New Complexity?

[notturno]

I've seen several mentions of the "New Complexity"

So.... Who? What? Why? i.e. Where is the beauty and attraction, and must these two go together?

Discuss and enlighten.  Suggest answers and more questions.

Be pollite.


Joseph

[soliloquy]

New Complexity is a modern school of music.  Finnissy, Ferneyhough, Barrett, Zimmermann, Barlow, Fox, Flynn etc. are some composers you might have heard of.  While the most basic and original idea of New Complexity was highly ornamented music, some composers such as and most noteably Ferneyhough have pushed that idea forward and now define New Complexity as music where the TRUE music is from the struggle of the performer(s) as they try to play these monstrously difficult works.  New Complexity works will generally be extremely abstract (not always the case) and have been described as "causing vertigo" to look at the scores, due to the seemingly random and complex rhythmic structures and massive systems of grace notes, not to mention the fact that nearly all New Complexity compositions will constantly use the entire range of an instrument.  For instance, the two page "Cassandra's Dreamsong," one of the champion compositions of this school of music by Brian Ferneyhough for Solo Flute, takes the average performer 14 minutes to play because of the extreme density and "timeless notes" such as 128ths or grace notes.  As to tonality and dissonance, some compositions such as Ferneyhough's may have no tonality and be completely dissonant, or more accurately giving no regard to tonality or dissonance, while some composers such as Finnissy may apply tonality and harmonic compositional styles to New Complexity music.  The English are the primary composers of this style, but it has also spread to Europe and America in the past 20 years.

[prometheus]

Is it the reactionary movement to the reactionary movement against the second Vienna school?

[ibbar]

Most of what the above poster mentioned descibes it fairly well, although some of the mentioned composers are not really from the New Complexity.

Finnissy, Ferneyhough, Barrett, Dench, Dillon, and Erber come to mind as true New complexity composers.  They are all British, and their scores demonstrate an extreme tendency towards notational detail.  Most of their music is very carefully thought out, and planned down to the tiniest detail.  Finnissy is somewhat different in this respect, as his music is much more improvisational, loose, and passionate in nature.

Zimmermann is not a New Complexity composer.  Most of his works actually fall under his own personal style of minimalism, and are extremely sparse and delicate, almost reminiscent of Feldman.  Wustenwanderung his sole exception to this principle-it starts simple and builds progressively in density until it reaches a transcendental level of difficulty.  However, it remains fairly tonal throughout (using many octaves, for example), and is quite beautiful and mystical to listen to.

Barlow is a computer music composer.  Again, while his works are very complex, he is not so much interested in the performer and the performance aspects of music as most true New complexity composers are.  Cogluotobusisletmesi is his most famous work, in which he takes a basic rhythmic and melodic cell from (I am fairly confident) Indian raga and uses a computer program to expand greatly upon all of its "parameters."  Again, despite the technical sound this, the piece is quite a bit more tonal and conventionally "attractive" than most of the new complexity composers.  It is exotic and oriental in sound, and almost makes me think of a twentieth-century Islamey.  I shouldn't say that he isn't interested in the performance aspect of music, but it is in a different way.  He likes to study the interaction between person and computer-and has written programs, for example, where he can play almost a duet between himself and his software, the two improvising together on a theme or piece of music.

Flynn is also not New complexity.  His music is passionate and violent, but it is not nearly as focused on detail as are new complexity composers.  His scores are comparatively sloppy in their notation, and contain frequent passages for improvisation.  They follow no real school of thought, and don't really have a "system" that they aspire to demonstrate or fulfill.  He simply writes what he imagines, and it ranges from brutally violent in "Wound" to serene in "Salvage."

Fox is fictional, so far as I am aware.

[JCarey]

Fox is fictional, so far as I am aware.

He is probably referring to Christopher Fox, in which case Fox is certainly not fictional!

The only piece by Fox I've heard is a somewhat strange work known as lliK.relliK or something like that...

[ibbar]

Sorry.  I thought he was referring to "Jason Fox" that I Love Xenakis mentioned a while ago on that forum.

Christopher Fox is very real, and he is indeed a representative of the New Complexity.

[superstition2]

While the most basic and original idea of New Complexity was highly ornamented music, some composers such as and most noteably Ferneyhough have pushed that idea forward and now define New Complexity as music where the TRUE music is from the struggle of the performer(s) as they try to play these monstrously difficult works.  New Complexity works will generally be extremely abstract (not always the case) and have been described as "causing vertigo" to look at the scores, due to the seemingly random and complex rhythmic structures and massive systems of grace notes, not to mention the fact that nearly all New Complexity compositions will constantly use the entire range of an instrument.  For instance, the two page "Cassandra's Dreamsong," one of the champion compositions of this school of music by Brian Ferneyhough for Solo Flute, takes the average performer 14 minutes to play because of the extreme density and "timeless notes" such as 128ths or grace notes.  As to tonality and dissonance, some compositions such as Ferneyhough's may have no tonality and be completely dissonant, or more accurately giving no regard to tonality or dissonance, while some composers such as Finnissy may apply tonality and harmonic compositional styles to New Complexity music.

Making things difficult for the purpose of making things difficult is not a musical road. It's a road to trivia like Guinness Book records. Using complexity to disguise an inherent lack of talent is a trick that has never fooled me.

[lostinidlewonder]

Making things difficult for the purpose of making things difficult is not a musical road.... Using complexity to disguise an inherent lack of talent is a trick that has never fooled me.

I would never turn away from new ideas at creating music. Everything is sound afterall and as musicians we should be interested in all sorts of sounds that can be produced from our instrument.

Ask someone to hum a Liszt piece and they can rattle quite a few off the top of their heads, what about humming some Xenakis? I feel music has greatest impact when its sound is absorbed in our memory without effort. But these "New Complexity" composers don't care about the audience or other people listening enjoyment, they are mearly interested in exploring the possibilities of sound, no so much difficulty.

Xenakis: I don't care what they think. There are so many different kinds of audiences. I can't do a statistical thing: I prefer these audiences; therefore, I will write a specific music for them. No. The problem is what is the specific interest in what I am doing, and that's the important thing. And if the solutions are interesting, then perhaps there will be two or three people at the beginning, and then more than that. But who cares? I'll be dead in ten years, or maybe five, or maybe tomorrow. You are not responsible for what has been done. There are composers who write their compositions thirty years late. I don't believe in that because then they belong to a stratum that is in the past. If the public is interested in that, it is the public's fault.
https://www.rogerreynolds.com/xenakis1.html

But how do you remember these experiences? Your ear is usually totally confounded without the score. I think you must have the score when listening to the music (and that is not always so easy), so you anticipate larger patterns in the score and observe that in the sound produced. You should be interested in the sound created by the patterns of notes on that page. That is afterall how you appreciate details of the artwork on that page.

[pita bread]

We remember the impression of these experiences. They're like memories we have, where the details fade away, but the raw feelings remain.

[ahinton]

The above posts provide some fairly helpful, comprehensive and informative material about the "New Complexity" movement. A few areas remain open to consideration, however and I'd like, if I may, to start a few balls rolling...

Flynn is indeed not a part of this persuasion; nor is Zimmermann, although it should perhaps be understood that the particular Zimmermann under consideration here is not Bernd Aloys of that ilk (just for the benefit of anyone who might not have heard of the one referred to here) - I mention this as the mention of "Fox" appears to have caused some confusion in this thread and, while on that subject, it is perhaps worth noting en passant that the likely fictionality of the identity of "Jason" of that ilk appears now to be greater than it may once been (although if this is not the case, no doubt the real "Jason Fox" will emerge and tell us something interesting, accompanied by some supporting evidence, about himself and his work).

The apparent avowed aim of certain "New Complexity" composers to write music "where the TRUE music is from the struggle of the performer(s) as they try to play these monstrously difficult works" might, of course, be seen as inviting the potential risk of a problem in the longer term, in that challenges posed by a composer in a new piece may later become absorbed into players' technical disciplines to the point at which they no longer represent, or remain regarded as involving, the kinds of extremes that they might originally have been thought to embrace. Furthermore, this is nothing new, nor is it even the exclusive province of "complexicist" thinking; the "New Complexity" performers' struggles to overcome extreme demands of the physical/technical and mental/physical co-ordination type, though obviously quite different in nature, are very similar in principle to those challenges set down many years earlier by, for example, Alkan and Godowsky, the former expecting unprecedented stamina, velocity, leaps, etc. and the latter requiring the total independence of each finger. Finnissy indeed cited Godowsky as an example, however apparently indirect, of a composer who opened up the possibilities of multi-layered material within what an individual hand can play. Even before Alkan, Paganini had set down challenges for string players; some of these remain to this day at or beyond the extreme edge of what most players consider themselves capable of achieveing.

Whilst it is undeniably true that the vast majority of performers have not responded to most of the challenges set down by "New Complexity" composers, it is also true that, until relatively recently, a not much smaller majority omitted to address those of far greater vintage set down by such composers as Alkan and Godowsky.

The question of the extent to which listening to a "New Complexity" work with a score may assist understanding poses another problem; leaving aside how helpful or otherwise listening with a score may be thought to be for different listeners to different works, this practice will be of no help at all to anyone who is not already musically literate. If listening to such work with a score is (appropriately or otherwise) to be recommended as a useful - even essential - practice, should it be assumed that such music is therefore not for the ears of those unable to read scores - or, at the very least, that the musically illiterate will likely have greater difficulties in getting to grips with such music? If so, what should we think about that?

Another problem is that the participants in this "school" are, as has already been noted, very different to one another. Finnissy is particularly different, not only because he more frequently absorbs greater amounts of material from sources outside the customary expectations of "New Complexity" thinking than do many of his colleagues, but because he is (or at least was) also a much more active performer than most of the others; the significance of this latter factor is presumably obvious in the light of earlier references to the inherence and essentiality of the performer's struggles with this kind of writing. In more general terms, this overall problem serves to illustrate the shortcomings of trying to shoehorn a bunch of diverse composers into one grouping for the sake of the apparent convenience of labelling them as purveyors of "New Complexity". One could as easily challenge the meaningful validity of other "labels of convenience" in common parlance such as "modermism", "minimalism" and a host of like "ists" and "isms" beloved of those who seem to prefer to categorise rather than take each individual case on its own merits or otherwise.

Another issue here is the term itself. "New Complexity" does seem to be something of a misnomer - mabe even a double misnomer. Brian Ferneyhough - often cited as a kind of founder of this movement in music (for all that I doubt he set out to do any such specific thing) - was already writing works demonstrating his leanings towards "New Complexity" thinking almost four decades ago, with his first string quartet and Missa Brevis, so to continue to employ the word "New" in this epithet might seem rather suspect in the first decade of our new century. As to the the extent of the relevance of "Complexity", one must also address what strikes which performers as complex challenges, the reactions of listeners both literate and non-literate musically and the differences between these factors; one would naturally expect the performers to be more keenly aware of the various complexities in such scores than the listeners.

As to the question considered by Xenakis in the citation quoted earlier (which I am grateful for a reminder to re-read, as I have just now done) - and it is a question also considered by numerous other composers, especially in recent times - as to the position of the composer vis-à-vis his/her audience, what is often taken (by those who have not thought about it) as composerly arrogance is actually a practical inevitability, i.e. that no composer can ever be certain who will listen to his/her music where, when, or performed by whom or how adequately or otherwise, so it is simply not sensible for composers to "consider" - still less to hoodwink themselves into believing that they even can consider - their audiences when they compose.

Later in the same exchange, Xenakis is reported to have said "My problem is not to challenge the listener, no, no. To challenge myself, yes"; this, like so much else that he said here and elsewhere, is eminently worthy of serious consideration. In the present context of the "New Complexity" movement, we have so far considered the factor of its composers challenging performers (their intermediaries, if you like), but we have yet to look at their challenging either themselves on the one side or their listeners on the other. Perphaps this notion alone might now open the field for more contributions...

Best,

Alistair

[jas]

Is it the reactionary movement to the reactionary movement against the second Vienna school?

That's what I thought, that it began in the 1980s as a reaction against people like Pärt and Gorécki.

[ahinton]

That's what I thought, that it began in the 1980s as a reaction against people like Pärt and Gorécki.

Well, you'd be wrong, at least in terms of the start date being somewhat later than it was in reality.

Best,

Alistair

[lostinidlewonder]

As to the question considered by Xenakis in the citation quoted earlier .... it is a question also considered by numerous other composers, as to the position of the composer and their audience, what is often taken (by those who have not thought about it) as composerly arrogance is actually a practical inevitability, i.e. that no composer can ever be certain who will listen to his/her music where, when, or performed by whom or how adequately or otherwise, so it is simply not sensible for composers to "consider" - still less to hoodwink themselves into believing that they even can consider - their audiences when they compose.

I think it is again a fine line to CARE ABOUT THE AUDIENCE while you compose or to NOT GIVE A RATS ASS. If we write something while thinking, that sound is facinating, the listener would enjoy that, lets elaborate on that pleasing sound, we could argue that we are writing for the audience (even if the audience is yourself, there are others who would have particular tastes as you).

We must write from something, we don't look at a hole and things pop out as Xenakis says he does, we are influenced to make decisions every day by our own judgements. Whether we blurr our judgement (so we say it comes from a hole) or we are continuously aware of our judgement, in the end it all comes from us.

When a composers say they don't care about an audience they are mistaken (or simply trying not to get into a messy discussion), especially those who get paid for their composing. If the audience is simply the guy who commissions you to write a piece of work so be it, you must satisfy at least one of the audiences who pay for your living! Maybe they have no control over what the sound of your piece will be like, but the definatly buy your time to write and to share it with others. So you are forced to entertain the audience since you have accepted a payment to write for an audience! Otherwise composers who don't care about audiences opinions should hide in a cave and play their music under pillows.

If a composer denies that they wouldn't be pleased if thousands of people where eager to learn about their music and there is hundreds of thousands listening to their music every day, they are a liar. We are always interested in people who talk in terms of our own interest, if we are not we are not human, or we think too much of ourselves. I take delight if only one person finds my ramblings in my improvisation interesting, but I do not improvise to make things sound nice and comfortable for my listeners, that isn't what I am focusing on, I am considering sound, but if people enjoy it that is the icing on the cake, it is a nice pleasing result, but if people screw their face up and say it is horrible, I can't help but feel down because the sound is important to me. If everyone says, Oh dear God no! when they hear my music, I can go into a defensive huddle and say, "I don't write for an audience!"

I wonder how many people where playing say Busoni when we wrote his music. I doubt very much. Now that he has passed and gone I would say his music is played more than he could ever imagine. A more wild example might be J.S Bach. Did he ever imagine his writing for the keyboard would be considered so supreme? I doubt it very much. A very very small amount of musicians nowadays play "New complexity" composers. But I say, in 50 years or so it will be played as commonly as other music. Music is constantly shifting, we see Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century etc etc, there are era's of music constantly being created. Why do we think it is going to stop? So new music that is being written which sounds confusing has to be appreciated because perhaps in years to come it will become a normal thing to listen to alongside with Mozart. Afterall there where people who disliked Beethoven's innovative way to write for the piano because they had never heard music like this before, but nowadays he is considered one of the best.

[superstition2]

No artist needs to be slave to an audience, real or imagined. However, most artists do want their work to be experienced.

I maintain, though, that making pieces difficult for no reason other than to make them difficult is not a musical concept. It's a trivial one.

[panic]

I wonder how many people where playing say Busoni when we wrote his music. I doubt very much. Now that he has passed and gone I would say his music is played more than he could ever imagine. A more wild example might be J.S Bach. Did he ever imagine his writing for the keyboard would be considered so supreme? I doubt it very much. A very very small amount of musicians nowadays play "New complexity" composers. But I say, in 50 years or so it will be played as commonly as other music. Music is constantly shifting, we see Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century etc etc, there are era's of music constantly being created. Why do we think it is going to stop? So new music that is being written which sounds confusing has to be appreciated because perhaps in years to come it will become a normal thing to listen to alongside with Mozart. Afterall there where people who disliked Beethoven's innovative way to write for the piano because they had never heard music like this before, but nowadays he is considered one of the best.

The problem with this current theory of continuation, I think, is that the current unpopularity of this music is not in regard to a single composer whose music will eventually rise to the top, as Beethoven's did, but at the entire production of classical music in general. I would estimate, perhaps incorrectly, that one pair of ears perks up nowadays at the mention of the premiere of a new modern composition by one of today's best composers for every thirty or fifty that perked up at the mention of a new Tchaikovsky symphony in the 1880s, or even at the mention of a new Beethoven symphony in the 1800s. It's easy to forget that all these New Complexity composers that we're talking about are ridiculously obscure within the general scheme of things. True, there have been those composers in history - Bach, Mahler - who have been almost or just as obscure or underappreciated and have come to be highly regarded decades after their lifetimes. But the base on which those figures eventually gained the respect of the public - Mahler's grandeur, for example - was within the realm of tonality. No personal bias is contained in this statement, but we'll have to see how resurgent these new composers can be outside that realm, since in regard to the captivation of the public it is much less stable ground.

And I could not agree more with superstition's last statement.

[ahinton]

I think it is again a fine line to CARE ABOUT THE AUDIENCE while you compose or to NOT GIVE A RATS ASS. If we write something while thinking, that sound is facinating, the listener would enjoy that, lets elaborate on that pleasing sound, we could argue that we are writing for the audience (even if the audience is yourself, there are others who would have particular tastes as you).

Yes, it probably is such a "fine line" - but, to be more specific, what I actually meant was that it is either impossible or fruitless or dangerous or insincere or any combination of any of these actually to set out to write a piece with the thought "now, this is what audiences x, y and z will like to hear"; apart from any other consideration, audiences x, y and z would not even know if they'd like to hear such a piece had they not heard something similar beforehand - so how would they have gotten to hear that earlier piece? What Xenakis, Birtwistle and Sorabji have independently said on the subject at various times may display evidence of somewhat different interpretative inflections and nuances, but I think that there is nevertheless some degree of commonality of thought between them on this matter.

We must write from something, we don't look at a hole and things pop out as Xenakis says he does, we are influenced to make decisions every day by our own judgements. Whether we blurr our judgement (so we say it comes from a hole) or we are continuously aware of our judgement, in the end it all comes from us.

I agree with you here. Xenakis was a man of devastating honesty whose almost innocent sincerity frequently extended to a preparedness to argue with himself in public. I think that he had a particular fear of undue dependancy upon the past, not only in his highly personal approach to composition but also in his remarks deploring the manner in which music in general and composition in particular was taught in most institutions - yet he loved the music of Brahms, just as Ferneyhough has spoken of his high regard for Richard Strauss. The main point here is that Xenakis probably though more about his relationship with the past than many composers do, even if some of that thinking may arguably have remained in a constantly formative state. It used to be said that Busoni - for whom both Varèse and Xenakis, among many others, expressed considerable respect - was one of the first composers to attempt to fuse the future with the past; the concurrence of his Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music with his editorial and transcriptive work on the scores of J S Bach puzzled Varèse, but serve, perhaps, as another illustration of Busoni's "time-travelling" explorations. Sorabji - also a great admirer of Busoni - was (wrongly) regarded in his early days as a very "modernist" composer, yet he saw himself as a part of a continuously developing tradition.

When a composers say they don't care about an audience they are mistaken (or simply trying not to get into a messy discussion), especially those who get paid for their composing.

I don't think you fully understand what is usually meant by this and you may accordingly be transgressing a "fine line" of your own making! It's one thing for a composer to say that he/she will not seek deliberately and only to pander to what he/she might (rightly or wrongly) believe that audience x, y or z might think that it wants to hear (always assuming that any audience comprises people who know in advance what they want to hear and/or that they all want to hear the same kind of thing - each of which are pretty useless assumptions at best); it is quite another for a composer to work from the premise of never caring less what any audience might think of his/her work once they have heard it. Let us not forget that even Xenakis claimed to have written to challenge himself rather than audiences.

Sorabji spent many years discourging public performance of his work, ostensibly because he did not believe that circumstances were appropriate for its public airing at the time or for the foreseeable future; like Xenakis, he was right at least to have given the matter serious thought, but he was nevertheless wrong in his conclusion because, like every other composer, he should have (as indeed he did later in life) let the audiences decide for themsleves. In truth, there is little if any useful purpose to be served by anyone writing music for any reason other than for it to be heard; Sorabji should accordingly have taken note of the implication of this fact in Busoni's statement to him (on the occasion of his invitiation to play his then newly completed First Piano Sonata to Busoni) "music is only to be heard - and I cannot play it" (meaning the piece in question, of course). The only other conceivable defence of Sorabji's mid-life stance on this is that he also wanted to protect his work from grossly inadequate representation (hardly an indefensible idea!); however, as we have noted, the "New Complexity" composers seem far less concerned about such risks than Sorabji seems to have been.

...composers who don't care about audiences opinions should hide in a cave and play their music under pillows.

If a composer denies that they wouldn't be pleased if thousands of people where eager to learn about their music and there is hundreds of thousands listening to their music every day, they are a liar.

Absolutely true on both counts, of course - although it nevertheless remains hard for me to estimate the value of what these statements may prove, since I have never met such a composer...

I agree entirely with all that you write in your final paragraph.

Best,

Alistair