FOUNDATION OF MUSIC AND IDEAS

Burstein’s music and ideas on music have been causing ripples through the new classical culture since the early nineties, when he began composing and found his musical voice to be tonal.

His compositions comprise a passionate re- exploration of tonality following his education and early practice as a performer and commissioner of new works from other composers broadly in the 'atonal' avant-garde.

He has been at the centre of controversy for several years. Most dramatically, he fought and won a libel case against The Times newspaper in 2000 at trial in The High Court. Transcripts of some of these proceedings can be read on the internet-see Links Page. (view press cutting)
His work has also won him friends. After meeting with him and hearing his music the great Estonian composer Arvo Pärt secured a commission for him by splitting his own commission fee with Burstein for music to mark the 900th anniversary of Norwich Cathedral. Pärt wrote 'I Am The True Vine' and Burstein wrote a Missa Brevis. (see Missa Brevis under Choral works)

 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

On his paternal side the family were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania at the end of the nineteenth century. His mother’s family were English.

His father, Samuel, changed the family name from Burstein to the anglisized Burston, but Burstein chose to re assume the real family name in the late 1980s. Both his parents were orchestral violinists in The Royal Opera House, Sadlers Wells, The Hallé Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic and The BBC Ulster Orchestra. His father enjoyed a close rapport with the great conductor Sir John Barbirolli when they were both at The Hallé in Manchester.

Burstein’s re assumption of the old family name coincided with the release of his voice and rediscovery of tonality from 1990 onwards. The process was part of a self discovery at the time and not related to religious beliefs. Later on, though, perhaps a subliminal linkage with the family past emerged in the composition of ‘The Year’s Midnight’, a meditation on the Holocaust, which was broadcast on the BBC on the first Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001.

 

EDUCATION

The local state schools of Hove, where there was no music, but with very good private piano tuition by a local teacher, Christine Pembridge, were followed by The Royal College of Music in 1977 where he held two scholarships. While there he studied composition with Bernard Stevens and John Lambert and later, after leaving, with Jonathan Harvey on a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust bursary.

At The RCM he was exposed for the first time to contemporary classical music. Stockhausen and Boulez became his staple diet. What he could not see then (in the late seventies) was that he had entered this culture on the cusp of change. There was widespread talk of 'malaise', or a 'vacuum' in new classical music, but a real absence of any idea of how this might be solved

 
THE GROSVENOR GROUP

Soon after leaving the RCM he formed a professional chamber ensemble ,The Grosvenor Group, the slightly improbable name arose from the fact that at the time he lived - even more improbably - on the Grosvenor Estate in Belgravia in a dark and gloomy room at 8 Grosvenor Crescent Mews owned by a very benign old lady called Doreen Quilter who was his 'patron' for several years. 

The formation of the Group was partly perhaps by way of an attempt to explore the landscape and to find a pathway forward. The best musicians of his generation were recruited, several of whom went on to form the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Claudio Abbado. Excellent reviews ('they play as though their very lives depend upon it', 'seering intensity') helped create a strong reputation for the Group over the ten years of its existence 1983 -1993.

  




With himself as conductor Burstein presented a wide range of twentieth century and contemporary music from Stockhausen and Birtwistle to Elgar, taking in on the way Ferneyhough, Knussen Turnage, Schoenberg, Webern, Berio and much besides.

He performed only three of his own works during that decade. His perceptions, although searching for new fields, still hovered broadly within what might be termed the 'atonal paradigm'. Then, in the late eighties he began to explore writing tonally.

 

PRINCIPAL WORKS

The first substantial product of this development was Requiem For The Young (1991-1993) for large chorus, soloists and orchestra. This is an hour-and-twenty-minute work which Burstein was commissioned to write in memory of victims of The Marchioness Boat disaster. A chamber version of this work has been performed many times, although the full score remains unperformed.

The principal works which followed the Requiem are:

Eternal City (1991) for massed brass

Leavetaking (1994) for massed brass 

Songs of Love (1991-1993) for four singers and chamber ensemble

A Live Flame, in memoriam John Smith MP (1995) for tenor and orchestra

Missa Brevis (1996) for a cappella choir

Diasanon Arrives (1997)for symphony orchestra

The Gates Of Time (1999) for chorus and ensemble

Alfege (2000) for chorus and orchestra

The Year's Midnight, a meditation on the Holocaust (2000)

The Furthering (1997-) an opera in progress

String Quartet No 1 Dance of Death/Dream of Love (2001)

Manifest Destiny 2004 , an opera set in the war on terror

A complete list of his compositions can be found on the Works Page. Extracts can be heard on the Audio Page.


DEBATE AND CONTROVERSY

Burstein's creative life has been accompanied by a dimension of debate and controversy. The climax of this was perhaps his having to sue The Times Newspaper for libel, which he won at the High Court in 2000 - click here for transcript of some of the proceedings.

 

 

 

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All music is copyright 1989-2006 by Keith Burstein and may not be used for commercial purposes without the author's consent.

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