ABSTRACT
The composer and pianist Michael Finnissy (b. 1946) is an unmistakeable presence in the British and international new music scene, both for his immeasurable generosity as prolific composer for many different types of musicians, major advocate for the works of others, and performer and conductor who has also been a driving force behind ensembles; he was also President of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1990 to 1996. His vast and enormously varied output confounds those who seek easy categorisations: once associated strongly with the ‘new complexity’, Finnissy is equally known as composer regularly engaged with many different folk musics, for working with amateur and community musicians, for a long-term engagement with sacred music, or as an advocate of Anglo-American ‘experimental’ music. Twenty years ago, a large-scale volume entitled Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy gave the first major overview of the output of any ‘complex’ composer. This new volume brings a greater plurality of perspectives and critical sensibility to bear upon an output which is almost twice as large as it was when the earlier book was published. A range of leading contributors – musicologists, composers, performers and others – each grapple with particular questions relating to Finnissy’s music, often in ways which raise questions relating more widely to new music, and provide theoretical foundations for further of study both of Finnissy and other composers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section A|101 pages
Finnissy’s aesthetics and styles
chapter 3|47 pages
Negotiating borrowing, genre and mediation in the piano music of Finnissy
section Section B|93 pages
Finnissy’s identities
chapter 6|13 pages
‘My “personal themes”?!’
chapter 8|22 pages
‘Listening to the instrument(s)’
section Section C|80 pages
Compositional considerations
chapter 11|19 pages
The medium is now the material
section Section D|77 pages
Contexts and case studies