Harvey Jonathan
Born in Warwickshire, England in 1939, Jonathan Harvey was a chorister at St Michael’s College, Tenbury and later a major music scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge. He gained doctorates from the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge and (on the advice of Benjamin Britten) also studied privately with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller. He was a Harkness Fellow at Princeton (1969–70) and Professor of Music at Sussex University between 1977 and 1993 where he is currently an Honorary Professor; between 1995 and 2000 he was Professor of Music at Stanford University. He is an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge and was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin in 2009.
An invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s set the composer on a path that has characterised his whole career, and which has so far resulted in eight realisations at the Institute, and two for the Ensemble intercontemporain, including the celebrated tape piece Mortuos Plango, VivosVoco, Bhakti for ensemble and electronics, and String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics. Harvey has also composed in most other genres: orchestra (Tranquil Abiding, White as Jasmine and Madonna of Winter and Spring– the latter performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle in 2006), chamber (four string quartets, Soleil Noir / Chitra, and Death of Light, Light of Death, for instance) as well as works for solo instruments. He has written many widelyperformed unaccompanied works for choir – as well as the large-scale cantata for the BBC Proms Millennium, Mothers Shall not Cry (2000). His church opera Passion and Resurrection (1981) was the subject of a BBC television film, and has received seventeen subsequent performances. His opera Inquest of Love, commissioned by the ENO, was premiered under the baton of Mark Elder in 1993 and repeated at Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels in 1994. His third opera, Wagner Dream, commissioned by Nederlandse Oper and realized at IRCAM, was premiered to great acclaim in 2007. 2008 saw the premiere of Messages (for the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker) and Speakings (co-commission of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, IRCAM and Radio France); Speakings was the culmination of his residency (2005–08) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from which Body Mandala and … Towards a pure land have also emerged. Two of these works featured on the Gramophone Award-winning NMC disc released in the same year, and Speakings was released on an Aeon disc the following year.
Harvey is now in constant demand from a host of international organisations, attracting commissions far into the future, and his music is extensively played and toured by the major ensembles of our time (musikFabrik, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble intercontemporain, Asko | Schönberg, Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam and Ictus Ensemble, to name but a few). His music has been showcased at most centres and festivals for contemporary music. Some 150–200 performances are given or broadcast each year and about 100 recordings of his music are issued on CD. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Southampton, Sussex, Bristol, Birmingham and Huddersfield, is a Member of Academia Europæa, and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Britten Award for composition. In 2007 he was awarded the Giga-Hertz Prize for a lifetime’s work in electronic music. In 2009 he received several awards for his music, including the prestigious Prince Pierre of Monaco Prize in Musical Composition for his orchestral work Speakings, and académie Charles Cros Grand Prix du Président de la République for a lifetime’s work, becoming the first British composer ever to receive this coveted honour since its inception in 1970.
Harvey’s standing in his 70th year was widely celebrated in the international musical community between May 2009 and May 2010 with many dedicated concerts, new recordings, festival focuses and composer portraits. In October 2011 Weltethos, his major large-scale commission (orchestra, choir and children’s chorus) for the Berliner Philharmoniker to a text by Swiss ethicist Hans Kueng, was premiered in Berlin. The work has also opened the Cultural Olympiad’s festival in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall with a performance in June 2012 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The BBC marked its appreciation of Harvey’s international standing in January 2012 with a weekend dedicated to his music at the Barbican. The “Total Immersion“ festival featured many of his major works, including the British premiere of Wagner Dream.
Harvey’s two books were published in 1999, on inspiration and spirituality respectively. Arnold Whittall’s study of his music appeared in 1999, published by Faber & Faber (and in French by IRCAM) in the same year. Two years later John Palmer wrote a substantial study: Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti (Edwin Mellen Press), and Michael Downes’ penetrating book on Songs Offerings and White as Jasmine appeared in 2009 with Ashgate.
S e l e c t e d w o r k s ( s i n c e 1 9 9 5 ): Soleil Noir / Chitra for nine players and electronics (two operators) (1994–95), Fanfare for Utopia for chamber orche stra (1995), Hidden Voice 1 for 13 players (1995), Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (1997), Little Concerto for Strings (1961/1997), Haiku for solo piano (1997), Wheel of Emptiness for 16 players (1997), Tranquil Abiding for chamber orchestra (1998), Calling Across Time for chamber orchestra (1998), Death of Light, Light of Death for chamber ensemble (1998), Hidden Voice 2 for 12 players and CD (1999), White as Jasmine for soprano and large orchestra (1999), Mythic Figures for tape (2001), Bird Concerto with Pianosong for piano, chamber orchestra and live electronics (2001), Songs of Li Po for mezzo-soprano, strings, two percussions and harpsichord (2002), Moving Trees for 18 players (2002), Chu for soprano, clarinet and cello (2002), Buddhist Song No. 1 for mezzo-soprano and piano (2003), Jubilus for viola and eight players (2003), Buddhist Song No. 2 “With excellent raiments“ for mezzo-soprano (or soprano) and piano (2004), Run Before Lightning for flute and piano (2004), Clarinet Trio (2004), Climbing Frame, improvisation piece for about 12–15 instruments (2004), String Quartets No. 1–4 (1977–2003), String Trio (2004), Two Interludes for an Opera for 22 players with live electronics (2004), …towards a pure land for large orchestra (2005), At a Cloud Gathering for percussion and electronics (2005), Other Presences for trumpet and electronics (2006), Wagner Dream, opera in nine scenes to words by Jean Claude-Carrière for soloists, actors, chorus and 22 players with electronics (2006), Body Mandala for orchestra (2006), Sprechgesang for oboe/cor anglais and 13 players (2007), Speakings for orchestra and electronics (2008), Cello Octet (2008), Ah! Sun-flower for soprano and piano (2008),Es blühn drei Rosen for four male voices (2009), Sringara Chaconne for chamber ensemble (2009), Vajrafor chamber ensemble (2009), 80 Breaths for Tokyo for orchestra (2010), Little Duo for violin and cello (2010), The Annunciation for mixed choir and organ (2011), Weltethos for reciter, large choir, children’s choir and large orchestra (2011), Cirrus Light for clarinet (2012).
© Faber Music Ltd 2012
