Finnissy: String quartet; Nobody's Jig

On this CD:

1. Plain Harmony 1, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

2. Plain Harmony 2, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

3. Plain Harmony 3, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

4. Nobody's Jig, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

5. Sehnsucht, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

6. Multiple Forms of Constraint, for string quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

7. String quartet
Composed by Michael Peter Finnissy
Performed by Kreutzer Quartet

Finnissy: String quartet; Nobody's Jig, Music, Michael Peter Finnissy, Kreutzer Quartet, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers

Average customer rating:

strange and beautiful

yet another creative realm of notational practice devolved

Finnissy: String quartet; Nobody's Jig

Manufacturer: Metier
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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Michael Finnissy: Etched Bright with Sunlight

ASIN: B00001R3I9
Release Date: 1999-10-01

Customer Reviews:

strange and beautiful.......2002-06-14

Finnissy seems to be best known as a composer for piano (via his "transcriptions" of, actually reworkings of fragments of material from, Verdi and Gershwin, and his piano concertos, some for piano solo), but here is his music for string quartet (although the booklet with the disc warns you not to expect conventional string quartet writing). One of the themes of the music is lack of conventional temporal synchronization between the parts. Only some of the pieces have full scores for the whole quartet, others depend on the chance juxtaposition of what seem to be independent (but apparently fully-notated) parts for the four instruments. The first 3 pieces ("Plain Harmony") are slightly distorted versions of what the title suggests: hymn-like, perhaps Ivesian, part-writing which drifts in and out of consonance, presumably as the different instruments fall in and out of synchronization. "Nobody's Jig" follows, lasting for nearly 20 minutes: a scurrying and dissonant opening, perhaps reminiscent of Carter's 3rd. quartet, with later more tranquil sections, suggesting East-European rhythms and harmonies. Another longish piece, "Multiple forms of constraint", contrasts a solo violin playing Bulgarian folk melodies, with complex, sometimes microtonal, material from combinations of the other instruments. The last work, the only thing described as a "string quartet" on the whole disc, is a 20+ minute work (completely composed), with an extraordinary 7-minute long section played so molto pianissimo as to be virtually inaudible: the shock when the instruments start playing at normal volume mis difficult to properly describe. The trick is partially repeated towards the end of the work. Anyone interested in modern quartet music after Carter, Ferneyhough, Reynolds, should listen to this disc.

yet another creative realm of notational practice devolved.......2001-07-14

The only two works here played via traditional scoring are the String Quartet and Sehnsucht,revealing yet another dimension to Finnissy's restless imaginative creative agenda.This one engaging the string quartet genre exploring the contextual fascination with notational chasms and indeterminate performance;His Seventh Piano Concerto has such similar discourse. This unsealing of durational freedom seems to be revisited here for Cage,Stockhausen Cardew,all had engaged similar agendas.But Finnissy brings his vigorous subjectivity to these departures, it seems of the post modernist product retaining an openness to form,shape,design.

Finnissy's musical practices here are quite convincing and sets this challenge of the indeterminate,half improvisator practice that seem not to have been closed yet in after post modernity's current force fields.

You may know only his deeply wrought blizzards-of-tones-piano- music:which emanate from his practice of improvising himself,(that's where it began it has devopled into a more rarefied approach from strictly work at his writing desk)listen to his English Country Tunes,( a means of dealing with Englishness)or The Verdi Transcriptions.The Gershwin Arrangements,I found less fascinating and are scaled back more for lyrical import,than textural,timbral. Here in this quartet music, you will find a different temperament,one with a full hearted lyrical realm at work, as in Sehnsucht(after a song by Brahms), an elegant piece a mere three minutes,very transparent and beautiful in the indeterminate sense, Very sparce lines dovetail each other, single tones are here working some form of magic. The durationally longer Multiple Forms of Constrant(after tht thoughts of Michel Foucault), also written in 1997 has a similar emotive cast.Deeply light,finely wrought pencil thin lines. Three readings,from what I understand, of Plain Harmony are here as well,these four separate books written in 1993 and 1995, and the fine spontaneous spirited Kreutzer play from written parts,no score, and this as the jacket notes reveals some affinity with the Ivesian dimension, the down home, folk traditional of constructing "harmonies" like from hymnal books,four separate counterpoints all working independently yet in close proximity conceptually and physically with each. Then each gathering responses,verses,vestiges,particles of expression. Here I found deeply wrought double stops renderings, an enormity of sound, quite organ-like,not quite with the pomposity of Anton Bruckner, this is scaled back within this context, yet on-going forever not pleased with itself, the music continues, seamless,seemingly endless in emotive gesture. The early String Quartet from 1984, is typical fair,the muted opening is quite evocative harboring,inhabiting itself around a few soft,barely perceptible particles of tones, with high pencil thin pizz string,like quiet mosquitoes buzzing around a limb in Sussex. You very much feel the ageing of this work, it seems expressive products do age within an accelerated emotive frame. Good to see another alternative to the Arditti tyranny,as the Kreutzer so admirably represents,time to move past this to other creators musicians.

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