Moth Requiem News Today

The Nash and BBC Singers selected poignant vocal and instrumental works in memory of the late composer, as well as the premiere of a new Simon Holt work honouring sculptor Richard Serra

We asked 167 top international musicians to vote for the best British composers of all time. Here are the results… Do you agree - and who was voted number one?

Harrison Birtwistle, whose intensely theatrical compositions and uncompromising modernism made him the most prominent British composer since Benjamin

The prolific British composer drew on poetry and folklore for his uncompromising but lyrical music. A Proms’ premiere, Panic, brought him national notoriety

Our chief classical critic knew Birtwistle, who died this morning, for more than 40 years. He pays tribute to a musician whose creativity and imagination knew no bounds

He was used to hostile reactions to his work, but insisted: ‘I don’t understand what the problem is’

“Night opens; night traversed by wandering moths; night hiding lovers roaming to adventure.” So runs a rapturous passage in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, a novel she had originally considered titling The Moths. The insects are a recurring theme in the book – moths dashing themselves against windows, moths darting between candles on a summer’s night. In her essay The Death of the Moth, she describes an insect trapped in her window: “Watching him,...

<strong>Editorial:</strong> These insects have declined by a third over 50 years. While their appetites can be a nuisance, ultimately we must protect these gloriously beautiful, elusive creatures <br>