Re: complexity in music

[lukeottevanger]

Alright, Luke...I've found a download of the Gershwin piano arrangements, as well as the sheet music (shh)...I'm looking forward to this; there's nothing like a passionate salesman to make a product sound appealing, and, well, you've sold me, so to speak!

Btw, there's a complete upload of Finnissy's English Country Tunes on youtube, albeit with no video.

On a side, Luke, have you had a chance to check out Marc-Andre Hamelin's latest disc feating Godowsky transcriptions of Johann Strauss? Talkin' about arrangements!

No I haven't heard that one yet.....though if you're in the mood, Finnissy's done some very tricky Strauss arrangements too! Part of Finnissy's trick, in arranging, is to filter the past through the present. With the Gershwin arrangements, for instance, first of all he goes back not to the originals but to the originals as sung by Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, so that there is more interpretative 'grit' there; and then, as he says 'tempo and harmony change from fast to slow, light to dark, and vice versa. Forceful sentiments become quite docile, unbridled joy turns to melancholy. Blithe security is transformed into tense and upsetting ambiguity. Naive grows cynical. Day changes into night and girls become boys.....' All of this is Finnissy to a T - poetic disruption, always to make a potent point.

The above quotation is from the liner notes to Nic Hodges recording of the Gershwin arrangements, which until I got it a few months back I only knew from my own playing. A couple of other little tidbits from those notes, which are very revealing I think:

1) the first seven songs of the first set are meant to form a unit charting the course of a love affair 'from tentative, if hopeful, beginnings to mournful ending'. This certainly makes sense, once it is known.

2) The melody line of 'Things are looking up' was taken in dictation from Astaire; the refrain imitates tap-dancing

3) In 'Love is here to stay' the accompaniment figuration comes from Andre Caplet, of all people!

4) In 'they're writing songs of love but not for me' (the last of the 'love affair' set) the melody comes from Judy Garland; the accompaniment from Liszt'z Lugubre gondola I

5) in the second, more complex and allusive set, 'More Gershwin', 'Limehouse Nights' derives as much from the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as from the Gershwin song

6) In 'I'd rather Charleston' the introductory figuration comes from Busoni; the melody was dictated from Astaire

7) ...and it was in 'Isn't it wonderful!' too

'Dixie Rose' is in part a Mayerl homage

9) The last of all, 'Nashville Nightingale' was dedicated to a friend recently diagnosed with AIDS; it refers to the nightingale in Goyescas.

All of this gives a little idea of Finnissy's typical allusiveness, and the way his primarily contrapuntal technique extends into webs of associations beyond the notes themselves.

[Joe_Campbell]

Well, I'm off to practice, and then work, so listening (and reading!) will have to wait until I get back. Still, you've left me with much to think about. Incidentally, the recording of the Gershwin arrangements I'm 'acquiring' at the moment is the Nic Hodge's one.

[bhodges]

Hey, I think I saw a review of yours on Amazon when looking into Finnissy recordings! Fine coincidence!

Yes, probably for Etched Bright with Sunlight, a favorite of mine among solo piano recordings.

Luke, fantastic post with the excerpts from those notes.  (I may not have gotten around to actually reading them.  )

--Bruce

[lukeottevanger]

If I didn't already have it I'd be jumping at the chance to buy this  - Finnissy's Red Earth - whilst it's at this price. A great landscape piece - like an antipodean, fiercely atonal, complexity Tapiola, and, Sibelius-like, turning musical landscape into a moral presence.

[bhodges]

Thanks for that, Luke.  I don't think I've heard anything by him other than solo piano works.

--Bruce

[lukeottevanger]

The NMC disc with Traum des Sangers is a winner too - that's gorgeously delicate, lyrical piece, with roots in a Caspar David Friedrich etching and Byzantine chant

[bhodges]

That sounds great, too.  I am pretty sure I've seen either or both of these used, at Academy--will check again on my next visit. 

--Bruce