Who is Michael Finnissy?

[ryguillian]

Who is Michael Finnissy? I know he's a composer; a pianist-composer. I know his scores are the nicest handwritten scores I've seen. I know I've only heard a few short clips of his music and I know what I heard seemed quite unorganized compared to his meticulously written scores. I also know—as with Sorabji—technically demanding music can be obscured by poor performances and be reduced to noise. Concordantly, I know a correspondent of great integrity on such matters suggested to me that Ian Pace's renderings (which seem—as is the case with Madge's "Op. Clav."—the most popular) may not be faithful to Finnissy's scores.

I'm interested in what you know about Finnissy and his music.

—Ryan

P.S. It's a habit here and elsewhere for hearsay to pour in as soon as an 'avant-garde' composer is mentioned; please keep conjecture to a minimum.