Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the
New Complexity movement.
Ferneyhough has taught composition at the
Hochschule für Musik Freiburg
' (, plural: ') is the generic term in German for institutions of higher education, corresponding to ''universities'' and ''colleges'' in English. The term ''Universität'' (plural: ''Universitäten'') is reserved for institutions with the right to ...
and the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
; he teaches at
Stanford University and is a regular lecturer in the summer courses at
Darmstädter Ferienkurse
Darmstädter Ferienkurse ("Darmstadt Summer Course") is a regular summer event of contemporary classical music in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was founded in 1946, under the name "Ferienkurse für Internationale Neue Musik Darmstadt" (Vacation Co ...
. He has resided in California since 1987.
Life
Ferneyhough was born in
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
and received formal musical training at the
Birmingham School of Music and the
Royal Academy of Music from 1966 to 1967, where he studied with
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer.
Biography
Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Char ...
. Ferneyhough was awarded the
Mendelssohn Scholarship
The Mendelssohn Scholarship (german: Mendelssohn-Stipendium) refers to two scholarships awarded in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Both commemorate the composer Felix Mendelssohn, and are awarded to promising young musicians to enable them to co ...
in 1968 and moved to mainland Europe to study with
Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with
Klaus Huber in Basel.
Between 1973 and 1986 he taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, Germany,
Richard Toop
Richard Toop (1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist.
Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold.
In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen's teach ...
, "Ferneyhough, Brian", '' Grove Music Online'' (Updated 22 October 2008), edited by Deane Root (accessed 9 September 2012) where his students included
Toshio Hosokawa
is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture. He has composed operas, the oratorio ''Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima'' ...
,
Joël-François Durand
Joël-François Durand (born 17 September 1954) is a French composer.
Biography
Born in Orléans, Durand studied mathematics, music education and piano in Paris, then composition with Brian Ferneyhough in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (198 ...
, Roger Redgate, Alessandro Melchiorre,
Giulio Castagnoli,
Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; born 14 October 1952) is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Inte ...
, Joël Bons (winner of the 2021
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards () are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology. The religion awa ...
),
Hans-Ola Ericsson, and
Rodney Sharman.
The
Royan Festival of 1974 saw the premiere of ''Cassandra's Dream Song'', the first of several pieces for solo flute, as well as ''Missa Brevis'', written for 12 singers. In 1975, performances of his work for large ensemble ''Transit'' and ''Time and Motion Study III'' were given; the former piece being awarded a
Koussevitzky Prize, the latter performed at the
Donaueschingen festival. In many of these events he was paired with fellow British composer,
Michael Finnissy, with whom he became friends during his student days. In 1984 he was given the title Chevalier de l'
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Between 1987 and 1999 he was Professor of Music at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
. His graduate students at UCSD included composers
Chaya Czernowin and
Mark Applebaum, among many others. In 2000, he became William H. Bonsall Professor in Music at
Stanford University. For the 2007–08 academic year, he was
visiting professor
In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...
at the
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
Department of Music. Between 1978 and 1994 Ferneyhough was a composition lecturer at the
Darmstädter Ferienkurse
Darmstädter Ferienkurse ("Darmstadt Summer Course") is a regular summer event of contemporary classical music in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was founded in 1946, under the name "Ferienkurse für Internationale Neue Musik Darmstadt" (Vacation Co ...
and, since 1990, has directed an annual mastercourse at the Fondation Royaumont in France.
In 2007, Ferneyhough received the
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (short: Siemens Music Prize, german: link=no, Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis) is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts) on behalf of the Ernst v ...
for lifetime achievement. In 2009 he was appointed foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Music
The Royal Swedish Academy of Music ( sv, Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien), founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden. At the time of its foundation, only one of its co-founder was a professional musician, Ferdin ...
.
In 2012 he was awarded an honorary DMus from Goldsmiths, University of London.
In December 2018 he received an honorary degree from the
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides professional education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly res ...
for his contribution to contemporary classical music.
Style and technique
Ferneyhough's initial forays into composition were met with little sympathy in England. His submission of ''Coloratura'' to the
Society for the Promotion of New Music in 1966 was returned, with a suggestion that the oboe part should be scored for clarinet. Whilst Ferneyhough did find it hard, one source of support came from Hans Swarsenski who saw the same thing happen to
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...
; Cardew enjoyed a prestigious continental reputation, but a poor one in his homeland. Swarsenski said of Ferneyhough: 'I've taken on an English composer who is I think is enormously talented. If this doesn't work, this is the last time'. Ferneyhough continued to struggle, but the aforementioned Royan festival marked a breakthrough for Ferneyhough's career.
From here, Ferneyhough became closely associated with the so-called
New Complexity school of composition (indeed, he is often referred to as the "Father of New Complexity"), characterized by its extension of the
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
tendency towards formalization (particularly as in
integral serialism
In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were als ...
).
Ferneyhough's actual compositional approach, however, rejects
serialism and other "generative" methods of composing; he prefers instead to use systems only to create material and formal constraints, while their realisation appears to be more spontaneous.
Ferneyhough has been interested in challenging listeners’ ways of absorbing musical information flow, prompting new kinds of temporal awareness by being presented with musical materials (events, objects, gestures, rhythms, textures) that contain their own sufficient complexity:
The more the internal integrity of a musical event suggests its autonomy, the less the capacity of the "time arrow" to traverse it with impunity; it is "bent" by the contact. By the same token, however, the impact of the time vector "damages" the event-object, thus forcing it to reveal its own generative history, the texturation of its successivity: its perceptual potential has been redefined by the collision. As the piece progresses we are continually stumbling across further stages in this catastrophic obstacle race. The energy accumulation and expenditure across and between these confrontational moments is perceived as a form of internalized metronome, and in fact it is a version of this procedure which most clearly fuels the expressive world of ''Mnemosyne'': the retardational and catastrophic timeline modifiers are employed equally to focus temporal awareness through the lens of material.
His scores make huge technical demands on performers. The compositions have, however, attracted a number of advocates, among them the
Arditti Quartet,
ELISION Ensemble, the members of the Nieuw Ensemble,
Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Exposé,
Armand Angster,
James Avery
James La Rue Avery (November 27, 1945 – December 31, 2013) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as Philip Banks in ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'', Shredder in ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'', Judge Michael Conover on '' L ...
, , Arne DeForce,
Mats Scheidegger Mats Scheidegger (born 1963 in Baden
Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine.
History
The margraves of Baden originated f ...
, ,
Nicolas Hodges, Mark Knoop, Geoffrey Morris,
Ian Pace
Ian Geoffrey Pace (born 1968) is a British pianist. Pace studied at Chetham's School of Music, The Queen's College, Oxford and the Juilliard School in New York. His main teacher was the Hungarian pianist György Sándor.
Repertoire
Born in H ...
,
Carl Rosman,
Harry Sparnaay, and EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble.
His opera, ''
Shadowtime'', with a libretto by
Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to:
* Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores
* Charles Bernstein (poet)
Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...
, and based on the life of the German philosopher
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...
, was premiered in Munich on 25 May 2004, and recorded in 2005 for CD release in 2006. As is usual for Ferneyhough's works, the opera received mixed reviews.
[Gavin Dixon,]
Ferneyhough – Chamber works
, Musicweb-International.com (accessed 18 June 2011). In addition, the production was picketed by a group called Militant Esthetix over the treatment of and association with Walter Benjamin, amongst other things.
Selected works
Works for string quartet
* ''First String Quartet'' (1963)
* ''Sonatas for String Quartet'' (1967)
* Second String Quartet (1980)
* ''Adagissimo'' (1983)
* Third String Quartet (1987)
* Fourth String Quartet (1989–90)
* Fifth String Quartet (2006)
* ''Dum transisset I–IV'' for string quartet (2007)
* ''Exordium'' for string quartet (2008)
* Sixth String Quartet (2010)
* ''Silentium'' (2014)
Selected solo works
* ''Sieben Sterne'' for organ (1970)
* ''Cassandra's Dream Song'' for flute (1970–71)
* ''Time and Motion Study I'' for bass clarinet (1971–77)
* ''Time and Motion Study II'' for singing cellist and live electronics (1973–76)
* ''Unity Capsule'' for solo flute (1976)
* ''Lemma-Icon-Epigram'' for piano (1982)
* ''Kurze Schatten II'' for guitar (1989)
essayscore sample
* ''Trittico per G.S.'' for double bass (1989)
* ''Bone Alphabet'' for percussion (1991)
score sample
* ''Unsichtbare Farben'' for violin (1999)
score sample
* Opus Contra Naturam, for Solo Piano (2000)
*''no time (at all)'' for two guitars (2004), five pieces
* ''Sisyphus Redux'' for alto flute (2009)
* ''Quirl'' for solo piano (2011–13), part of Nicolas Hodges'
Studies Project
For non-orchestral ensemble
* ''Prometheus'' for wind sextet (1967)
* ''Transit'' for solo voices and ensemble (1972–75)
* ''Time and Motion Study III'' for sixteen solo voices (3S, Mez, 4A, 4T, 2Bar, 2B), percussion and electronics (1974)
* ''Carceri d'Invenzione I'' for fl, ob, 2cl, bn, hn, tpt, trb, euphonium, 1perc, pf, 2vn, va, vc, db
121, 1111.2111(1982)
analysisscore sample(inspired by the "Carceri d'Invenzione" by
Giambattista Piranesi
Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...
)
* ''
Etudes Transcendantales'' for soprano and chamber ensemble (1982–1985)
* ''Carceri d'Invenzione II'' for flute and ensemble (1985)
* ''Carceri d'Invenzione III'' for fifteen wind instruments and percussion (1986)
* ''La Chute d’Icare'' for solo clarinet and chamber ensemble (1988)
program note
* ''Terrain'' for violin and chamber ensemble (1992)
* ''Allgebrah'' for oboe and 9 solo strings (1996)
score sample
* ''Incipits'' for solo viola, obbligato percussion and six instruments (1996)
* ''The Doctrine of Similarity'' for chorus (SATB), 3 clarinets, violin, piano and percussion (2000)
score sample
* ''Chronos-Aion'' for large ensemble (2007–8)
* ''Renvoi/Shards'' for quarter-tone guitar and vibraphone (2008)
* ''Liber Scintillarum'' for 6 instruments (2012)
For orchestra
* ''La Terre est un Homme'' for orchestra (1979)
* ''Plötzlichkeit'' for large orchestra (2006)
Opera
* ''
Shadowtime'' (1999–2004), libretto by
Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to:
* Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores
* Charles Bernstein (poet)
Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...
, premiered at the
Munich Biennale
The Munich Biennale (german: Münchener Biennale) is a contemporary opera and music theatre festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is ''Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater'', literally: International Festival for New Musi ...
Reception
Ferneyhough has been called "the most controversial composer of his generation". "In the same year
974
Year 974 ( CMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Battle of Danevirke: Emperor Otto II defeats the rebel forces of King Harald I, who ha ...
the performance of several of his works at the Royan Festival established Ferneyhough as one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of a new generation of composers". "Brian Ferneyhough may well be one of the most important composers to emerge from the latter half of this century. Simultaneously famous and infamous, he is a controversial figure of world renown, bent on making the most out of music." ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
's
Tom Service
Tom Service (born 8 March 1976) is a British writer, music journalist and television and radio presenter, who has written regularly for ''The Guardian'' since 1999 and presented on BBC Radio 3 since 2001. He is a regular presenter of The Proms f ...
called ''La Terre est un Homme'' "one of the most significant achievements in late 20th-century orchestral writing", and also recommended the ''Carceri d'Invenzione'' pieces, ''Lemma-Icon-Epigram'', ''Terrain'', and the string quartets.
Bibliography
* Ferneyhough, Brian. ''Brian Ferneyhough by Brian Ferneyhough''. Paris: L'Age d'homme (French)
References
Sources
*
*
Further reading
* Bortz, Graziela.
Rhythm in the music of Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, and Arthur Kampela : a guide for performers'
Ph.D. Thesis, City University of New York, 2003.* Duncan, Stuart. "Re-complexifying the Function(s) of Notation in the Music of Brian Ferneyhough and the 'New Complexity' ". ''
Perspectives of New Music'' 48, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 136–172.
* Reviewed works: ''Brian Ferneyhough – Collected Writings'', edited by James Boros and
Richard Toop
Richard Toop (1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist.
Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold.
In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen's teach ...
. ''Ferneyhough: String Quartet No. 4; ''Kurze Schatten II''; ''Trittico per G. S.''; ''Terrain'',
Arditti Quartet with Brenda Mitchell (sop);
Magnus Andersson (gtr);
Stefano Scodanibbio (db);
Irvine Arditti
Irvine Arditti (born 8 February 1953) is a British violinist, as well as the leader and founder of the Arditti Quartet.
Biography
Arditti attended the Central Foundation Boys' School in London before continuing his studies at the Royal Academy ...
(vln) with
ASKO Ensemble Asko or ASKO may refer to:
* Asko (name), a male given name common in Finland and Estonia
* Askø, a Danish island
* Asko Cylinda or Asko Appliances AB, a Swedish company producing household appliances
* AskoSchönberg, a Dutch chamber orchestra
...
, c.
Jonathan Nott
Jonathan Nott (born 25 December 1962, in Solihull, England) is an English conductor.
Biography
The son of a priest at Worcester Cathedral, Nott was a music student and choral scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, and also studied singing a ...
. Disques Montaigne MO 7 82029. Ferneyhough: ''Prometheus''; ''La Chute D'Icare''; ''On Stellar Magnitudes''; ''Superscriptio''; ''Carceri d'Invezione III''. Luisa Castellani (voice); Félix Renggli (fl); Ernesto Molinari (cl);
Ensemble Contrechamps, c. Giorgio Bernasconi, Zsolt Nagy, Emilio Pomarico. ACCORD 205772.
* Rosser, Peter. "Brian Ferneyhough and the 'Avant-Garde Experience': Benjaminian Tropes in ''Funérailles''". ''
Perspectives of New Music'' 48, no. 2 (Summer 2010):114–151.
*
Schick, Steven.
Developing an Interpretive Context: Learning Brian Ferneyhough's ''Bone Alphabet'' (Subscription access). ''Perspectives of New Music'' 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1994): 132–153.
*
Tadday, Ulrich (ed.). "Brian Ferneyhough". Munich: Edition Text+Kritik in Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2008. (in German)
*
*
Toop, Richard
Richard Toop (1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist.
Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold.
In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen's teac ...
. "Brian Ferneyhough's ''Lemma-Icon-Epigram''". ''Perspectives of New Music'' 28, no. 2 (Summer, 1990): 52–100.
* Toop, Richard. "'Prima le Parole...' (On the Sketches for Ferneyhough's ''Carceri d'invenzione I–III'')". ''Perspectives of New Music'' 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1994): 154–175.
*
Whittall, Arnold. "Connections and Constellations". ''
The Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country.
It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer ...
'' 144, no. 1883 (Summer): 23–32.
* Williams, Alastair. "
Adorno and the Semantics of Modernism". ''Perspectives of New Music'' 37, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 1–22.
External links
Biographical
Info at Brian Ferneyhough's publisher, Edition Peters– includes biography, works and selected discography
*
ttp://composers21.com/compdocs/ferneyhb.htm Living Composers ProjectInterviews
Interview(SOSPESO)
''NewMusicBox'' cover: Brian Ferneyhough in conversation with Molly Sheridan, 22 July 2005video excerpts from ''
NewMusicBox
''NewMusicBox'' is an e-zine launched by the American Music Center on May 1, 1999. The magazine includes interviews and articles concerning American contemporary music, composers, improvisers, and musicians.
A few interviews include renowned A ...
''
An Interview with Brian Ferneyhoughby Felipe Ribeiro, James Correa, Catarina Domenici
Articles
The Experience of Complexityby Larson Powell
Films
(film by Colin Still, cello: Neil Heyde, electronics: Paul Archbold)
Other
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferneyhough, Brian
1943 births
Living people
English classical composers
20th-century classical composers
21st-century classical composers
21st-century British composers
Musicians from Coventry
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
Harvard University staff
Microtonal composers
Alumni of Birmingham Conservatoire
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
Hochschule für Musik Freiburg faculty
Pupils of Lennox Berkeley
Pupils of Ton de Leeuw
English male classical composers
20th-century English composers
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winners
String quartet composers
20th-century British male musicians
21st-century British male musicians