Gavin Bryars

String Quartet No. 1 ('Between the National and the Bristol') was commissioned by the Vienna Festival for the Arditti Quartet to perform in October 1985. '... a great deal of the music is in the high...

String Quartet No. 2 was written in 1990 commissioned by the Huddersfield Festival and the Balanescu Quartet.'This second quartet is a more relaxed, easy-going piece than the first

Apart from the ten 5-minute string quartets that I wrote in 1992 as theoriginal version of A Man in a Room, Gambling, there are 8 years between my second and third quartets. Another element which find...

The piece is dedicated to John Harle and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, who commissioned it with funds made available by South West Arts.It makes use of the saxophone's ability to play long expressive m...

The piece is technically quite difficult and, curiously, it is the lower instruments which have the hardest parts - the baritone sax having some altissimo passages and, eventually, ending the piece wi...

'Two Lines' was written at the request of Peter Bowman and Kathryn Bennets for a piece to celebrate 20 years of their performing together. It is a response to Bach's Two-part Inventions and, like the...

This is a special arrangement for double bass choir of the choral piece Silva Caledonia, written for the Estonian National Male Choir, which sets a text by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan. It was first...

Apart from the ten 5-minute string quartets that I wrote in 1992 as theoriginal version of A Man in a Room, Gambling, there are 8 years between my second and third quartets. Another element which find...

Originating as the musical equivalent of a work of conceptual art, this piece has various performing versions, often arising from particular occasions and environments. All the materials used are deri...

This beautiful and tentative work for viol consort is based on a Purcell Fantasia of the same name. Occasionally, and to great effect, Bryars enhances the rich, romantic sound of bowed viols with the...

This beautiful and tentative work for viol consort is based on a Purcell Fantasia of the same name. Occasionally, and to great effect, Bryars enhances the rich, romantic sound of bowed viols with the...

In 2001, Gavin Bryars began writing a number of pieces based on a large collection of 13th century semi-religious songs, known as 'Lauda', which would have been sung outside churches and in other publ...

Written for Duncan McTier, this concerto has the unusual addition of an optional male voice choir. Many Russian elements influenced Bryars when he was writing the piece, not least the text for the bas...

This short work for solo bass voice was written for Clive Birch from the Australian vocal ensemble The Song Company. At the premiere it was used to bridge two larger works but it would be equally well...

This piece is one of a series of works that take texts or imagery from the work of Jules Verne. Here the text is taken from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, a section in which Professor Aronnax describes...

Gavin Bryars has returned once again to the poetry of George Bruce and the 'Five Songs from Northern Seas' are dedicated to his memory in his centenary year. Bryars describes the five evocative poems:...

Bryars' settings of Benedicamus Domino and Credo were written to complete a Ladymass that had been constructed from the Worcester Fragments. They were composed with the intention of seamless integrati...

Für 2 Klaviere 6- oder 8-händig.

Commissioned by Gavin Bryars' long-standing collaborators, ensemble Aventa, and with a libretto by author and poet Marilyn Bowering, Bryars' Marilyn Forever examines the inner life of Marilyn Monroe,...