Shadows
At over an hour,Pulse Shadowsis one of Birtwistle's most 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, he constructs an emotionally taut, 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 while simultaneously sharing 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? Brilliantly performed.--Dominic Sewell