Gerald Barry

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 Piano Quartet No.1 was written in 1992 and is in one movement. The composer writes: While writing it I was reminded of painting where blocks of colour meet or where objects intersect, of the myste...

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...

Gerald Barry's The coming of winter is a setting of an Irish poem dating from the 9th or 10th century, and was commissioned for the 34th Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music at University College, Cor...

Le Vieux Sourd (The Old Deaf One) was Debussy's nickname for Beethoven. The piece is a setting of Auld Lang Syne which Beethoven also arranged.Gerald Barry (2012)

Triorchic Blues began as a study for Barry's opera The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit, but the developed into this vivacious and rhythmically driven piece for solo piano, which explores the extreme regi...

The intense and surreal musical narrative so apparent in Gerald Barry's hugely successful opera The Importance of Being Earnest returns in a new guise for his latest vocal work Jabberwocky. Setting Le...

Für 2 Klarinetten, Marimbaphon, Klavier, Viola und Violoncello.

Although this piece is short, it includes several Barry hallmarks - fierce ostinato passages and contrasting instrumental sections marked by strong accents. Take note of the composer's instruction: Ha...