Finnissy's Wake

Started by snyprrr, February 19, 2010, 11:19:03 PM

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snyprrr

Quote from: Mandryka on January 17, 2017, 10:08:09 PM
It's the bird song in the third quartet which interests me. What's he trying to do?

As i was listening to the music, and it sounding like a Sunday afternoon in the park- and then, lo and behold, here are the birds too!- I have to guess it's not what he was putting forward, but it simply sounds to me like the birds heighten the pastoral sense of the music... which, of course, make no real intellectual sense at this time in history...

so... yea... I guess I have no clue, lol...

BUT- is it really bird "song"??... The birds that were taped simply didn't seem to have anything to say... to me, at least...


I guess, from the cover of the CD, I was- again- expecting "blizzards" of bird sounds edited together in some outrageously cool manner- but, all I hear is generic bird taping...



I was reading the notes for the first CD of SQs (Metier), and,... I dunno,- I was getting a sense of pretentiousness concerning the discussion of the works, like Finnissy was doing something sooooo radical, so unthinkable, so PostModern... but then, when I hear the results of all that hard work, all I hear is what sounds like improvised stasis...

there is a moment in the notes where they're discussing his freakishly detailed notation, and how there is NO "downbeat" in Finnissy...

sorry, getting tired of typing...

unlike Finnissy, who seems to never tire of writing writing writing...


I can't stand when i hear "normal" sounding Modern music, but then the notes tell me there is SOOOO much more going on, when, sorry, all that "meaning" is just not hitting my ears... you could have just done a Cage on it instead of writing out every single little hiccup...


They go on about the piece 'Nobody's Jig' in this fashion, but what your ears actually hear is some sotto voce noodling--- NOODLING!!!!!!!!- yea, that's what my Mark Twain ears hear... the emperor has no clothes... I mean, you can't just exactly notate "fluctuations" (like a high tension wire, Lucier, Young) and really expect anyone passed 1971 to think it's revolutionary or exciting or anything other than "composed randomness"...

Just cause you put so much work into it doesn't mean it's ear candy...



OK, nuff Finnissy ranting... I'm sorry Mr. Finnissy, I just don't get it... at all :(

You make me miss Segerstam, and that's not a good thing right now :( :(

Mandryka



I think this recording of piano music is fabulous, every bit the equal of English Country Tunes and the Verdi Transcriptions, and very much in the same style - the same unsettled anger. Interesting booklet essay by Philip Thomas where he talks about Finnissy's post modernism.

There are two pieces First Political Agenda and Beat Generation Ballades. The latter ends with something really unexpected from contemporary composers - a huge set of variations!

Is anyone interested in exploring History of Photography with me? I find it a bit daunting and I want someone to hold my hand.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#42


Very good, just discovered by me.

The Choral Preludes are solo piano pieces. The Andersen Liederkreis is a song cycle. Juliet Fraser knows how to sing this sort of thing, impressive.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#43



Released last year, it has Schubert's D840 with Finnissy's completion. The minuetto is like a palimpsest, some of the Gershwin Arrangements have that feel for me. I think that quite a lot of the music in the minuetto is by Schubert, Finnissy just fills the gaps. The finale is more like a piece in Finnissy the Verdi transcriptions, and IMO is very good indeed. The other two movements, which are 100% Schubert, middle of the road interpretations, and clearly not where the main value of this recording rests for me. Not a particularly attractive sound.

Anyway, hats off to Yehuda Inbar for such a bold debut release.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

amw

Finnissy uses Schubert's fragment for the minuet but ignores his fragment of the finale. (both fragments, as Schubert left them, can be heard in any Richter recording—or as completed "in the style of Schubert": Stanislav Khristenko, Ray Lev & Friedrich Wührer playing Ernst Krenek's completion—the best-known attempt, in 1921; Paul Badura-Skoda playing his own completion 3x—probably the most pianistically satisfying; Todd Crow playing Brian Newbould's completion; Anthony Goldstone playing his own completion; Malcolm Bilson playing his completion of the minuet only. Probably many others that have failed to survive to the present day.)

I think it's an interesting, and potentially stylistically suitable continuation for the sonata despite the very significant differences—but to judge properly I'd have to hear a better performance, by someone with a better feel for Schubert's music. (maybe Finnissy himself will do it.) No disrespect to Inbar but there's still a bit too much of the conservatory in this release.

Mandryka

Has anyone explored A History of Photography in Sound?
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

I listened to a bit of Finnissy earlier. The English Country Tunes and the Verdi Transcriptions, as mentioned by Mandryka earlier in the thread. So that really surprised me, not what I was expecting at all! With names like that I was expecting something innocent enough, and I suppose it didn't help that I may have been mixing him up with Finzi :laugh: What I got instead were massive, extremely intricate, complex, marathon virtuoso pieces for the piano, like Sorabji on steroids, vaguely Ferneyhough-ish, too, I suppose.

Perhaps not for me at this point in my life, but my interest has been piqued. Are the aforementioned among Finnissy's more "accessible" works? Or is there some other place that may make for an easier starting point?

Mandryka

#48
Quote from: vers la flamme on March 26, 2020, 04:24:52 PM
I listened to a bit of Finnissy earlier. The English Country Tunes and the Verdi Transcriptions, as mentioned by Mandryka earlier in the thread. So that really surprised me, not what I was expecting at all! With names like that I was expecting something innocent enough, and I suppose it didn't help that I may have been mixing him up with Finzi :laugh: What I got instead were massive, extremely intricate, complex, marathon virtuoso pieces for the piano, like Sorabji on steroids, vaguely Ferneyhough-ish, too, I suppose.

Perhaps not for me at this point in my life, but my interest has been piqued. Are the aforementioned among Finnissy's more "accessible" works? Or is there some other place that may make for an easier starting point?

Before you give up try "I'll give my love a garland" from English Country Tunes   and "Snowdrift" which is on Nicolas Hodges' CD Edged Bright with Sunlight and elsewhere.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

Quote from: Mandryka on March 27, 2020, 12:56:14 AM
Before you give up try "I'll give my love a garland" from English Country Tunes   and "Snowdrift" which is on Nicolas Hodges' CD Edged Bright with Sunlight and elsewhere.

Will do. Thanks.

North Star

Ever since our Luke brought up Finnissy's Berlioz transcript Romeo & Juliet are Drowning years ago, I've wanted to hear it. Well I finally managed to find now a recital video on YT now that includes it, with Alkan, Cowell & Debussy. Haven't heard of the pianist Ivo Delaere before.
https://www.youtube.com/v/OGBpBdi_d78
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Mandryka



This is a great favourite of mine, it's available widely on itunes and spotify etc. Anyway, I haven't heard it in a while and just played it, and I think that the relation between this music and the sound world of the New York Anti Avant garde, Christian Wolff especially, is clear. Unfortunately I don't have the booklet.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#52
Quote from: North Star on March 27, 2020, 01:33:13 PM
Ever since our Luke brought up Finnissy's Berlioz transcript Romeo & Juliet are Drowning years ago, I've wanted to hear it. Well I finally managed to find now a recital video on YT now that includes it, with Alkan, Cowell & Debussy. Haven't heard of the pianist Ivo Delaere before.
https://www.youtube.com/v/OGBpBdi_d78

It seems to start at 9,14. From an old programme note

QuoteRomeo and Juliet are Drowning is the first work from Finnissy's adult output which
can be called a 'transcription', in the sense of explicitly alluding to named preexisting musical material. It is based upon the 'Scène d'amour' from Berlioz's Roméo
et Juliette, which would later occupy a pivotal role in The History of Photography in
Sound - though there Finnissy predominantly references the music customarily taken
to represent Juliette; here he focuses primarily on that for Roméo. Whilst this music is
presented in a relatively recognisable form, albeit with chromatic elaboration, around
half-way through he begins to 'submerge' this within a series of descending notes and
chords derived from an inverted form of the drowning music from Berg's Wozzeck,
until ultimately all trace of the Berlioz has disappeared.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka



Listening to this music for the first time, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a connection between Aldo Clementi and Michael Finnissy, though a half hearted googling has come up with nothing.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

https://vimeo.com/250951577

Nice to see the composer and Christopher Redgate in the first performance of Âwâz-e Niyâz. 50 minutes playing oboe must be hard.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#57
Richard Barrett on Michael Finnissy

https://fdocuments.in/document/michael-finnissy-an-overview.html

And by the way, very much enjoying Nobody's Jig - four unsynchronized parts for string quartet

https://www.youtube.com/v/S5c1pUjrI2E

Some notes on it

QuoteNobody's Jig (1981) has a specific seating instruction, that the second violin should be placed opposite to the first, effectively swapping with the 'cello seat. There is also an implication that the players should not be placed too close to each other on the stage. These might seem like small matters. In fact, the second instruction has almost seismic implications for the strata of a string quartet. Traditionally, quartets can be recognised by their extremely personalised proximities to each other in the magic circle of the stage. Each player is used to a very particular degree of intimacy that results from a strictly organised aural relativity in space to each other. When a composer steps into this intimacy and requests a change, it is akin to surgery. The group is not what it was before; the semi-feudal relationship between instruments totters. This is made more complex by placing violins opposite each other, because therein lies an indicator pointing clearly to the classical tradition. Immediately, the players will start looking for the antiphonal relationship present in the eighteenth century works using this configuration. Whether it is there or not, acknowledged or denied, a curve has been thrown into the interdependence of the musicians. It is a degree of interference, bordering on a violation, but implicit in it is "listen up, this is not a quartet'. 
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#59
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen