Brian Ferneyhough is definitely a more is more kind of composer. British by birth, now a long term resident of California, this former UC San Diego and current Stanford professor is credited as the father of a genre known as New Complexity. As soon as the genre was tagged with a name it started to accumulate baggage. Ferneyhough doesn’t like the albatross and has rejected the title in his non-defensive way.
There’s no denying the insane complexity of his music, however. In fact, segments of it approach the realm of humanly impossible. These compositions are designed to give direction and milk every ounce of talent out of the very rare virtuosos who can seriously attempt his compositions. With annotation like “with homicidal aggression” written alongside notes that perhaps no human could actually play he’s not constricting the musician to an impossible task but freeing them up to approach the passage with liberating improvisation while still being guided by the mind of a genius.
It has been suggested that Ferneyhough’s frantic contemporary take on Schoenberg’s serialism be coined Electric Chair Music. I like that. It’s catchy. No links or images this time. Hopefully, you’re inspired to check it out.
Warmth Highest 