MS Mus. 1778/1/6

Assorted material relating to music for various theatre works (all except 'Lorca' were written while Birtwistle was employed by the National Theatre); 54 folios in total.

(1). ff. 1-6. Drafts for incidental music to 'Lorca', a play by John Calder and Bettina Jonic, performed at the Edinburgh Festival, 1966. Scored for singer, flute, clarinet, guitar, cello, percussion.

• ff. 1-5 are a continuous draft
• f. 6v contains a short melodic sketch for 'Punch and Judy', relating to the section 'The Quest for Pretty Polly II'.

(2). ff. 7-17. Material relating to 'Hamlet', directed by Peter Hall, National Theatre, 1975.

• ff. 8-9. '… come some music', from Act 3, Scene 2. Neatly copied piano arrangement of music for 3 tenor recorders. Signed 'HB' and dated '21st October 75'.
• ff. 10-11. 'Fanfares': for two trumpets and percussion. Music cues listed; cue 7 titled 'Danish March'
• ff. 12. Short tenor drum and trumpet passages marked 'Fortinbras Drummer', on transparent paper.
• ff. 13. 'Hamlet Song', from Act 3, Scene 2: 'Why let the stricken deer go weep'. Photocopy.
• ff. 14-17. Four songs for Ophelia, from Act 4, Scene 5: 'Tomorrow is St Valentine's day' (incorrectly labelled 'Act 5'); ‘How should I your true love know from another’; ‘They bore him bare faced on the bier’; ‘And will he not come again’. With notes for transposition for different actors' voices.

(3). ff. 18-34. Mostly non-musical material for 'Bow Down', produced at the National Theatre, 1977. Including front matter for published edition, contract and two drawings.

(4). ff. 35-44. Scores of three songs for 'Volpone', directed by Peter Hall, National Theatre, 1977.

• ff. 36-37 ‘Dave’s Song’, for tenor voice with guitar accompaniment.
• ff. 38-41 ‘John’s Song’, with multiple staffs for cast voices.
• ff. 42-44 ‘Song Come, My Cecilia', for male voice with guitar accompaniment.

(5). ff. 45-74. Musical material for 'The Trojan War Will Not Take Place', directed by Harold Pinter, National Theatre, 1983. Mostly single leaves comprising short instrumental passages. Brief descriptive markers or line cues given at the top of most leaves. Instrumentation variously for horns, trumpets, and gongs; tape part. Along with 13 leaves of originals, there are 17 leaves of assorted photocopies, all numbered. The original set is missing pages 7 and 8, which are present in the photocopied set.

Further material relating to 'Lorca', 'Hamlet', and 'Bow Down' can be found in the Harrison Birtwistle collections at the Paul Sacher Stiftung.