Michael Finnissy - English Country Tunes

[thalbergmad]

The thought had crossed my mind, but surely the composer would have opted for more realism and given the model a couple of V1 rockets.

Thal

[ahinton]

The thought had crossed my mind, but surely the composer would have opted for more realism and given the model a couple of V1 rockets.

That's "surely" a question that you should put to the composer, if anyone, rather than to me or to anyone else.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

OK I will. I am meeting Michael at the KFC tomorrow afternoon.

Thal

[ahinton]

OK I will. I am meeting Michael at the KFC tomorrow afternoon.

It is as far from obvious why anyone with a history of heart troubles would agree to meet anyone at a KFC as it is why you wouldn't seek to elicit such information from Mr Finnissy via the written word.

Best,

Alistair

[birba]

The thought had crossed my mind, but surely the composer would have opted for more realism and given the model a couple of V1 rockets.

Thal

He'd only be imitating Stockhausen's Donnerstag.

[thalbergmad]

What I cannot understand is that if he wrote this masterpiece, why is he having to use a score??

Thal

[eminemvsrach]

What I cannot understand is that if he wrote this masterpiece, why is he having to use a score??

Thal

Could be cuz he wrote too many notes, considering 325 works of similar style 

[retrouvailles]

What I cannot understand is that if he wrote this masterpiece, why is he having to use a score??

Thal

In all seriousness, there are lots of composer-pianists these days that use the score in performance, mostly because sometimes these works are too complex to memorize in the amount of time they have to prepare the piece for performance, especially with some of the schedules these musicians might have.

[ahinton]

In all seriousness, there are lots of composer-pianists these days that use the score in performance, mostly because sometimes these works are too complex to memorize in the amount of time they have to prepare the piece for performance, especially with some of the schedules these musicians might have.

This is true and, in any case, the exercise of this entire performance-from-memory tradition is only mandatory to those who consider it to be so and that it should be so. Which pianist would expect to play any large-scale Sorabji work without the score before him/her? In my view - and that of Sorabji, for that matter - aiming to do this amounts to no more or less than adding yet another massive imposition to the business of presenting such music in a public performance. Of course, if, for example, Kevin Bowyer ever decides that he'll be more comfortable playing Sorabji's 9-hour-long Second Organ Symphony from memory than from the score, I have no doubt that he'll do so, although quite how a stop assistant will manage I am not at all sure...

To return to another matter that you raised. what was the outcome of your meeting with Mr Finnissy at the unspecified KFC outlet to which you referred?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Very good thanks.

We shared a boneless box.

Thal

[ahinton]

Very good thanks.

We shared a boneless box.

But did he answer your question and, if so, with what?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

He said he had to get her back to the asylum for 10 o clock.

Thal

[ahinton]

He said he had to get her back to the asylum for 10 o clock.

So you went all that way to meet him to ask him a question, you met him and then you did not have an opportunity to ask that question; sounds like a pretty pointless exercise to me. I did not know that he was in charge of any asylum, so I think that your sojourn was even more of a waste of time in that you went to meet the wrong person.

Must try harder. The Unanswered Question is OK for Ives, but you're not Ives.

Back to discussing Michael Finnissy, methinks.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

We could continue, but I think I will start a Roberto Gerhard thread instead.

Thal

[ahinton]

We could continue, but I think I will start a Roberto Gerhard thread instead.

What an excellent idea! So please do. A splendid composer whose work is given a good deal less attention than it deserves. Of the many examples of the "concerto for orchestra" genre, for example, his, from the 1960s, is surely one of the finest.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Proabably not worthy of an entire thread. My only question was why he needed 56 time signature changes on the first 14 pages of his Concert for 8.

I guess the answer is because that was how many he required. It just seemed rather a lot to me.

I have yet to hear a recording of said piece, but I am advised two exist.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

Actually, looking at the score again, it appears to be 60.

Nice number is 60, don't you think???

Thal

[ahinton]

Actually, looking at the score again, it appears to be 60.

Nice number is 60, don't you think???

As I almost wrote previously in the context of Michael Finnissy, that's surely a question that you should have put to the composer, if anyone, rather than to me or to anyone else but, since Gerhard has been dead for almost four decades and you cannot therefore do so, you should perhaps put it to a Gerhard scholar, to which end I might recommend Meirion Bowen (see Gerhard, Roberto, and Meirion Bowen. 2000 - Gerhard on Music: Selected Writings, edited by Meirion Bowen. Aldershot [Hants, UK] and Burlington [Vermont]: Ashgate. ISBN 0754600092) or Joaquim Homs (see Robert Gerhard i la seva obra - Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, 1991. ISBN 8478451099).

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

60

Thal

[ahinton]

60

42.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

How is the hangover?

Bet you had a few last night.

Thal

[ahinton]

How is the hangover?

Whose?

Bet you had a few last night.

Then sadly you lose your bet (so I do hope very much that your stake was not inordinately high), as I had no hangovers whatsoever last night.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Not even a little tipple to celebrate.

Thal

[ahinton]

Not even a little tipple to celebrate.

I wrote that I experienced no hangover/s; does that not answer the point that you made?

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

A

[nearenough]

I've got a proposal. Let's see how Finnissy really stands up -- key signatures as many as you want; millions of notes in minutes, all kinda good stuff.

OK. You are condemned to a desert island.  You can take all of Chopin played by anyone you like, and/or all the sheet music, or, all of Finnissy -- all of it, performances music, both if you want.

Which will it be? Can M F stand up to the competition (of *real* music)?

[thalbergmad]

OK. You are condemned to a desert island.  

Would it not be easier to put Finnissy on a desert island and we can all stay where we are??

Thal

[birba]

 

[pies]

A

[ahinton]

I've got a proposal. Let's see how Finnissy really stands up -- key signatures as many as you want;

Key signatures? Excuse me?...

millions of notes in minutes

As has already been noted here, Finnissy is not all about that.

OK. You are condemned to a desert island.  You can take all of Chopin played by anyone you like, and/or all the sheet music, or, all of Finnissy -- all of it, performances music, both if you want.

Which will it be? Can M F stand up to the competition (of *real* music)?

Leaving aside your assertion about a perceived difference between musics on the basis of "reality" or otherwise", whose idea is this "competition"? Does any composer write in any way in order to "compete" with another?

You'll almost certainly find that most if not all pianists who play Finnissy's work would want to have both it AND Chopin on that desert island...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I once emailed Finnissy asking about what a pianist should do when attempting to learn and perform his impossible pieces.  Here's his response:

That response is certainly useful to have and will presumably now save Thal the bother of contacting the composer to ask him questions about how he wants and/or expects his piano music to be performed; thank you for posting this.

Michael wrote
I have to admit that I don't write for people who do music 'because it's their job', and who just want a 'quiet life' without disturbing their feelings or imagination or taxing their brain. The universe I experience is just not like that. The ex-Poet Laureate, in answer to the statement that 'people didn't read poetry because it was too difficult to understand' said 'then deal with it' rather than offering to somehow 'soften the blow' or otherwise dumb-down. I don't think Art should be innocuous and passive. Inevitably this view gets me into all sorts of trouble!

There are those who would appear to have a problem with this kind of attitude, yet is is no different to Beethoven's in principle (remember his "puny violin" remark?); the reason that some people take exception to it is that they consider it to be an expression of arrogance on the part of the composer, yet of course this is not the case. Birtwistle and Carter before him and Sorabji before him likewise made comments in their various ways about not considering their audiences when writing - meaning not deliberately trying to "give them what they want" (which in reality means what others have tried to persuade them to want); that stance, however, is by no means the same thing as writing "against" one's potential or actual audience - all it signifies is that one simply cannot tell how anyone's going to respond to performance of one's music until it's performed and they do respond. Michael is therefore quite simply and directly reflecting this position, associating himself with it and confirming it as the only credible and viable one for a creative artist to adopt.

The characteristics (familiar or otherwise) of one's musical language make no difference here; let's not forget, for example, that Berg once wrote an essay entitled Why is Schönberg's music so hard to understand? - yet the work he chose to illustrate it was the elder composer's String Quartet No. 1 which, its immense and elaborate complexity notwithstanding, is in D minor!

Audiences have a right not to be written down to.

Best,

Alistair