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Michael Finnissy : Wachtend op de volgende uitbarsting …
Performed by Andrew Infanti (piano) and Paula Cronan (video)
Michael Finnissy (born 1946) is an English composer and pianist. His massive artistic output resists all attempts to label him (despite the tenacious etiquette “New Complexity”). He has composed operas, orchestral works, hypervirtuosic piano cycles, chamber music for unheard-of ensembles, etc.
Andrew Infanti has played a number of his works, two of which were World premieres, particularly Wachtend op de volgende uitbarsting van repressie en censuur (transl. from Dutch Awaiting the next outburst of repression and censorship), ninth section of The History of Photography in Sound. (continue reading …)
The History of Photography in Sound
Michael Finnissy accepted the challenge to write Western music’s longest piano work — the result, entitled The History of Photography in Sound in eleven large parts, lasts approximately five-and-a-half hours when performed in its entierty. Finnissy’s work openly espouses Ferruccio Busoni’s musical formula Nachdichtung — literally a “poem modeled upon another.”
In Wachtend op de volgende uitbarsting van repressie en censuur, the ninth section of The History of Photography in Sound, Finnissy openly honors Busoni by using the Sarabande from that composer’s unfinished masterpiece Doktor Faust as a template. This material is subject to musical “censorship”, a violent dismantling or gradual atomizing of the music, in the second half of Finnissy’s work.
Finnissy comments that The History… was designed to be performed, in whole or part, either as a solo piano “recital” or as an “installation” with slides, video, and film.
Andrew Infanti asked visual artist Paula Cronan about collaborating on a video “companion” to the work, specifically solliciting her attitudes about the meaning of censorship in today’s media-centered culture. The result is a wickedly critical, yet emotionally haunting visual essay which perfectly seizes the stakes of creating counterpoint to a musical text.
Finnissy’s own music has been unfairly marginalized because of its overtly left political component and due to the composer’s refusal to remain “consistent” with an image of himself based on past critiques and successes.
Wachtend op de volgende uitbarsting van repressie en censuur is dedicated to Andrew Infanti, who is deeply moved by this kind gesture from Michael Finnissy, who is one of his musical idols.
