Though well established and widely respected in the classical music world, Birtwistle was relatively unknown to the general public until the mid-1990s, when two events brought him to the attention of a wider audience.
In 1994 two anti-modernist musicians, Frederick Stocken and Keith Burstein, calling themselves "The Hecklers," organised a demonstration at the first night of a revival of his opera Gawain at the Royal Opera House, London [REF].