We look at the shorter pieces for piano written by Anthony Burgess, including the rather lively ‘Hornpipe’ Anthony Burgess’s ‘Hornpipe’ is an undated short piece for solo piano. Possibly part of an untitled set of six keyboard works, including three fugues, an air, and a passacaglia, its lively and simple melody is based on a […]
One of the most fascinating, yet underexplored, areas of the Burgess Foundation’s archive is its object collection. The collection consists of furniture, musical instruments, typewriters, crockery, glassware, awards, artwork, ornaments, and other collectibles that belonged to Burgess and his family and were gathered throughout their travels in Europe, Malaysia, and America. Many individual pieces are […]
The new single by music producer and composer Sebastian Reynolds has a particularly Burgessian inspiration. In a guest post for our blog, Sebastian Reynolds writes about The Universe Remembers. The Universe Remembers, single taken from the EP, The Universe Remembers, released via Faith & Industry records My new single The Universe Remembers originally came about after […]
The Burgess Foundation’s archive collection is at the heart of what we do. The collection forms the core of our charitable mission to encourage interest in the life and work of Anthony Burgess. It’s important to us that as many people as possible access our collection, even when the building is closed. Whether you’re completing a […]
Our exhibition Anthony Burgess on Tape explores the audio collections at the Burgess Foundation. Some tapes include Anthony Burgess playing the piano, his favourite instrument. We investigate further. Anthony Burgess’s love for the piano was deep rooted. Burgess believed he had a musical background. His mother Elizabeth was (according to family legend) a singer and […]
Exploring the music referenced in the brand new Irwell Edition of Anthony Burgess’s This Man and Music. This Man and Music, Anthony Burgess’s reflections on music, literature and autobiography, references a varied selection of music from the expected, such as Beethoven and Mozart, through the modernist influences on Burgess’s own music such as Stravinsky and […]
Christine Lee Gengaro writes about editing Anthony Burgess’s This Man and Music, the latest release in the The Irwell Edition of the Works of Anthony Burgess. Anthony Burgess’s This Man and Music must be one of the author’s most oft-quoted books. As a non-fiction work about music and literature, it is a fertile source […]
The latest title to appear in the Irwell Edition is This Man and Music. This Man and Music blends musical autobiography and literary analysis to create a hybrid book which reveals much about Anthony Burgess’s creative process and cultural obsessions. Best known as a writer of fiction, Burgess also devoted much of his time to musical […]
Anthony Burgess was fascinated by the life and work of Sigmund Freud. As a writer and composer, he often returned to the founder of modern psychoanalysis in his creative works. The list begins with his stage adaptation of Oedipus the King in 1972 (a consciously Freudian work). This was accompanied by the novel MF, which […]
The re-release of the Clockwork Orange film in the United Kingdom (on 5 April 2019) provides an opportunity to revisit the turbulent history of Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic adaptation, which was first shown in New York in December 1971, with the British and European premieres taking place in January 1972. To many people in Britain, Kubrick’s […]