New Sounds, New Personalities: British Composers of the 1980s in Conversation with Paul Griffiths

by Paul Griffiths

, 212 pages, black and white photographs

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1985

About the author

Paul Anthony Griffiths, OBE, is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the libretti for two 20th century operas, Tan Dun's Marco Polo and Elliott Carter's What Next? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gr...]

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow I've managed not to notice this till now. In the 90s, when I was listening to a lot of contemporary composed music and keeping up religiously with every issue of Tempo (still going strong! here), I would have loved this book. Now I'm content just to touch on the interviews with old favorites (Harvey, Ferneyhough, Birtwistle etc). Griffiths is a thoughtful and articulate (and humble) critic and writer; his intro and side of the conversation are a pleasure.

A hilarious quote from Ferneyhough:

Sometimes I think contemporary music concerts should consist of no more than five pieces, each no more than four minutes in length, with the pauses between them being calculated in inverse proportion to the length of the works they separate.

I did dip into a few composers whose work I wasn't familiar with. George Benjamin is a belated discovery. If you like modernist piano music with good energy, his piano sonata is definitely worth checking out. The operas look interesting too, but are harder to come by.

Also revisited Robin Holloway's 2nd Concerto for Orchestra, which is a lot more fun than I remember.