Gerald Barry

When asked what the theme of his play was, Wilde answered 'That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things in life with a sincere and studied triviality. Gerald...

Barry joins a simple unison melody in high and then low voices with a sparse keyboard accompaniment to create a carol of intoxicating harmony reminiscent of early polyphony.Available for the first tim...

Gerald Barry's new opera is based on Lewis Carroll's two beloved books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. As with Barry's last opera, the lauded The Importance of Being E...

The Chorales are taken from my opera, The Intelligence Park.© Gerald Barry

This work for solo piano is taken from the ensemble work Things That Gain By Being Painted for soprano, speaker, cello and piano. The title comes from the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon written in the 10...

The music for Low is based on Barry's Triorchic Blues, which exists in versions for both solo piano and solo violin. This virtuosic piece, perfect for any ambitious duo, demonstrates Barry's preoccupa...

The Etudes may be played individually or as a collection in any order. Many of these are not etudes in the normal sense. They are more biographical, touching on Beethoven’s thoughts in his letters and...

In The Asylum comprises three pieces: The Rung, The Potent Rug, and Wigs of Flanders. At times eerie and unsettling, at times playful, and at others almost violent, this eleven-minute work for piano t...

The title of Barry's fourth string quartet refers to a Kafka story of the same name about a trapeze artist who is happy only when aloft. This is striking music, full of fragility, beauty, outbursts an...

A trumpeter is a cavalry or artillery soldier who gives signals with a trumpet. (Gerald Barry, 1998)This piece may be performed on any of the following instruments in different transpositions. If play...

The original version of Triorchic Blues for solo piano was later transformed into this short virtuosic piece for solo violin. Lively and aggressive, the work explores the extremes of the instrument an...

Water Parted is from Barry's opera The Intelligence Park, and tells the story of a composer who has lost the power to write, later rediscovering it through an obsession with a castrato. The work alter...

Written in 1979 after seeing an exhibition of Rothko's paintings in Cologne, Ø is one of Barry's earliest published works. Both piano parts are the same and the composer describes the work as an explo...

This song is a poignant tribute to Barry's teacher, Stockhausen. It was written for the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival programme book and is a setting of an enigmatic letter about friendship, written by Beet...

The opening lines of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time provide the text for Gerald Barry's Long Time. Beginning 'For a long time I used to go to bed early', the work unfolds over gently rising an...