Ferneyhough at HCMF; H&N, Sat 2/12/17; 10:00pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The UK premiere of Brian Ferneyhough(b1943)'s suite of eleven individual pieces each originating in the Music of 16th Century English composer, Christopher Tye, and individually composed over a period of over ten years. Ensemble Modern, conducted by Brad Lubman join forces with the Arditti Quartet, and the broadcast is prefaced by an interview with the composer in conversation with Robert Worby. (Which might be interesting to hear - earlier, in a pre-concert talk with Ferneyhough and James Dillon, Worby managed to really annoy BF with some unusually inane Alan Partridge-type questions about "complexity"!

Oh - there's other stuff on the programme, too: two performances by ensemble Polwechsel - Small Worlds, by the group's Double Bassist, Werner Dafeldecker(b1964) and a group improvisation; and two works by Stephanie Haensler(b1986) from the same Red Note Ensemble concert that featured the Dillon Tanz/Haus premiere, broadcast a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09h2plj

[Richard Barrett]

The UK premiere of Brian Ferneyhough(b1943)'s suite of eleven individual pieces each originating in the Music of 16th Century English composer, Christopher Tye, and individually composed over a period of over ten years. Ensemble Modern, conducted by Brad Lubman join forces with the Arditti Quartet, and the broadcast is prefaced by an interview with the composer in conversation with Robert Worby. (Which might be interesting to hear - earlier, in a pre-concert talk with Ferneyhough and James Dillon, Worby managed to really annoy BF with some unusually inane Alan Partridge-type questions about "complexity"!

Oh dear. Robert is usually a stimulating conversational partner, in my experience.

I was listening to Umbrations the other day on Youtube, wondering whether BF's recent works are getting a bit interchangeable: all very fascinating to listen to, but each piece seems a bit like dipping again into the same ongoing flow of stuff. I haven't really studied his recent works enough to decide, but it seems to me that there's a certain settling into a "mature style" which isn't any longer pushing its envelope into new areas. I would be interested to know what others think, particularly those who might not know his work in general so well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh dear. Robert is usually a stimulating conversational partner, in my experience.

In my experience (listening to his interviews that is!) too - but peculiarly off-form on this occasion; as if he had a set of questions written down that he was going to get through regardless of the responses. (And for much of the time, this "dual" interview consisted of two individual interviews, with one composer answering whilst the other gazed at the surroundings - I did wonder if either noticed a whiteboard reference to a work called "Onan Overgrown Path"!) BF got increasingly truculent, and the discussion only started to come to life in the last five minutes when the question of the composer's effectiveness in political activity started; and then RW cut it off because he had to take BF for an individual interview to include in the H&N broadcast. RW was much better in other interviews I heard him involved in - but I have to say that Sara Mohr-Pietsche did a much better job than him this year at coaxing out unexpected (by the composers themselves) responses from composers.

(I was more intrigued by the snippets of an interview I overheard in the CAB foyer later in the afternoon that BF was giving to a journalist - touching on the idea of "the unexpected in Music", I'd've loved to have heard this in detail.)

I was listening to Umbrations the other day on Youtube, wondering whether BF's recent works are getting a bit interchangeable: all very fascinating to listen to, but each piece seems a bit like dipping again into the same ongoing flow of stuff. I haven't really studied his recent works enough to decide, but it seems to me that there's a certain settling into a "mature style" which isn't any longer pushing its envelope into new areas. I would be interested to know what others think, particularly those who might not know his work in general so well.

I've been delaying writing about the concert in which the work featured in the Festival, because I'm finding it difficult either to accurately express the precise nature of my disappointment in the work (I think because I was expecting a "Work" - greater "connectivity" between the individual pieces) rather than a collection of independent pieces) or to describe how effective each piece in "it" in their own terms. The Sixth Quartet aside (which caused me to have a nosebleed at its UK premiere a few years ago) I haven't found the works since Shadowtime as exciting as those of the 20th Century - fascinating though all of them are (as you say). But "my beloved is mine, and I am his", and it might well be that this sense of absence of "thrill" is what's preventing me from repeated enthusiastic hearings of the works themselves to discover what I'm missing.


(This feels like a confessional!)

[Joseph K]

I love Umbrations. Difficult to say why - but I suppose because it (like most Ferneyhough) is full of colour, quirkiness, freshness... I see no problem in settling into a mature style if it is so interesting and ear-teasing... all those wonky tonalities and off-kilter rhythms.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... it (like most Ferneyhough) is full of colour, quirkiness, freshness... ... all those wonky tonalities and off-kilter rhythms.

- one of the people I was at the concert with (not particularly a New Music fan - and I think that this was her first experience of the composer) said almost exactly the same things, and was particularly attracted by the little glimpses of the 16th Century material that peeped from behind the modern sounds - and then as quickly disappeared into the shadows again. I enjoyed the pieces - but ... I just think I'd been (for some reason) expecting something different (and probably even "spoilt" by how god-smacking the Dillon Tanz/Haus had been the night before).



(And, on reflection, whilst I still feel at ground zero as far as Shadowtime is concerned, there have been other works over the past decade besides the Sixth S4tet that have made me wish I'd worn garters - the Oboe Quintet played at the Festival three years ago not least. But also - whereas La Terre est un Homme needed to be printed on asbestos paper, Plotzlichkeit doesn't seem to me - for all its many astonishing ideas - to require permission from the Fire Department before a performance.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well! That was marvellous! Much better than I'd remembered from the actual concert - the microphones picked up felicities of detail that were lost between the stage and my seat (I was late, and didn't get my preferred seat at the front - St Paul's acoustics are usually exceptionally good, and I've heard the merest whisper of bow nut touching string in Lachenmann's Reigen seliger Geister from even further back; but in this case, I missed important features).

Very keen now to hear it again.

[Quarky]

If I may play a wild card, Ferneyhough's music has previously used as a basis for ballet, see:

http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2011/04/new-magloire-new-chamber-ballet.html

Umbrations might be an even more suitable work for dance (but what do I know?)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If I may play a wild card, Ferneyhough's music has previously used as a basis for ballet, see:

http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2011/04/new-magloire-new-chamber-ballet.html

Umbrations might be an even more suitable work for dance (but what do I know?)

- I didn't know this. I would say that, given a choreographer and dancers with sympathetic imagination, any of NF's work is suitable for dance - I suspect that the problem lies with getting instrumentalists who can play the works accurately (in this case also meaning "so that the dancers can hear in the Music the "cues" for their movements) over a series of nightly performances. A solo violinist is much more "accessible" (by which I mean that s/he can more easily commit to an extended "run" of performances than can the larger number of people required for a work like Umbrations). I suppose that a recording of the work could be used - but I think a vital element would then be lost.

[Orphical]

In my experience (listening to his interviews that is!) too - but peculiarly off-form on this occasion; as if he had a set of questions written down that he was going to get through regardless of the responses. (And for much of the time, this "dual" interview consisted of two individual interviews, with one composer answering whilst the other gazed at the surroundings - I did wonder if either noticed a whiteboard reference to a work called "Onan Overgrown Path"!) BF got increasingly truculent, and the discussion only started to come to life in the last five minutes when the question of the composer's effectiveness in political activity started; and then RW cut it off because he had to take BF for an individual interview to include in the H&N broadcast. RW was much better in other interviews I heard him involved in - but I have to say that Sara Mohr-Pietsche did a much better job than him this year at coaxing out unexpected (by the composers themselves) responses from composers.

(I was more intrigued by the snippets of an interview I overheard in the CAB foyer later in the afternoon that BF was giving to a journalist - touching on the idea of "the unexpected in Music", I'd've loved to have heard this in detail.)


I've been delaying writing about the concert in which the work featured in the Festival, because I'm finding it difficult either to accurately express the precise nature of my disappointment in the work (I think because I was expecting a "Work" - greater "connectivity" between the individual pieces) rather than a collection of independent pieces) or to describe how effective each piece in "it" in their own terms. The Sixth Quartet aside (which caused me to have a nosebleed at its UK premiere a few years ago) I haven't found the works since Shadowtime as exciting as those of the 20th Century - fascinating though all of them are (as you say). But "my beloved is mine, and I am his", and it might well be that this sense of absence of "thrill" is what's preventing me from repeated enthusiastic hearings of the works themselves to discover what I'm missing.


(This feels like a confessional!)

I think my reaction to the first experience of hearing Umbrations was a little underwhelming (YouTube) but live i thought it made a bigger and more positive impact. The lack of connectivity didn't trouble me at all. I find that all Ferneyhough works need at least six listenings before beginning to think about making a judgement. If this is his 'mature' style then that is fine with me but... i do sometimes miss the excitement some earlier pieces generated.
I do agree that the interview with BF and JD was a complete non event, a missed opportunity only generating a little heat at the end when the question of political engagement was raised.
FHG i am interested to read your thoughts about Tanz/Haus tryptich 2017. I felt this was a really strong, strange and and very mysterious work by JD. Have your feelings changed after repeated listenings?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think my reaction to the first experience of hearing Umbrations was a little underwhelming (YouTube) but live i thought it made a bigger and more positive impact. The lack of connectivity didn't trouble me at all. I find that all Ferneyhough works need at least six listenings before beginning to think about making a judgement. If this is his 'mature' style then that is fine with me but... i do sometimes miss the excitement some earlier pieces generated.

I had the experience the other way round - a bit underwhelmed at the Live gig, completely captivated listening to the broadcast of the exact same performance! (I'm pretty sure that I was expecting "a work" - with some connection and/or overlapping between the pieces - rather than an "album" of individual pieces, and it was this false expectation that caused whatever disappointment I experienced in the Hall. Usually with BF, my enthusiasm is immediate - but, yes, I need six or more hearings before I feel able to make any kind of "detached" judgement.

FHG i am interested to read your thoughts about Tanz/Haus tryptich 2017. I felt this was a really strong, strange and and very mysterious work by JD. Have your feelings changed after repeated listenings?

Only to the extent that my initial enthusiasm for the work has grown - as you say, it is a very strong work, indeed. (There is a typo/Freudian slip in my post #5: "god-smacking" should read "gob-smacking"! - I thought it was a fantastic performance of an astonishing work.)