Music for Bonfire Night: Oliver Knussen’s Flourish with Fireworks (1988)

All students of W.C. Sellar’s and R.J. Yeatman’s erudite 1066 And All That (Penguin, 1930) will know that “Guyfawkes, a very active and conscientious man decided…to blow up the King and the bishops and everybody else in Parliament assembled, with gunpowder. Although the plan failed, attempts are made every year on St Guyfawkes Day to remind the Parliament that it would have been a good thing[!]”

Firework displays typically commemorate this dastardly plot each year on November the Fifth. There are other times in the year when these shows happen: the Fourth of July in the USA and New Year’s Day – the world over. There are three pieces of music that are commonly associated with these pyrotechnics: Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749) Stravinsky’s Feu d’artifice (1908) and more recently, Knussen’s Flourish with Fireworks (1988)

Glasgow born Oliver Knussen’s (1952-2018) Flourish with Fireworks was first performed at the Barbican Hall, London on 15 September 1988. It had been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra to be part of the opening first season concert of their new principal conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas. Other works that night, included a “scena” from Robin Holloway’s opera Clarissa and a “tempestuous performance” of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.9.

Knussen wrote that his piece “is neither more nor less than its title implies – a three minute opener for Tilson’s Thomas’s first concert.  In fact it was a “homage” to one of that conductor’s favourite concert openers – Stravinsky’s Feu d’artifice. Structurally, the piece is built on a theme based on the initials LSO-MTT which in Knussen’s system “translates” as (A, E flat, G) and (E, B, B) which is subject to “constant variation.”

It is clear to the listener that Knussen’s piece owes much to Igor Stravinsky’s above mentioned work written in 1908 as a wedding present for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter Nadezhda and her husband, Maximilian Steinberg. It is this piece’s harmonic adventures and brilliant, “transparent” orchestration that made it a forerunner of much of Stravinsky’s later work, especially The Firebird.     

Paul Griffiths writing in The Times (16 September 1988, p.18) notes Flourish with Fireworks debt to Stravinsky, but adds that Knussen sends “up a few roman candles of his own on the musical monograms of orchestra and conductor.” He considered that it was “a jolly and brilliant occasional piece, welcome for itself and as evidence that this highly gifted composer has not forgotten where he put his manuscript paper.”  Seemingly, Knussen had written little in the few preceding years, whilst he evaluated his technique.

The Guardian critic (16 September 1988, p.32) considered that the Flourish was “more than an occasional piece. It is a three minute squib of a work which in its colour and flamboyance, mingled with poetry, pays direct tribute to the composer’s long friendship with the conductor, faithfully matching his special qualities and for that matter those of the LSO.”  Knussen has created a “shimmering tapestry of sound that ranges satisfyingly wide within a brief span – a fine display piece for conductor and every section of the orchestra.”

Oliver Knussen’s Flourish with Fireworks was issued on Deutsche Grammophon 449 572-2 (1996).  It is coupled with The Way to Castle Yonder, op.21a (1988-90), Two Organa for large ensemble, op.27 (1994), the Horn Concerto, op.28 (1994), Music for a Puppet Court, op.11 (1983) and the Whitman Settings for soprano and orchestra, op.25a. The London Sinfonietta was conducted by the composer. Soloists included Barry Tuckwell, horn and Lucy Shelton, soprano.  

The work has been uploaded to YouTube.