New article in the Weekend Australian Review on issues relating to #notationgate and deskilling

Posted: August 29, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Film, Music - General, Musical Education | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A new cover article in The Weekend Australian Review, Rosemary Neill, ‘Notes on a Scandal: The raging debate over our next generation of composers and musicians: should they be able to read a score?’, Weekend Australian Review, 29-30 August 2020, brings to a further readership many of the key issues debated a few years ago as part of #notationgate and also of deskilling (see here and here). This is behind a paywall, but can currently be accessed here for those with a subscription.

Neill speaks at the outset to student composer Dante Clavijo, who surprises some people by saying that he still composes using pen and paper, rather than relying entirely upon digital audio workstations. Clavijo argues that songwriters and composers ‘absolutely benefit from knowing notation; it’s jut a logical way to organise musical thought.’ But this then leads to the question of whether even those studying music at tertiary level need to learn notation. On this, Neill quotes my collaborator Peter Tregear:

Yet Peter Tregear, a former head of the ANU’s school of music, points out that these days, students can graduate with music degrees without being able to read music, particularly if they are studying popular music and music technology subjects or degrees, and he is scathing about this trend.

“I find it concerning,” says Tregear, who obtained a PhD in musicology from Cambridge University and has worked at Cambridge, Melbourne and Monash universities. “It’s a misunderstanding of what universities are there to do. We’re meant to be expanding minds and opening horizons. … If you no longer teach musical notation, you effectively wipe out not just a good deal of recent Australian music history, but a large swathe of music history full-stop.”

Tregear presided over the ANU’s music school from 2012 to 2015 and waged a battle to keep several notation-centred subjects in the music degree. He lost.

He attributes the decoupling of music education and traditional notation to the march of new technologies and – more controversially – to a push to “decolonise” the music curriculum, because the classical canon was largely created by “dead white men”.

The outspoken academic, who has also won a Green Room Award for conducting, tells Review: “There has been, I think, a false or at least a very dubious conflation of arguments around the fact that western music notation is western music notation, and the idea that we shouldn’t favour it for that reason.

“To borrow an Orwellian phrase, ignorance is now a strength – it is considered that we’re actually better off not to teach this, which I find an extraordinary view for any higher education institution to take.”

In contrast, most European countries still comprehensively studied their own music histories. Still, even in Europe, there was a push at some conservatoriums and universities to “decolonise” the curriculum.

“There is a move away from musical notation as being central to a music education as a kind of excuplation for western historical wrongs,” he says.

Tregear argues that if a music student is incapable of engaging with music that was “increasingly written down” over the course of 1000 years, “a whole wealth of the global musical past is effectively closed to you”.

Tregear is opposed by composer and University of Melbourne professor Barry Conyngham who claims that whether or not his institution’s students ‘can read sheet music or not’, they are ‘very musically capable of conveying musical performances and thoughts.’ But composer Matthew Hindson, of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, notes that all students there must study music theory and notation.

Other examples are cited such as Paul McCartney and the Beatles, but Clavijo, like others before him, points out the important contributions of others such as George Martin, who certainly did have a more traditional and formal musical training. Others make claims that any objections to the removal of traditional skills are little more than resistance to ‘decolonisation’.

This article obviously comes from an Australian context, from a country in which (as with the US and even to some extent the UK), art music traditions have a much less central cultural role than in much of continental Europe, and with fewer living musical traditions developed over centuries or millennia as in various Asian and African countries. But it points to a wider trend by which a mixture of over-elevated claims for certain technology, allied to populist and commercialist attitudes (invariably favouring Western popular musics – the study of non-Western musical traditions are faring no better in this environment, for all the rhetoric of decolonisation) are said to obviate any requirement for more rigorous training.

My online timelines fill up with videos and websites promising to teach people how to compose in a few weeks without requiring any learning of harmony, use of instruments, and so on. Furthermore, in an interview from two years ago, film composer Hans Zimmer, recently renowned for his slowed-down version of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ to accompany the arrival of pleasure boats to rescue British soldiers in Dunkirk, the film which was accurately described as fuelling Brexit fantasies, boasts of having ‘no technique’ and ‘no formal education’, but instead ‘the only thing I know how to write about is something that’s inside of me.’ This sort of argument is not new, and was encountered in the nineteenth-century amongst a range of Russian composers opposed to the professionalisation of music-making and establishment of conservatoires for this purpose. Appealing to some sense of inner authenticity and the notion that somehow anyone can be a composer so long as they have something ‘inside of them’, has a long and dishonourable history, as was debated extensively in the responses to Stella Duffy posted on this blog in 2017. It speaks to a wider culture of anti-intellectualism and deskilling, in which the only measure of art is commercial and popular success.

I continue to believe that it would be a great loss if those who go on to teach music in primary and secondary cannot read music and thus will be unable to impart it to pupils, or if composition becomes merely about copying and pasting others’ work. This is not to deny the importance throughout musical history of musical borrowing, an issue about which there are a range of sophisticated theoretical models (of which I undertake a critical survey in order to arrive at models for analysing the work of Michael Finnissy, in my book chapter, ‘Negotiating borrowing, genre and mediation in the piano music of Finnissy: strategies and aesthetics’). A good deal of very superficial writing on postmodernism, intertextuality and so on, is founded essentially a dichotomy between two straw men – an insistence upon absolute originality or total plagiarism, when in reality almost all music of any quality inhabits differing positions on a spectrum. That Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Verdi, Brahms, Debussy, Stravinsky or any number of others drew upon existing musical forms, genres, styles, sometimes explicitly borrowed musical materials (for example Liszt’s huge range of ‘transcriptions’ for piano, or Brahms’s many pieces alluding to Renaissance or early Baroque choral music) has never seriously been in doubt to anyone familiar with their work. Such examples as Stravinsky’s transformation of baroque musical materials into an angular, askew, sometimes dissonant, and alienated musical experience, Finnissy’s transformations of small groups of pitches and rhythms from Sardinian folk song into wild, rampaging musical canvasses, Ives’s hallucinatory and terrifying visions incorporating the residues upon consciousness of mangled hymns, allusions to brass bands, Beethoven and more, Berio’s carefully-judged fragmentations and superimpositions of a wide range of music from nineteenth- and twentieth-century orchestral and other repertoire on top of parallel threads provided by the scherzo from Mahler’s Second Symphony and a text from Beckett’s The Unnamable, to create an unsettling tapestry of commentary and critique, or for that matter Chopin’s use of known dance and other genres (waltz, polonaise, mazurka, etc.) allied to a Bellinian sense of vocal line and an ultra-refined contrapuntal sensibility, are all a world away from music which simply lifts others’ work or hackneyed clichés for ready-made, tried and tested, effects and moods. What distinguishes the above (and many others, including many in non-‘classical’ fields of composition) is a highly developed and refined level of musicianship, including detailed musical understanding of the properties of the sources upon which they draw. These are not achieved easily, and empty claims that anyone can be a composer comparable with the above, without having to go through the training, are no more convincing than equivalent claims about becoming a surgeon.

Bright Futures, Dark Pasts: Michael Finnissy at 70 – Jan 19/20, Conference/Concerts at City University

Posted: January 13, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Art, Culture, Film, History, Literature, media, Music - General, Musicology, New Music, Politics, Theatre | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Click here to book tickets for the conference and/or the concerts.

On Thursday January 19th and Friday January 20th, 2017, City, University of London is hosting a conference entitled Bright Futures, Dark Pasts: Michael Finnissy at 70.  This will feature a range of scholarly papers on a variety of aspects of Finnissy’s work – including his use of musical objets trouvés, engagement with folk music, sexuality, the influence of cinema, relationship to other contemporary composers, issues of marginality, and his work in performance. There will be three concerts, featuring his complete works for two pianos and piano duet, played by the composer, Ian Pace, and Ben Smith; a range of solo, chamber and ensemble works; and a complete performance (from 14:00-21:00 on Friday 20th) of his epic piano cycle The History of Photography in Sound by Ian Pace. The concerts include the world premieres of Finnissy’s Zortziko (2009) for piano duet and Kleine Fjeldmelodie (2016-17) for solo piano, the UK premiere of Duet (1971-2013) and London premieres of Fem ukarakteristisek marsjer med tre tilføyde trioer (2008-9) for piano duet, Derde symfonische etude (2013) for two pianos,  his voice/was then/here waiting (1996) for two pianos, and Eighteenth-Century Novels: Fanny Hill (2006) for two pianos. There will also be a rare chance to hear Finnissy’s Sardinian-inspired Anninnia (1981-2) for voice and piano, for the first time in several decades.

Keynote speakers will be Roddy Hawkins (University of Manchester), Gregory Woods (Nottingham Trent University, author of Homintern) and Ian Pace (City, University of London). The composer will be present for the whole event, and will perform and be interviewed by Christopher Fox (Brunel University) on his work and the History in particular.

The composer and photographer Patrícia Sucena de Almeida, who studied with Finnissy between 2000 and 2004, has created a photographic work, continuum simulacrum (2016-17) inspired by The History of Photography in Sound and particularly Chapter 6 (Seventeen Immortal Homosexual Poets). The series will be shown on screens in the department and samples of a book version will be available.

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Patrícia Sucena de Almeida, from continuum simulacrum (2016-17).

The full programme can be viewed below. This conference also brings to a close Ian Pace’s eleven-concert series of the complete piano works of Finnissy.

A separate blog post will follow on The History of Photography in Sound.

 

 

Click here to book tickets for the conference and/or the concerts.

 

All events take place at the Department of Music, College Building, City, University of London, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB.  

Thursday January 19th, 2017

 09:00-09:30 Room AG09.
Registration and TEA/COFFEE.

09:30-10:00  Performance Space.
Introduction and tribute to Michael Finnissy by Ian Pace and Miguel Mera (Head of Department of Music, City, University of London).

10:00-12:00  Room AG09. Chair: Aaron Einbond.
Larry Goves (Royal Northern College of Music), ‘Michael Finnissy & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: the composer as anthropologist’.

Maarten Beirens (Amsterdam University), ‘Questioning the foreign and the familiar: Interpreting Michael Finnissy’s use of traditional and non-Western sources’

Lauren Redhead (Canterbury Christ Church University), ‘The Medium is Now the Material: The “Folklore” of Chris Newman and Michael Finnissy’.

Followed by a roundtable discussion between the three speakers and composer and Finnissy student Claudia Molitor (City, University of London), chaired by Aaron Einbond.

 

12:00-13:00  Foyer, Performance Space.
LUNCH.

13:10–14:15 Performance Space.
Concert 1: Michael Finnissy: The Piano Music (10). Michael Finnissy, Ian Pace and Ben Smith play Finnissy’s works for two pianos or four hands.

Michael Finnissy, Wild Flowers (1974) (IP/MF)
Michael Finnissy, Fem ukarakteristisek marsjer med tre tilføyde trioer (2008-9) (BS/IP) (London premiere)
Michael Finnissy, Derde symfonische etude (2013) (BS/IP) (London premiere)
Michael Finnissy, Deux jeunes se promènent à travers le ciel 1920 (2008) (IP/BS)
Michael Finnissy, his voice/was then/here waiting (1996) (IP/MF) (UK premiere)
Michael Finnissy, Eighteenth-Century Novels: Fanny Hill (2006) (IP/MF) (London premiere)

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Max Ernst, Deux jeunes se promènent à travers le ciel (1920)

 

14:30-15:30 Room AG09. Chair: Lauren Redhead (Canterbury Christ Church University).Keynote: Roddy Hawkins (University of Manchester): ‘Articulating, Dwelling, Travelling: Michael Finnissy and Marginality’.

15:30-16:00  Foyer, Performance Space.
TEA/COFFEE.

16:00-17:00 Room AG09. Chair: Roddy Hawkins (University of Manchester).
Keynote: Ian Pace (City, University of London): ‘Michael Finnissy between Jean-Luc Godard and Dennis Potter: appropriation of techniques from cinema and TV’ 

17:00-18:00 Room AG09. Chair: Christopher Fox (Brunel University).
Roundtable on performing the music of Michael Finnissy. Participants: Neil Heyde (cellist), Ian Pace (pianist), Jonathan Powell (pianist), Christopher Redgate (oboist), Roger Redgate (conductor, violinist), Nancy Ruffer (flautist).

 

19:00              Performance Space.
Concert 2: City University Experimental Ensemble (CUEE), directed Tullis Rennie. Christopher Redgate, oboe/oboe d’amore; Nancy Ruffer, flutes; Bernice Chitiul, voice; Alexander Benham, piano; Michael Finnissy, piano; Ian Pace, piano; Ben Smith; piano.

Michael Finnissy, Yso (2007) (CUEE)
Michael Finnissy, Stille Thränen (2009) (Ian Pace, Ben Smith)
Michael Finnissy, Runnin’ Wild (1978) (Christopher Redgate)
Michael Finnissy, Anninnia (1981-82) (Bernice Chitiul, Ian Pace)
Michael Finnissy, Ulpirra (1982-83) (Nancy Ruffer)
Michael Finnissy, Pavasiya (1979) (Christopher Redgate)

INTERVAL

‘Mini-Cabaret’: Michael Finnissy, piano
Chris Newman, AS YOU LIKE IT (1981)
Michael Finnissy, Kleine Fjeldmelodie (2016-17) (World première)
Andrew Toovey, Where are we in the world? (2014)
Laurence Crane, 20th CENTURY MUSIC (1999)
Matthew Lee Knowles, 6th Piece for Laurence Crane (2006)
Morgan Hayes, Flaking Yellow Stucco (1995-6)
Tom Wilson, UNTIL YOU KNOW (2017) (World première)
Howard Skempton, after-image 3 (1990)

Michael Finnissy, Zortziko (2009) (Ian Pace, Ben Smith) (World première)
Michael Finnissy, Duet (1971-2013) (Ben Smith, Ian Pace) (UK première)
Michael Finnissy, ‘They’re writing songs of love, but not for me’, from Gershwin Arrangements (1975-88) (Alexander Benham)
Michael Finnissy, APRÈS-MIDI DADA (2006) (CUEE)

 

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Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912).

21:30  Location to be confirmed
CONFERENCE DINNER

 

Friday January 20th, 2017

10:00-11:00  Room AG21.
Christopher Fox in conversation with Michael Finnissy on The History of Photography in Sound.

11:00-11:30  Room AG21.
TEA/COFFEE.

11:30-12:30  Room AG21. Chair: Alexander Lingas (City, University of London).
Keynote: Gregory Woods (Nottingham Trent University): ‘My “personal themes”?!’: Finnissy’s Seventeen Homosexual Poets and the Material World’.

 

14:00-21:00      Performance Space.
Concert 3:  Michael Finnissy: The Piano Music (11): The History of Photography in Sound (1995-2002). Ian Pace, piano

14:00                     Chapters 1, 2: Le démon de l’analogie; Le réveil de l’intraitable realité.

15:00                     INTERVAL

15:15                     Chapters 3, 4: North American Spirituals; My parents’ generation thought War meant something

16:15                     INTERVAL

16:35                     Chapters 5, 6, 7: Alkan-Paganini; Seventeen Immortal Homosexual Poets; Eadweard Muybridge-Edvard Munch

17:50                     INTERVAL (wine served)

18:10                     Chapter 8: Kapitalistische Realisme (mit Sizilianische Männerakte und Bachsche Nachdichtungen)

19:20                     INTERVAL (wine served)

19:35                     Chapters 9, 10, 11: Wachtend op de volgende uitbarsting van repressie en censuur; Unsere Afrikareise; Etched Bright with Sunlight.

 

What characterizes the so-called advanced societies is that they today consume images and no longer, like those of the past, beliefs; they are therefore more liberal, less fanatical, but also more ‘false’ (less ‘authentic’) – something we translate, in ordinary consciousness, by the avowal of an impression of nauseated boredom, as if the universalized image were producing a world that is without difference (indifferent), from which can rise, here and there, only the cry of anarchisms, marginalisms, and individualisms: let us abolish the images, let us save immediate Desire (desire without mediation).

Mad or tame? Photography can be one or the other: tame if its realism remains relative, tempered by aesthetic or empirical habits (to leaf through a magazine at the hairdresser’s, the dentist’s); mad if this realism is absolute and, so to speak, original, obliging the loving and terrified consciousness to return to the very letter of Time: a strictly revulsive movement which reverses the course of the thing, and which I shall call, in conclusion, the photographic ecstasy.

Such are the two ways of the Photography.  The choice is mine: to subject its spectacle to the civilized code of perfect illusions, or to confront in it the wakening of intractable reality.

Ce qui caractérise les sociétés dites avancées, c’est que ces sociétés consomment aujourd’hui des images, et non plus, comme celles d’autrefois, des croyances; elles sont donc plus libérales, moins fanataiques, mais aussi plus «fausses» (moins «authentiques») – chose que nous traduisons, dans la conscience courante, par l’aveu d’une impression d’ennui nauséeux, comme si l’image, s’universalisant, produisait un monde sans differences (indifferent), d’où ne peut alors surgir ici et là que le cri des anarchismes, marginalismes et individualismes : abolissons les images, sauvons le Désir immédiat (sans mediation).

Folle ou sage? La Photographie peut être l’un ou l’autre : sage si son réalisme reste relative, tempére par des habitudes esthétiques ou empiriques (feuilleter une revue chez le coiffeur, le dentist); folle, si ce réalisme est absolu, et, si l’on peut dire, original, faisant revenir à la conscience amoureuse et effrayée la letter même du Temps : movement proprement révulsif, qui retourne le cours de la chose, et que l’appellerai pour finir l’extase photographique.

Telles sont les deux voies de la Photographie. A moi de choisir, de soumettre son spectacle au code civilise des illusions parfaits, ou d’affronter en elle le réveil de l’intraitable réalité.

Roland Barthes, Le chambre claire/Camera Lucida.

 

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Eadweard Muybridge – A. Throwing a Disk, B: Ascending a Step, C: Walking from Animal Locomotion (1885-1887).

 

 

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Patrícia Sucena de Almeida, from continuum simulacrum (2016-17).

Click here to book tickets for the conference and/or the concerts.

 

The Verdi that inspired Finnissy

Posted: November 29, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Academia, Music - General, Musicology, New Music, Theatre | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

This coming Thursday, December 1st, will see the ninth concert in my series of the complete piano works of Michael Finnissy, at Deptford Town Hall, Goldsmith’s College, beginning at 18:00 (with a 15-minute talk between myself and the composer, followed by the performance immediately afterwards). This cycle, which I have recorded in its earlier incarnation, and which was considerably expanded (to around twice the original duration, and four books referencing every Verdi opera) in 2004-2005, is one for which I hold a special affection, as Book 1 was the first music of Finnissy I ever learned.

As earlier with Finnissy’s Gershwin Arrangements, I thought some would find it informative to be able to listen to the Verdi originals before the concert, so I have made this blog containing all of the numbers/sections in question, in the same order as they appear in the Finnissy cycle.

I hope many people will be able to come along on Thursday, and bring others!

Book 1

No. 1: Aria: ‘Sciagatura!  a questo lido ricercai l’amante infido!’, Oberto (Act 2)

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(From 2:00:50)

No. 2: Trio: ‘Bella speranza in vero’, Un Giorno di Regno (Act 1)

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No. 3: Chorus: ‘Il maledetto non ha fratelli’, Nabucco (Part 2)

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No. 4: Chorus:‘Fra tante sciagure…’, I Lombardi (Act 3)

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(From 1:33:24)

No. 5: Septet with Chorus: ‘Vedi come il buon vegliardo…’, Ernani (Part 1)

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No. 6:Choral Barcarolle: ‘Tace il vento, è queta l’onda’, I Due Foscari (Act 3)

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(From 1:15:34)

No. 7: Aria: ‘So che per via di triboli’, Giovanna d’Arco (Act 1)

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(from 4:35)

No. 8: Duet: ‘Il pianto…l’angoscia…di lean mi priva’, Alzira (Act 2)

verdi-1-8

(From 1:03:27)

No. 9: Aria: ‘Mentre gonfiarsi l’Anima’, Attila (Act 1)

verdi-1-9

Book 2

No. 10: Duetto: ‘Vanitosi! Che abietti e dormenti’, Attila (Prologo)

verdi-2-1

(From 22:35)

No. 11: Coro: ‘Patria oppressa! Il dolce nome…’, Macbeth (Act 4, 1847 version)

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No. 12: Duetto: ‘Qual mare, qual terra….’, I masnadieri (Parte Terza)

verdi-2-3

No. 13: Récit et Duo: ‘Non, ce bruit, ce ne’est rien…’, Jérusalem (Act 1)

verdi-2-4

(From 3:38)

No. 14: Romanza: ‘Non so le tetre immagini’, Il Corsaro (Act 1)

verdi-2-5

No. 15: Inno di Vittoria: ‘Dall’Alpi a Caridi echeggi vittoria!’, La Battaglia di Legnano (Act 4)

verdi-2-6

(From 1:44:16)

No. 16: Scena e Quartetto: ‘Rea fucina d’empie frodi…’, Luisa Miller (Act 2)

verdi-2-7

(From 1:24:08)

No. 17: Duetto: ‘Opposto é il calle che in avvenire’, Stiffelio (Act 3)

verdi-2-8

(From 1:30:00)

No. 18: Scena e Coro: ‘Vendetta del pazzo! Contr’esso un rancore’, Rigoletto (Act 1)

verdi-2-9

(From 9:25)

Book 3

No. 19: Canzone: ‘La donna è mobile’, Rigoletto (Act 3)

verdi-3-1

No. 20: Duo: ‘Vivra! Contende il giubilo’, Il Trovatore (Act 4, scene 1)

verdi-3-2

(From 4:48)

No. 21: Duetto: ‘È nulla, sai?’, La Traviata (Act 3)

verdi-3-3

(From 2:20:40)

No. 22: Boléro: ‘Merci, jeunes amies, d’un souvenir si doux!’, Les vêpres siciliennes (Act 5, scene 2)

verdi-3-4

No. 23: Scena: ‘Tradimento!’, Simon Boccanegra (Finale dell’Atto Primo, 1857 version)

verdi-3-5

(if this link does not work, simply do a search for Verdi Boccanegra Tradimento on Spotify)

https://play.spotify.com/album/3lF212F3oY6j4aU8MEhCC9/4GCB9Y3gwkVGVN2wVZ6BZc

No. 24: Coro, Burrasca e Finale: ‘Allora che gl’anni’, Aroldo (Act 4); ‘Vi fu in Palestina’, Aroldo (Finale Act 1)

verdi-3-6

aroldo-vi-fu-in-palestina

 

(From 1:56:54 for ‘Allora che gl’anni’, 40:32 for ‘Vi fu in Palestina’)

No. 25: Stretta: ‘Ogni cura si doni al diletto’, Un Ballo di Maschera (Act 1)

verdi-3-7

No. 26: Romanza: ‘Me pellegrina ed orfano’, La Forza del Destino (Act 1)

verdi-3-8

No. 27: Aria: (a) ‘Trionfai! Securi alfino’ (1847), (b) ‘La luce langue’ (1864-5), Macbeth (Act 2)

verdi-3-9a

verdi-3-9b

Book 4

No. 28: Chorus: ‘S’allontanarono! N’accozzeremo’, Macbeth (Act 1)

verdi-4-1a

verdi-4-1b

No. 29: (a) Duo: ‘Restez! Auprès de ma personne’ (Acte II, Tableau II); (b) Duo: ‘J’ai tout compris’ (Acte IV, Tableau I), Don Carlos (1866-7)

verdi-4-2a

 

for-blog-jai-tout-compris-1

for-blog-jai-tout-compris-2

(From 1:05)

 

No. 30: Romanza: ‘O cieli azzuri…’, Aida (Act 3)

verdi-4-3

No. 31: String Quartet: (a) III. Prestissimo, (b) IV. Scherzo fuga

verdi-4-4a

verdi-4-4b

No. 32: Aria: ‘Cielo, pietoso, rendila’, Simon Boccanegra (Act 2)

verdi-4-5

No. 33: Aria: ‘Tu che la vanità conoscesti’, Don Carlo (Act 5)

verdi-4-6

No. 34: (a) Ballet No. 3: ‘Chanson Grecque’ (Cancone Greca)’; (b) Scena: ‘Una gran nube turba’, Otello (Act 3, Finale)

verdi-chanson-grecque

(From 1:47)

verdi-4-7b

(From 1:31:30)

No. 35: ‘Brava! Quelle corna saranno la mio gioia!’, Falstaff (Act 3, Part 1)

verdi-4-8a

(From 1:41:25)

No. 36: ‘Requiem Aeternam’, Missa da Requiem

verdi-4-9a

verdi-4-9b

Finnissy Piano Works (7) and (8) – November 7th and 21st, Oxford

Posted: November 1, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Music - General, New Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

poster-for-oxford-finnissy-concerts

 

[NEW: There will now be a new world premiere in the concert on Monday, November 21st, of the newly-composed Kleine Fjeldmelodien, dedicated to Ian Pace and Nigel McBride]

The seventh and eight concerts in my ongoing series of the complete piano works of Michael Finnissy will take place on Monday, November 7th, and Monday, November 21st, in the Holywell Music Room, Oxford. Both concerts will begin at 19:30. Tickets are £10, £5 concessions.

The first programme features a range of lesser-known works from the 1990s to the present day, including Finnissy’s unusual Machaut arrangement De toutes flours,of Francisco de Vidales’ villancico ‘Los que fueren de buen gusto’ in …desde que naçe, or his moving intimate tribute to soprano Tracey Chadwell, Tracey and Snowy in Köln. The much more extended Choralvorspiele (Koralforspill) is a series of fantastical post-Busoniesque chorale preludes sharing common material, an exercise in both compositional and pianistic virtuosity. The second half contains the second ever complete performance of the Second Political Agenda, three c. 20′ pieces embodying Finnissy’s extremely individual take on the music of Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg and Aleksander Skryabin.

The second programme features further tributes, to Satie again,  to Oliver Messiaen in A solis ortus cardine, to Bulgarian composer Georghi Tutev, and the UK premiere of Finnissy’s Brahms-Lieder, not to mention his Beatles’ arrangement Two of Us, as well as some pieces written for children or elementary pianists in Wee Saw Footprints and Edward. The longer pieces in the programme include Enough, Finnissy’s response to Samuel Beckett’s short text Assez, and the monumental recent work Beat Generation Ballads.

 

Monday, November 7th, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (7)
Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street OX1 3SD

Elephant (1994)
Tracey and Snowy in Köln (1996)
The larger heart, the kindlier hand (1993)
…desde que naçe (1993)
De toutes flours (1990)
Cibavit eos (1991-92)
Zwei Deutsche mit Coda (2006)
Erscheinen ist der herrliche Tag (2003)
Choralvorspiele (Koralforspill) (2012)

***

Second Political Agenda (2000-8)

  1. ERIK SATIE like anyone else;
  2. Mit Arnold Schoenberg ;
  3. SKRYABIN in itself.

 

machaut-de-toutes-flours

Guillaume de Machaut, De toutes flours

finnissy-de-toutes-flours

Finnissy, De toutes flours (1990)

 

Monday, November 21st, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (8)
Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street OX1 3SD

A solis ortus cardine (1992)
Stanley Stokes, East Street 1836 (1989-94)
Edward (2002)
Deux Airs de Geneviève de Brabant (Erik Satie) (2001)
Z/K (2012)
Brahms-Lieder (2015) (UK Premiere)
Enough (2001)

***

Wee Saw Footprints (1986-90)
Kleine Fjeldmelodien (2016) (World Premiere)
Lylyly li (1988-89)
Pimmel (1988-89)
Two of Us (1990)
Georghi Tutev (1996, rev. 2002)

***

Beat Generation Ballads (2013)
Meeting is pleasure, parting a grief (1996)

finnissy-stanley-stokes

Finnissy, Stanley Stokes, East Street 1836 (1989-94)

 

finnissy-from-beat-generation-ballads

Finnissy, Beat Generation Ballads (2013)

The Piano Music of Michael Finnissy – Forthcoming Concerts 2016-2017

Posted: September 21, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Music - General, New Music | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

The following is a list of my forthcoming concerts in London and Oxford of the piano music of Michael Finnissy, in celebration of the composer’s 70th birthday. The next concert is next Tuesday, September 27th, 2016, at 18:00 and 19:30 – I hope many will be able to come along to this (see here for reserving places).

finnissy-piano-concerto-no-4-part

From Piano Concerto No. 4 (1978, rev. 1996)

 

Tuesday September 27th, 2016, 18:00 and 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (5)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Concert 1: 18:00
Piano Concerto No. 6 for solo piano (1980-81)
Love is here to stay (first version) (1975-76)
Gershwin Arrangements (1975-88)

Concert 2: 19:30
Please pay some attention to me (1998)
More Gershwin (1989-90)
Piano Concerto No. 4 for solo piano (1978, rev. 1996)

 

Thursday October 27th, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (6) – Part of the Royal Holloway Department of Music Finnissy at 70 series
Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham.

Kemp’s Morris (1978)
William Billings (1990-91)
Cassandra Miller and Michael Finnissy, Sinner don’t let this Harvest pass (2016)
Beethoven’s Robin Adair (2015)
Strauss-Walzer (1967, rev. 1989)

***

Vieux Noël Op. 59 No. 2 (1958)
Romance (with Intermezzo) (1960)
Short but…(1979)
Reels (1980-81)
Australian Sea Shanties Set 2 (1983)
White Rain (1981)
Free Setting (1981, rev. 1995)

 

Monday, November 7th, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (7)
Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street OX1 3SD

Elephant (1994)
Tracey and Snowy in Köln (1996)
The larger heart, the kindlier hand (1993)
…desde que naçe (1993)
De toutes flours (1990)
Cibavit eos (1991-92)
Zwei Deutsche mit Coda (2006)
Erscheinen ist der herrliche Tag (2003)
Choralvorspiele (Koralforspill) (2012)

***

Second Political Agenda (2000-8)

  1. ERIK SATIE like anyone else;
  2. Mit Arnold Schoenberg ;
  3. SKRYABIN in itself.

 

Monday, November 21st, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (8)
Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street OX1 3SD

A solis ortus cardine (1992)
Stanley Stokes, East Street 1836 (1989-94)
Edward (2002)
Deux Airs de Geneviève de Brabant (Erik Satie) (2001)
Z/K (2012)
Brahms-Lieder (2015) (UK Premiere)
Enough (2001)

***

Wee Saw Footprints (1986-90)
Kleine Feldmelodie (1999)
Lylyly li (1988-89)
Pimmel (1988-89)
Two of Us (1990)
Georghi Tutev (1996, rev. 2002)

***

Beat Generation Ballads (2013)
Meeting is pleasure, parting a grief (1996)

 

Thursday, December 1st, 2016, 18:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (9)
Deptford Town Hall, Goldsmith’s College, New Cross Road, SE14 6AF

Verdi Transcriptions Books 1-4 (complete) (1972-2005)

 

Friday, January 20th, 2017, times tbc
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (10), as part of a wider mini-conference (January 19th-20th) on Finnissy
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

The History of Photography in Sound (complete) (1995-2000)

This will consist of three concerts during the course of the day and evening, together with talks and other associated events.

I will also be playing works of Finnissy in forthcoming concerts in Leuven (Beethoven’s Robin Adair), Prague (Five Yvaroperas, all.fall.down) and Lisbon (Jazz) during this autumn, and will post further details about these presently.

The earlier concerts this year have been as follows:

 

Tuesday February 16th, 2016, 19:00 (with pre-concert interview of Michael Finnissy by Aaron Einbond at 18:30)
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (1)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Romeo and Juliet are Drowning (1967)
Snowdrift (1972)
My love is like a red red rose (1990)
There never were such hard times before (1991)
French Piano (1991)
New Perspectives on Old Complexity (1990, rev. 1992)
First Political Agenda (1989-2006)

  1. Wrong place. Wrong Time;
  2. Is there any future for new music?;
  3. You know what kind of sense Mrs Thatcher made.

***

English Country Tunes (1977, rev. 1982-85)

 

Tuesday May 10th, 2016, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (2)
Hollywell Music Room, Hollywell Street OX1 3SD

Song 5 (1966-67)
Song 6 (1968, rev. 1996)
Song 7 (1968-69)
Song 8 (1967)
Song 9 (1968)
Nine Romantics (1992)

***

Ives-Grainger-Nancarrow (1974, 1979, 1979-80) 
Liz (1980-81)
B.S.-G.F.H. (1985-86)
Ethel Smyth (1995)
Joh. Seb. Bach (2003)
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sind (1992)
Rossini (1991)
What the meadow-flowers tell me (1993)
Preambule zu “Carnaval”, gefolgt von der ersten und zweiten symphonischen Etüde nach Schumann (2009-10) [World Premiere of Preambule]
One Minute W… (2006)

 

Friday May 27th, 2016, 18:00 and 19:15
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (3)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Concert 1, 18:00
Svatovac (1973-74)
Three Dukes Went A-Riding (1977, rev. 1996)
To & Fro (1978, rev. 1995)
We’ll get there someday (1978)
Terrekeme (1981, rev. 1990)
Taja (1986)
Hikkai (1982-83)
Cozy Fanny’s Tootsies (1992)
John Cage (1992)
Five Yvaroperas (1993-95)
Tell-dirais (1996)
Vanèn (1991)
all.fall.down (1977)

Concert 2, 19:15
Folklore I-IV (1993-94)

 

Thursday July 7th, 2016, 18:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (4)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Third Political Agenda (2016) [World premiere]

  1. Corruption, Deceit, Ignorance, Intolerance
  2. Hier kommt ‘U K Ichbezogen Populismus’
  3. My country has betrayed me

Polskie Tance Op. 32 (1955-62)
Four Mazurkas Op. 142 (1957)
Two Pasodobles (1959)
Autumnall (1968-71)
Freightrain Bruise (1972, rev. 1980)
23 Tangos  (1968-99) [World Premiere]

***

Honky Blues (1996)
How dear to me (1991)
Willow Willow (1991)
Poor Stuff (1991, rev. 1996)
Sometimes I… (1990, rev. 1997)
Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man (1990)
Boogie-Woogie (1980, rev. 1981)
Jazz (1976)
Fast Dances, Slow Dances (1978-79)

The Gershwin songs that inspired Finnissy

Posted: September 12, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Dance, Music - General, New Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Those who have seen my last blog post will know that on Tuesday, September 27th 2016, beginning at 18:00, at the Performance Space, College Building, City University, I will be playing all of Michael Finnissy’s arrangements of Gershwin, as well as his Piano Concertos 4 and 6. The twenty-three pieces in question (plus a few early versions) are all derived from different Gershwin songs, generally from the musical comedies and revues for which he wrote some or all of the music, and also for various films.

Whilst Gershwin’s original melodies (and some derivative of other aspects of the harmony, figuration, vocal styles of particular performers) are clearly present and generally recognisable (certainly in comparison to the much more oblique Verdi Transcriptions), albeit heavily mediated, nonetheless not all of the originals are amongst Gershwin’s most famous songs, and some are relatively, though undeservedly obscure. Finnissy avoided setting any of the songs which Gershwin had himself transcribed for piano, or which had been transcribed by Percy Grainger. Here are the two sets of arrangements with the origins of each song:

MICHAEL FINNISSY, Gershwin Arrangements (1975-1988)

  1. How long has this been going on? (from the musical comedy Rosalie (1928))
  2. Things are looking up (from the film A Damsel in Distress (1937))
  3. A foggy day in London town (from the film A Damsel in Distress (1937))
  4. Love is here to stay (from the film The Goldwyn Follies (1938))
  5. They can’t take that away from me (from the film Shall We Dance (1937))
  6. Shall we dance? (from the film Shall We Dance (1937))
  7. They’re writing songs of love, but not for me (from the musical comedy Girl Crazy (1930))
  8. Fidgety feet (from the musical comedy Oh, Kay! (1926))
  9. Embraceable you (from the musical comedy Girl Crazy (1930))
  10. Waiting for the sun to come out (from the musical comedy The Sweetheart Shop (1920), book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell, most music by Hugo Felix)
  11. Innocent ingénue baby (from the musical comedy Our Nell (1922))
  12. Blah, blah, blah (from the film Delicious (1931))
  13. Boy wanted (from the musical comedy A Dangerous Maid (1921))

 

MICHAEL FINNISSY, More Gershwin (1989-1990)

  1. Limehouse Nights (from the revue Morris Gest’s Midnight Whirl (1919))
  2. Wait a bit, Susie (from the musical comedy Primrose (1924))
  3. I’d Rather Charleston (for 1926 London production of musical comedy Lady, be Good! (1924))
  4. Isn’t it Wonderful! (from the musical comedy Primrose (1924))
  5. Nobody but You (from the musical comedy La, la Lucille (1919))
  6. Swanee (from Demi Tasse Revue, part of Capitol Revue (1919), show produced and choreographed by Ned Wayburn)
  7. Dixie Rose (song from 1921)
  8. Someone Believes in You (from the musical comedy Sweet Little Devil (1924))
  9. Nashville Nightingale (from the revue Nifties of 1923, produced by Charles B. Dillingham)

 

There was also a further arrangement composed in 1998, called Please pay some attention to me, derived from a very little-known song, ‘Pay Some Attention to Me’ (1937) which George and Ira Gershwin had originally written for the film A Damsel in Distress, but abandoned it incomplete. Finnissy obtained the manuscript for this from the late composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and first made a version for soprano and piano duet which was performed at Steyning Music Club, then transformed this into a solo piano work in which Gershwin-derived material is alternated with a type of imaginary dodecaphonic music, as an evocation of the tennis games which Gershwin played with Schoenberg at the former’s Hollywood mansion during the last year of his life.

I thought I would post links to recordings of each of the songs in the two sets as a point of reference, in the same order. Whilst most of the Finnissy works were essentially composed as a free response to the scores (including all of the second set), a few were also inspired by particular performances, including Judy Garland’s ‘But not for me’ and some of the Fred Astaire classics. The particular choices posted here are naturally a little restricted by online availability.

Sarah Vaughan singing ‘How long has this been going on?’ in a 1957 recording with Hal Mooney and his orchestra.

 

‘Things are looking up’ as sung by Fred Astaire to Joan Fontaine in the sequence in A Damsel in Distress (1937).

 

‘A foggy day in London Town’ sung by Fred Astaire in the same film.

 

Kenny Baker singing ‘Love is here to stay’ in The Goldwyn Follies (1938).

 

Fred Astaire singing ‘They can’t take that away from me’ to Ginger Rogers, from the film Shall We Dance (1937).

 

More Astaire and Ginger Rogers: the title track ‘Shall We Dance?’ from the film.

 

The timeless performance by Judy Garland of ‘But not for me’, from Girl Crazy (1943).

 

‘Fidgety Feet’ as played by the Savoy Ophreans, recorded in 1927.

 

Billie Holiday singing ‘Embraceable You’, recorded in 1944.

 

http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/7583/

Lambert Murphy singing ‘Waiting for the sun to come out’ (1920 recording) (click on the above to go to the site to play it)

 

A more recent performance of ‘Innocent ingenue baby’ (the only version I could find online)

 

The full film Delicious (1931) – ‘Blah blah blah’ is at around 1h 16’50”.

 

And Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Boy Wanted’.

 

Gershwin’s own piano-roll of ‘Limehouse Nights’, made in 1920.

 

‘Wait a bit, Susie’, played by the Savoy Havana Band in 1924.

 

Fred and Adele Astaire singing ‘I’d rather Charleston’, with Gershwin at the piano, recorded in London in 1926.

 

Steven Blier and Judy Kaye singing ‘Isn’t It Wonderful?’ (requires log-in to Spotify).

 

Gershwin’s 1919 piano roll of ‘Nobody but you’.

 

Al Jolson’s 1920 recording of ‘Swanee’.

 

Rick Rogers sings ‘Dixie Rose’.

I was unable to find a linkable performance of ‘Someone believes in you’, but the track can be bought as an MP3 here as part of the first recording of Sweet Little Devil.

 

‘Nashville Nightingale’, recorded in 1927 by the Piccadilly Revels Dance Band.

 

And Lena Jansson singing ‘Pay some attention to me’ (needs Spotify log-in).

Fifth Concert of Finnissy Piano Music – Piano Concertos, Gershwins – and Lecture on Experimental Music

Posted: September 2, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Academia, Music - General, Musicology, New Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

On Tuesday September 27th, 2016, at City University, beginning at 18:00, I will be giving the fifth concert in my series of the piano music of Michael Finnissy, to celebrate the composer’s 70th birthday. This will contain Finnissy’s two piano concertos for solo piano, nos. 4 and 6, and both books of his Gershwin Arrangements (about which more can be found on this separate blog post, including links for all of the original Gershwin songs). The concert will be in two parts, an early evening concert at 18:00, and a main concert at 19:30. Places can be reserved here. The programmes are as follows:

 

Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (5)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Concert 1: 18:00
Piano Concerto No. 6 for solo piano (1980-81)
Love is here to stay (first version) (1975-76)
Gershwin Arrangements (1975-88)

Finnissy - from Piano Concerto No. 6

(From Piano Concerto No. 6 (1980-81))

Finnissy - from Fidgety Feet

(from ‘Fidgety feet’, Gershwin Arrangements (1975-88))

 

Concert 2: 19:30
Please pay some attention to me (1998)
More Gershwin (1989-90)
Piano Concerto No. 4 for solo piano (1978, rev. 1996)

Finnissy - from Piano Concerto No. 4

(from Piano Concerto No. 4 (1978, rev. 1996))

The Piano Concerto No. 4 is by some measure Finnissy’s most manically virtuosic piece, and this is a rare opportunity to hear it live. I gave the world premiere of the revised version in my 1996 series of the piano work and have since performed it many times and recorded it (as I have the Piano Concerto No. 6 and all of the Gershwin Arrangements).

There will be further Finnissy concerts in London, Egham and Oxford in October, November and December, details of which I hope to confirm very soon, including a performance of the complete (four-book) Verdi Transcriptions , and the complete cycle The History of Photography in Sound, as part of a wider day at City University of events relating to Finnissy’s work.

 

Furthermore, on Wednesday October 12th, at 17:30 I will be giving a lecture postponed from earlier this year (due to industrial action).

Lecture: ‘Ideological Constructions of ‘Experimental Music’ and Anglo-American Nationalism in the Historiography of post-1945 Music’
Room AG09, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Abstract: Since the publication of John Cage’s essay ‘Experimental Music: Doctrine’ of 1955, a dichotomy has informed a good deal of historiography of new music between ‘avant-garde’ and ‘experimental’ musics, especially following the publication of Michael Nyman’s book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond in 1974. Nyman very clearly portrayed ‘experimental music’ as a fundamentally Anglo-American phenomenon, allowing almost no European composers into his pantheon. This opposition was itself foreshadowed in various writings of John Cage and Morton Feldman, and since the appearance of Nyman’s book has remained a prominent ideological construct, even feeding into other oppositions such as ‘high/low’ music, ‘uptown/downtown’ or ‘modern/postmodern’.

In this paper, I trace the history and development of the concept of ‘experimental’ music in several types of literature published in Europe and North America from the 1950s until the present day: general histories of music of this period, histories of American music, the writings of Cage, Feldman and Wolff, secondary literature on these figures, and other work dealing specifically with ‘experimental music’. I argue that from the late 1950s onwards, there was such a large amount of cross-fertilisation between composers on either side of the Atlantic that the opposition is unsustainable, but its perpetuation served an ideological and nationalistic purpose. Above all, by portraying a group of British and American composers as occupying an aesthetic space at an insurmountable remove from a (simplistic) picture of a European ‘avant-garde’, this facilitated special pleading on the part of the former for programming and other purposes. Even as some writers have grudgingly conceded that a small few continental European composers might also be considered ‘experimental’, they have constructed them as utterly on the margins of a perceived European mainstream to such an extent as to question their very ‘Europeanness’. Remarkably, this opposition has also been continued by various European writers, especially in Germany.

I also argue that the rhetoric of ‘experimental music’ has some roots in mythologies of the US frontier which have informed constructions of its canonical musicians. In place of this, I stress the strong European (as well as American and Asian) provenance of Cage’s thought and work (via that of Duchamp, futurism, Dada, the Bauhaus, Joyce, Satie, Varèse, Webern and Meister Eckhardt), and suggest that Feldman’s romantic, anti-rational individualism can be viewed not only in a clear lineage from nineteenth century European aesthetic thought (not least in Russia), but also in stark opposition to Cage’s anti-subjectivism. And finally I paraphrase Cage’s preface to Lecture on the Weather (1975) to argue that the music of the U.S.A. should be seen as just one part of the musical world, no more, no less.

 

I hope all with an interest in this subject will want to come along.

Fourth Concert of Finnissy Piano Music with new post-referendum composition

Posted: July 4, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Music - General, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

This coming Thursday, July 7th, at 18:30 in the Performance Space, City University, I will be playing the fourth in my series of concerts to celebrate Michael Finnissy’s 70th birthday. Following the cataclysm of the referendum on June 23rd, Finnissy has composed a new set of three short pieces collectively entitled Third Political Agenda (2016). The individual titles of the pieces should speak for themselves:

  1. Corruption, Deceit, Ignorance, Intolerance
  2. Hier kommt ‘U K Ichbezogen Populismus’
  3. My country has betrayed me

I played the First Political Agenda in the opening concert of this series, on Tuesday February 16th, and will be playing the extended Second Political Agenda in a concert in the autumn.

The whole modified programme, which combines a selection of very early works with others mostly based on jazz or dance forms, many of them written in connection with Finnissy’s work with various dancers, is as follows:

Third Political Agenda (2016) [World premiere]
Polskie Tance Op. 32 (1955-62)
Four Mazurkas Op. 142 (1957)
Two Pasodobles (1959)
Autumnall (1968-71)
Freightrain Bruise (1972, rev. 1980)
23 Tangos  (1968-99) [World Premiere]
***
Honky Blues (1996)
How dear to me (1991)
Willow Willow (1991)
Poor Stuff (1991, rev. 1996)
Sometimes I… (1990, rev. 1997)
Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man (1990)
Boogie-Woogie (1980, rev. 1981)
Jazz (1976)
Fast Dances, Slow Dances (1978-79)

Autumnall excerptFrom Autumnall (1968-71)

 

Finnissy’s works like Freightrain Bruise use jazz-inspired idioms filtered through modernist languages of atonality, fragmentation and alienation, whilst Boogie-Woogie attempt a free improvisatory reconfiguration of this idiom in light of its appropriation by artists like Piet Mondrian.

Freightrain Bruise excerptFrom Freightrain Bruise (1972, rev. 1980)

 

The 23 Tangos, also receiving their first complete performance in this concert, span a wide range of Finnissy’s compositional career, including several pieces written in the 1960s and 1970s, an important work (No. 12, previously No. 4) written for a special Tango project by the late pianist Yvar Mikhashoff, two pieces (Nos. 7 and 17) inspired by works of Debussy and Rameau for related projects initiated by the pianist Stephen Gutman, and a host of others written as tributes or portraits to a wide variety of individuals, many of them composers or other individuals involved with new music (No. 2 for Laurence Crane, No. 4 for Jane Dudley, No. 5 for Elliott Schwartz, No. 6 for Howard Skempton, No. 8 for Colin Matthews, No. 10 for Alison Shockledge, No. 11 for Paul Driver, No. 13 for Andrew Law, No. 15 for Richard Steele, No. 18 for Joanne Johnson, No. 19 for Henrietta Brougham, No. 20 for Eve Egoyan, No. 21 for Thalia Myers, No. 22 for Salvatore Sciarrino, No. 23 for Jutta Avaly). Characteristically, Finnissy explores how to push to the limits a type of composition which retains some recognisable aspects of the idiom, and as such the set is extremely diverse, also working in mediated allusions to a range of other music including that of Beethoven, Busoni, Dukas, Sibelius, Barraqué and that of some of the dedicatees. I have been associated with this project since giving the first performance of the original Tangos 1-6 in my 1996 Finnissy series, then of Nos. 7 and 8 in the same series, and later several other premieres of the gradually expanding set. In the 2000s, Finnissy made various modifications to the series and re-arranged the ordering, but they have never been heard complete until now.

Tango 17 part (3)

From Tango 17 (1999).

Ian Pace, May 2016 – Finnissy Concerts and Lectures

Posted: May 3, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Academia, History, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology, New Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

[Please note: the lecture on May 25th has now been cancelled due to industrial action. It will now take place on Wednesday October 12th] 

Ian Pace will be playing several major concerts featuring the music of Michael Finnissy during May 2016, following the great success of his recital on February 16th, the first in his series of the composers’ piano works (in this concert including English Country-Tunes and other pieces), to celebrate Finnissy’s 70th birthday.

Finnissy - from Song 9

(From Song 9)

Saturday May 7th, 19:30. York Late Music Series, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York YO1 8NQ.

See this link to book tickets.

Beethoven, Rondo in A, WoO 49
Percy Grainger, My Robin is to the greenwood gone [Settings of Songs and Tunes from William Chappell’s ‘Old English Popular Music’ Nr.2]
Michael Finnissy, Beethoven’s Robin Adair (2012-15) (World Premiere)
Andrew Toovey, First Out (2016) (World Premiere)
Steve Crowther, Piano Sonata No. 3 (World Premiere of revised version)
Luke Stoneham, Magenta Cuts (1994)
Laurence Crane, Slow Folk Tune: Sheringham (2014)

This concert features a major new extended work written by Finnissy for Ian Pace, Beethoven’s Robin Adair, a set of free fantasies and variations on the folk song ‘Robin Adair’ as set by Beethoven in his Verschiedene Volkslieder WoO 157 No 7. The remainder of the programme was picked by Finnissy, and includes works by long-term associates and colleagues Luke Stoneham, Laurence Crane, and Andrew Toovey (with a new work written for Finnissy’s 70th), as well as the new version of Late Music artistic director Steve Crowther’s Piano Sonata No. 3, originally premiered by Ian Pace in the series in 2015, and other works of Beethoven and Percy Grainger with which Finnissy feels a strong affinity.

 

Tuesday May 10th, 19:30
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (2)
Hollywell Music Room, Hollywell Street OX1 3SD

See here for further details. Tickets available at the door.

Song 5 (1966-67)
Song 6 (1968, rev. 1996)
Song 7 (1968-69)
Song 8 (1967)
Song 9 (1968)
Nine Romantics (1992)

– Interval –

Ives-Grainger-Nancarrow (1974, 1979, 1979-80) 
Liz (1980-81)
B.S.-G.F.H. (1985-86)
Ethel Smyth (1995)
Joh. Seb. Bach (2003)
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sind (1992)
Rossini (1991)
What the meadow-flowers tell me (1993)
Preambule zu “Carnaval”, gefolgt von der ersten und zweiten symphonischen Etüde nach Schumann (2009-10)
One Minute W… (2006)

This is the first chance to hear all of Finnissy’s Songs for piano for twenty years, when they were played by Ian Pace in part of his 1996 cycle of Finnissy’s piano works. These works (part of a wider cycle for various instruments) take their cue from a series of films by the director Stan Brakhage), which can be viewed here. Also featured in the programme is Finnissy’s little-known Nine Romantics, a bleak tribute to the Victorian artist Simeon Solomon, whose career was ruined after arrest and imprisonment for cottaging. The second half of the concerts features a series of short ‘portrait’ pieces of various composers to whom Finnissy is drawn, short fantasies on the names of Bernard Stevens and Georg Frederic Handel, two very different reflections on a cantata and an organ chorale prelude of Bach, a rather unhinged setting of an aria from Rossini’s Semiramide, a mysterious assemblage deriving from a movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony, and more recent free transcriptions based on works of Schumann and Chopin (Finnissy’s rendition of the Minute Waltz).

 

 

[Postponed to Wednesday October 12th] 
Lecture: ‘Ideological Constructions of ‘Experimental Music’ and Anglo-American Nationalism in the Historiography of post-1945 Music’
Room AG09, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Abstract: Since the publication of John Cage’s essay ‘Experimental Music: Doctrine’ of 1955, a dichotomy has informed a good deal of historiography of new music between ‘avant-garde’ and ‘experimental’ musics, especially following the publication of Michael Nyman’s book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond in 1974. Nyman very clearly portrayed ‘experimental music’ as a fundamentally Anglo-American phenomenon, allowing almost no European composers into his pantheon. This opposition was itself foreshadowed in various writings of John Cage and Morton Feldman, and since the appearance of Nyman’s book has remained a prominent ideological construct, even feeding into other oppositions such as ‘high/low’ music, ‘uptown/downtown’ or ‘modern/postmodern’.

In this paper, I trace the history and development of the concept of ‘experimental’ music in several types of literature published in Europe and North America from the 1950s until the present day: general histories of music of this period, histories of American music, the writings of Cage, Feldman and Wolff, secondary literature on these figures, and other work dealing specifically with ‘experimental music’. I argue that from the late 1950s onwards, there was such a large amount of cross-fertilisation between composers on either side of the Atlantic that the opposition is unsustainable, but its perpetuation served an ideological and nationalistic purpose. Above all, by portraying a group of British and American composers as occupying an aesthetic space at an insurmountable remove from a (simplistic) picture of a European ‘avant-garde’, this facilitated special pleading on the part of the former for programming and other purposes. Even as some writers have grudgingly conceded that a small few continental European composers might also be considered ‘experimental’, they have constructed them as utterly on the margins of a perceived European mainstream to such an extent as to question their very ‘Europeanness’. Remarkably, this opposition has also been continued by various European writers, especially in Germany.

I also argue that the rhetoric of ‘experimental music’ has some roots in mythologies of the US frontier which have informed constructions of its canonical musicians. In place of this, I stress the strong European (as well as American and Asian) provenance of Cage’s thought and work (via that of Duchamp, futurism, Dada, the Bauhaus, Joyce, Satie, Varèse, Webern and Meister Eckhardt), and suggest that Feldman’s romantic, anti-rational individualism can be viewed not only in a clear lineage from nineteenth century European aesthetic thought (not least in Russia), but also in stark opposition to Cage’s anti-subjectivism. And finally I paraphrase Cage’s preface to Lecture on the Weather (1975) to argue that the music of the U.S.A. should be seen as just one part of the musical world, no more, no less.

 

Friday May 27th, 18:00 and 19:15
Michael Finnissy at 70: The Piano Works (3)
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

See here for more information and to book tickets

Concert 1, 18:00
Svatovac (1973-74)
Three Dukes Went A-Riding (1977, rev. 1996)
To & Fro (1978, rev. 1995)
We’ll get there someday (1978)
Terrekeme (1981, rev. 1990)
Taja (1986)
Hikkai (1982-83)
Cozy Fanny’s Tootsies (1992)
John Cage (1992)
Five Yvaroperas (1993-95)
Tell-Dirais (1996)
Vanèn (1991)
all.fall.down (1977)

Concert 2, 19:15
Folklore I-IV (1993-94)

The centre piece of the third concert in Ian Pace’s Finnissy series is the 70 minute cycle from the early 1990s, Folklore. This work takes its initial cue from what Finnissy himself describes as ‘Gramsci’s imperative to compile an inventory of the ‘infinity of traces’ that historical processes leave on ‘the self’.’ The work navigates its way through a variety of ‘regions’, defined in terms of their musical folklore (Norwegian, Rumanian, American, etc.), interspersed with extended passages imitating Scottish piobaireachd,  as well as the African-American spiritual ‘Deep River’, and also intercut with moments of extreme passion and violence, as well as allusions to early influences, representing the composer’s own personal ‘folklore’. The early evening concert contains a series of other pieces taking their cue from folk music (Macedonian, Azerbaijani, Sardinian, Australian Aboriginal), a series of three pieces all revised from his earlier (now withdrawn) Piano Studies, and a few more portraits or tribute pieces, including a series of five in memory of the late pianist Yvar Mikhashoff. There is also a very rare chance to hear one of Finnissy’s most pianistically demanding pieces, the hyper-virtuosic all.fall.down.

 

Preview for June 1st, 18:00, Public Debate, ‘Are We All Ethnomusicologists Now?’
Performance Space, City University, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

In a now-notorious 2008 article (‘We Are All (Ethno)musicologists Now’, in The New (Ethno)musicologies, ed. Henry Stobart (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), pp. 48-70), Nicholas Cook suggested that the boundaries between subdisciplines of music had become more porous so that “distinguishing between musicology and ethnomusicology seems … as hopeless as it is pointless.” This led to his oft-cited statement: “we are all ethnomusicologists now.” Does Cook’s provocation stand up?

The panel will consist of (in alphabetical order) Amanda Bayley (Bath Spa University), Tore Lind (University of Copenhagen), Laudan Nooshin (City University London), Ian Pace (City University London), and Michael Spitzer (University of Liverpool), and will be chaired by Alexander Lingas (City University London).

In Praise of Mic Spencer

Posted: May 2, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Music - General, Musical Education, New Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Last night I went to a concert at Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall, at the School of Music for the University of Leeds. The programme included postgraduate student Allanah Halay‘s Energy Cannot Be Created II, as well as world premieres of Scott McLaughlin’s an infinity of traces, without an inventory and Wieland Hoban’s Wyrdlines, Michael Finnissy’s 1984 Câtana, inspired by Romanian folk music. It was a fantastic opportunity to hear four very fine pieces in strong performances given by student musicians; the concert can be viewed complete online here. for now I want however to write about the conductor and director of the ensemble – and also extremely fine composer – Michael (known to all as Mic) Spencer, whose work at that university, making the department into the finest of its type for new music, has been to my mind insufficiently recognised. On another occasion I would like to write about Mic’s compositions, but here I want to describe the seminal work he has done at Leeds.

Mic Spencer

I first met Mic in 2005 (at the premiere of Richard Barrett’s orchestral work NO) and soon afterwards became keenly aware of his activities at Leeds, after going to give a talk there the following year, performing on three occasions at the university, playing his piano piece The Eemis Stone and more widely getting to know the important community of people intensely dedicated to new music which would never have come about without Mic and his efforts.

Whilst many in academia spend as little time as possible on students, concentrating instead primarily on whatever will gain maximum prestige and the quickest advancement to the top jobs, Mic is the very opposite, and one of the most selfless figures I know. I know of few others so utterly devoted to helping to make available and accessible to his students, in full knowledge that the most complex or challenging new music is absolutely graspable by all who are open-minded and receive the type of guidance and encouragement that Mic can uniquely give. And I have seen for myself just how much time he devotes to students, how he wouldn’t hesitate to help them have access to any number of recordings, scores, or texts by many in the French and German intellectual and philosophical traditions to which he is so strongly attached.

The music of Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Gérard Grisey, Emmanuel Nunes, Mathias Spahlinger, James Dillon, Beat Furrer, Richard Barrett, Chaya Czernowin and many others have become like Mozart and Beethoven to composers, performers and scholars at Leeds all because of Mic. In other contexts, academics dismiss all work in this type of European modernist tradition out of hand (sometimes in an underhand manner, using language of identity politics which makes others reluctant to challenge such a view), or simply preach it in a didactic way. Everything I have heard suggests a quite different approach from Mic: teaching as an enthusiast, with a passion for this music, but in such a way as allows students to find their own way in.

But equally important is what Mic has achieved with the ensemble LSTwo, which he ran and conducted over an extended period, for a period jointly with composer and conductor Adam Fergler. They have been able to perform well works almost unimaginable for a student new music ensemble in a UK university department, including Lachenmann’s “…zwei Gefühle…”, Musik mit Leonardo, Harrison Birtwistle’s Trageodia, Grisey’s Vortex Temporum, Nunes’s Improvisation I, Furrer’s Gaspra, Dillon’s Zone (…de azul), James Clarke’s Delmenhorst, and much else. In November there will be a major feature, the most significant of its type to date in the UK, of the music in Hespos, which I for one would not want to miss.

Amongst those who have passed through Leeds and either already gone onto great things or in the process of so doing are Lauren Redhead (who I remember Mic describing to me, when she was an undergraduate, as someone with an unnatural obsession with Spahlinger), Roddy Hawkins, Eleri Angharad Pound, Adam Fergler, Vicky Burrett, Caroline Lucas, Marcello Messina and many others. Not that these are simple acolytes or devotees; many have strong differences and have taken quite different paths in terms of their own music or ideas. I certainly wouldn’t agree with Mic on lots of things musical, aesthetic or otherwise – I cannot remotely share his taste for the likes of Kaikhosru Shapurij Sorabji or writer Aleister Crowley, for example – but there is no such topic about which I would not be intensely interested in his thoughts. But I do not believe it would be too exaggerated to talk about a Leeds School of New Music, for which Mic is undoubtedly the central figure.

But when reading this I’m sure Mic will end up acting self-effacing and maybe a bit embarrassed, so I’m going to end up in his own language and tell the fucker to get a move on with writing his piano piece for me!

But do all raise your glasses (an activity with which he is intimately familiar) to Mic.

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