Two years after giving its premiere with the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi brought Night’s Black Bird to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A companion piece to The Shadow of Night (2001), Night’s Black Bird is another slow, melancholy processional of the kind Sir Harrison Birtwistle has written throughout his career, this time with the music of John Dowland as a hidden inspiration. ‘Birtwistle may scare Americans,’ admitted the critic of the Los Angeles Times. ‘ Something is stirring, but you don't know what it is, which is what makes Birtwistle so fascinating — and so frightening.’