The Pop Corporation

Of course, most people know Anthony Burgess as the titan behind the frantic and somewhat savage ‘A Clockwork Orange’, but maybe less well known is that the writer was a frustrated musician.

Initially an indifferent music listener, it wasn’t until he heard ‘Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune’ by Debussy that his world turned upside down, and Burgess would tell his family that he wanted to be a composer, but was talked out of the idea because there was no money in it. Despite this, he would teach himself how to play piano and composed his own music.

The man himself said: “I wish people would think of me as a musician who writes novels, instead of a novelist who writes music on the side.”

At the Anthony Burgess Foundation, they’ve uncovered a previously unknown piece for a string quartet which will be played for the first time in Manchester.

Talking to the Observer, Professor Andrew Biswell (he’s Burgess’s biographer and director of the Foundation) said: “Nobody’s heard it before. We’ve got some very good musicians from the Hallé Orchestra who are going to perform it. Thirty years after his death, Burgess is finally coming into focus as a musician.”

Apparently, the piece is inspired by Shostakovich and the world premiere of the piece will take place at the Burgess Foundation on 1 December.