'… some extremely beautiful sounds and a compelling dramatic context that bodes well for the opera to come.
The first interlude represents Wagner's heart attack, and... with a Big Bang of impressive impact followed by waves of alternately slow and faster music, within which Harvey's many imaginative gestures - the repeating strikes and resonances of a gong, the many sudden surges and falls - are vividly shaped. The second interlude, drawing on Buddhist legend, evokes burgeoning young love in a weirdly beautiful cello solo, accompanied by a whole host of wonderful things.'
The Independent (Keith Potter), 19 March 2004
'… a true original, ever eager to find new shapes, colours and constructs for his music, ever beguiling the ear with sounds rich and strange.
In his Two Interludes for an Opera, given their first performance in this excellently played London Sinfonietta concert under Martyn Brabbins's direction, he employs state of the art computer technology, subjecting to live electronic treatment the playing of all 22 instrumentalists. The spatial placing and movement of sound is as important as its transformation... Gimmickry some might claim. Not so. The subject of the opera in which these pieces, Fall and Attraction, are destined to play their parts is the death of Wagner, a death caused by a heart attack that, as luck or fate would have it, struck when he was writing an essay on a Buddhist legend.
Given that, it seems only appropriate that Harvey should explore that moment with an essentially static music which, however, seems to ride the winds, to vaporise and reconstitute itself, to flit from place to place… this is a beautiful, poetic work.'
Evening Standard (Stephen Pettitt), 18 March 2004
The first interlude represents Wagner's heart attack, and... with a Big Bang of impressive impact followed by waves of alternately slow and faster music, within which Harvey's many imaginative gestures - the repeating strikes and resonances of a gong, the many sudden surges and falls - are vividly shaped. The second interlude, drawing on Buddhist legend, evokes burgeoning young love in a weirdly beautiful cello solo, accompanied by a whole host of wonderful things.'
The Independent (Keith Potter), 19 March 2004
'… a true original, ever eager to find new shapes, colours and constructs for his music, ever beguiling the ear with sounds rich and strange.
In his Two Interludes for an Opera, given their first performance in this excellently played London Sinfonietta concert under Martyn Brabbins's direction, he employs state of the art computer technology, subjecting to live electronic treatment the playing of all 22 instrumentalists. The spatial placing and movement of sound is as important as its transformation... Gimmickry some might claim. Not so. The subject of the opera in which these pieces, Fall and Attraction, are destined to play their parts is the death of Wagner, a death caused by a heart attack that, as luck or fate would have it, struck when he was writing an essay on a Buddhist legend.
Given that, it seems only appropriate that Harvey should explore that moment with an essentially static music which, however, seems to ride the winds, to vaporise and reconstitute itself, to flit from place to place… this is a beautiful, poetic work.'
Evening Standard (Stephen Pettitt), 18 March 2004