Jonathan Harvey

Harvey worked between 1939 and 2012 across composer, screenwriter, cellist, musician and librettist. The registers place that work in opera. This article rests on 102 catalogued compositions, 85 published texts, 19 issued recordings, 2 digitised documents and 34 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Jonathan Harvey studied at Princeton University, St John's College and Saint Michael's College. Andrew Toovey is recorded as having studied under Jonathan Harvey. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera. Employment is recorded with Imperial College London and University of Sussex.

Harvey was born in Sutton Coldfield, and studied at St John's College, Cambridge, eventually obtaining a PhD. He also took private lessons with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller on the advice of Benjamin Britten. In 1969, he took up a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University. In the 1980s, Harvey produced music at IRCAM after receiving an invitation from Pierre Boulez to work there. At IRCAM, Harvey produced works such as Speakings, a composition for large orchestra and electronics, in collaboration with sound artist and composer Gilbert Nouno and researchers Arshia Cont and Grégoire Carpentier. The concept of the piece was to "make an orchestra speak". IRCAM is known for speech analysis and in this piece, special technology was developed to allow the analysis of speech to be realized in an orchestral context, using complex algorithms which can process multiple combinations possible in an orchestra setting. The program Orchidée computed such analyses and provided orchestrations for the composer. From 2005 to 2008, Harvey held the post of Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, he was Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He died, aged 73, in Lewes, from motor neuron disease. Speakings received six votes in a 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000. In 2019, writers for The Guardian ranked Harvey's String Quartet No. 4 the eighth greatest work of classical music in the same period.

• Dialogue and Song for cello and piano (1965/1977) • Four Images after Yeats for piano (1969) • Piano Trio (1971) • I love the Lord, motet (1976) • String Quartet No. 1 (1977) • Cantata: IV: Ludus amoris: for speaker, soprano & tenor soli, SATB, and orchestra (1977), • O Jesu Nomen Dulce for choir (1979) • Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, computer-manipulated concrete sounds (pre-recorded octophonic tape), for tape (1980) • Mythic Figures (1980) • Bhakti for 15 players and quadrophonic tape (1982) • Curve with Plateaux for solo cello (1982) • Flight-Elegy for violin and piano (1983–89) • Nataraja for flute, piccolo and piano (1983) • Nachtlied for soprano, piano and tape (1984) • Come Holy Ghost for choir (1984) • Ricercare una Melodia for solo trumpet/cello/flute/oboe/trombone with tape delay system (1984) • Song Offerings for soprano and chamber ensemble of 8 players (1985) • Forms of Emptiness for choir (1986) • God is our Refuge for choir and organ (1986) • Madonna of Winter and Spring for orchestra, synthesizer and electronics (1986) • Lauds for choir and solo cello (1987) • From Silence for soprano, 6 players and tape (1988) • String Quartet No. 2 (1988) • Three Sketches for solo cello (1989) • Ritual Melodies for quadrophonic tape (1989–90) • Cello Concerto (1990) • Fantasia for organ (1991) • Serenade in Homage to Mozart for wind ensemble of 10 players (1991) • Scena for violin and chamber ensemble of 9 players (1992) • Lotuses for flute quartet (1992) • You (1992) • Chant for solo cello (or solo viola) (1992–94) • The Riot for flute, piccolo, bass clarinet and piano (1993) • One Evening... for soprano, mezzo, soprano, chamber ensemble of 8 players, 2 technicians and electronics (1993–94) • The Angels for choir (1994) • Tombeau de Messiaen for piano and tape (1994) • Advaya for cello, electronic keyboard and electronics (1994) • Dum Transisset Sabbatum for choir (1995) • String Quartet No. 3 (1995) • Percussion Concerto (1997) • Sufi Dance for solo guitar (1997) • Wheel of Emptiness for chamber ensemble of 16 players (1997) • Ashes Dance Back for choir and electronics (1997) • Death of Light/Light of Death for chamber ensemble of 5 players after Grunewald's Crucifixion in the Isenheim Altarpiece (1998) • Tranquil Abiding for chamber orchestra (1998) • Valley of Aosta for 13 players and electronics (1998) • Marahi for unaccompanied choir (1999) • The Summer Cloud's Awakening for choir, flute, cello and electronics (2001) • Vers for piano (2000) • Jubilus for viola and chamber ensemble (2003) • String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics (2003) • String Trio (2004) • Body Mandala for orchestra (2006) • Wagner Dream, opera (2007) • Speakings for orchestra and electronics (2008) • Other Presences for trumpet and electronics (2008) • Imaginings for cello and live electronics • Philia's Dream for cello and synthesizer • 80 Breaths for Tokyo for orchestra (2010) • Weltethos, an oratorio, for speaker, choir, children's chorus and orchestra (2011), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic • Cirrus Light for clarinet (2012) 9min

Jonathan Harvey is recorded with the occupation screenwriter. Classed in the genre opera. Recorded as composer, screenwriter, cellist, musician and librettist. Established in Library of Congress under n81066247. Recorded at birth as Jonathan Dean Harvey. Established in Discogs under 212264. Established in FAST under 1800976.