Birtwistle: The Axe Manual, Harrison's Clocks, Oockooing Bird

COMPOSERS: Birtwistle
LABELS: Metronome
ALBUM TITLE: The Axe Manual
WORKS: The Axe Manual, Harrison's Clocks, Oockooing Bird
PERFORMER: Nicolas Hodges, Claire Edwards
CATALOGUE NO: MET CD 1074

Compared with some of his peers –



Ligeti, Stockhausen, Boulez –



Birtwistle has written relatively little



for the piano. But by including the



punningly titled The Axe Manual,



the piece for piano and percussion



written for Emanuel Ax and



Evelyn Glennie in 2000, as well as



the teenage (yet already typically



melancholic) Oockooing Bird and the



1960 Webern-esque miniature Précis,



and rounding up six occasional and



birthday pieces, there is enough for



Nicolas Hodges to fill a CD decently.



The performances of all of them are



simply wonderful. Every one of the



miniatures is precisely balanced with



every keyboard colour exactly caught



by the recording, and Hodges is



fiercely incisive and coruscating when



required in the most substantial work



here, the five-movement Harrison’s



Clocks from 1998, which he delivers



with an easy virtuosity that belies the



sheer technical difficulties of all the



pieces, while still finding an individual



expressive space for each gesture. He



combines well with percussionist



Clare Edwards in The Axe Manual,



a monumental, 22-minute study in



rhythmic layering that reinterprets the



relationship between the two players;



it may be one of the less accessible of



Birtwistle’s recent pieces, but it’s an



impressive one. Andrew Clements