<< -- 2 -- Roderic Dunnett MUSSORGSKIAN GIANT

For all his originality and individuality, Knussen is acutely aware of
the tradition whence he stems. Possibly his favourite composer is Debussy
: 'I still wonder where Debussy's music comes from -- or in the later works,
what it's even about. Listening to one of his Etudes is like watching
Houdini get out of an impossible knot!' Sibelius's formal experiments are
another cause for admiration : 'take Symphony No 5 -- what an ingenious way
to merge a sonata with a scherzo! or Tapiola -- what an incredible
way of fiddling with four notes!'
Knussen began composing when he was six. As a boy, he tried the cello
for two years ('I made such a hideous noise that I stopped', although I
come from a family of string players and my daughter -- who studied in the
States -- is a very good cellist') and devoured Twentieth Century music eagerly
: 'I heard a lot of Britten, Copland and Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Berg
and late Stravinsky : then I used to go home and try to imitate them.' A
recording of Ives' Fourth Symphony 'knocked me sideways!' Mussorgsky, Ravel
and Mahler were other loves. And he quickly fell for 'all three of Bartók's
stageworks' (including The Miraculous Mandarin, which he is conducting
in the Birmingham concerts).
The young Knussen eagerly sought out works by 'Goehr, [Nicholas] Maw
and Maxwell Davies' and was lucky enough 'to sit in on rehearsals of Tippett's
Concerto for Orchestra' (as clever and dazzling an example
of orchestration as one could dream up), and of works by Henze and Luigi
Nono. The two experiences which, he says 'made me most want to be a composer'
were 'going with my father to rehearsals of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder,
under Stokowski, and then attending Britten's dress rehearsals for the world
première of Curlew River.'
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Copyright © 18 November 2001
Roderic Dunnett, Coventry, UK
KNUSSEN AND THE LONDON SINFONIETTA
THE FABER MUSIC KNUSSEN PAGE
THE HARRISON/PARROTT KNUSSEN PAGE
THE DG OLIVER KNUSSEN PAGE
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