MS Mus. 1778/2/4

Assorted musical material for the four works detailed below.

(1). ff 1-2. 'Entr’actes and Sappho Fragments', for soprano and instruments, 1964. Premiered by the Virtuoso Ensemble of London and John Carewe).

• f. 1: neatly copied formal plan for the work on a single A4 leaf, used to illustrate a talk by the composer.
• f. 2: written notes for this talk. Originally kept together with a similar plan for 'Tragoedia', described below.

(2). ff 3-7. 'Tragoedia', for ensemble, 1965. Premiered by the Melos Ensemble and Lawrence Foster.

• f. 3: neatly copied formal plan for the work on a single A4 leaf, used to illustrate a talk by the composer.
• ff. 4-5: folded A2 page with assorted jottings, including pitch (with numerical working), instrumentation, dynamics, structure (pulse and register), rhythm. Chromatic lines and intervallic shapes loosely recognisable from the published score.
• ff. 6-7: further short sketches, including material recognisable from the beginning of the piece, and other brief pitch and melodic workings.

(3). f. 8. 'Verses', for clarinet and piano, 1965. Premiered by Alan Hacker and Stephen Pruslin.

• Single A4 manuscript leaf, containing a neat (black ink) developed melodic sketch on two staves.

(4). ff 8-10. 'Nenia: The Death of Orpheus', for soprano, 3 bass clarinet, crotales and piano, on a text by Peter Zinovieff, 1970. Premiered by Jane Manning and Matrix.

• f. 9: sketch on graph paper (folded) that shows a splitting of the name ‘Euridice’ into syllables.
• ff. 10-11: two single leaves each containing a typescript of versions of the text by Peter Zinovieff, one of which is partially damaged by spilled ink.

More extensive material relating to all these items can be found in the Harrison Birtwistle collections at the Paul Sacher Stiftung.