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Brian Ferneyhough Biography

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (/ˈfɜːrnihoʊ/; born 16 January 1943) is a British composer, who has resided in California, United States since 1987. Ferneyhough is typically considered to be the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and the University of California, San Diego, and currently, Stanford University, and is a regular lecturer in the summer courses at Darmstädter Ferienkurse.

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Brian Ferneyhough Quotes

Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me.

Be Careful, Careful, Compositional, Generalizing, Practice, Should

In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent.

Different, Historical, Precedent, Quite, String, Two

Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.

Art, Arts, California, Commitment, Large, Purposes

As a necessary prerequisite to the creation of new forms of expression one might, I suppose, argue that current sensibilities respond uniquely to the notion of exhaustion as exhaustion, although that does de facto seem rather limiting.

Although, Doe, Expression, Might, Suppose, Uniquely

I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of 'variation' much as if measure lengths were concrete musical 'material. '

Gmos, Metric, Musical, Revolution, Structure, Variation

So: we're all tired. Now what? Manuscripts written in Club Med?

Club, Clubs, Manuscripts, Meds, Tired, Written

The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.

Came, Canon, Musical, Opposition, Powers, Subversion

In my model, important interference phenomena arise when individual strata come into contact. These chaotic fluctuations are, I suppose, what my music is really about.

Arise, Chaotic, Important, Individual, Model, Strata

I don't like listening to my music, not even new pieces. Generally, they sound pretty much like I expected them to sound, so it's what I wanted, and that's it.

Expected, Listening, Music, Pieces, Pretty, Sound

What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?

Innovation, Quality, Specific, Years

When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.

Certain, Distance, Relevance, Teacher, Years

There would seem to be a limit, even for an art preoccupied with boundaries and transgressions, beyond which a work reaches its breaking point and becomes an actual failure, a mere experimentation.

Art, Becomes, Experimentation, Limits, Point Break, Work

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.

Argue, Arguing, Centuries, Century, Composer, Composers

I suppose that the scope and implications of such forces have rendered my personal accounting ritual pretty much obsolete. That's how things sometimes go.

Sometimes, Obsolete, Scope, Rendered, Pretty

I dont see lines of force as being destructive, except to the extent that they are exclusively traceable through observance of the path of distorted material left in their wake.

Except, Force, Lines, Material, Path, Traceable

This was possible only by dint of extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion.

Digestion, Dint, Pain, Painful, Periods, Reflection

Naturally enough, I couldn't have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.

Come, Enough, Events, Foreseen, Reunification, Sea

The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.

Past, Years, San Diego, Represented, Period

Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.

Involved, Lost, Sometimes, View, Views

When I speak of "cycles," I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity, if not in the resolving of problems, than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.

Consistency, Cycles, Homogeneity, Irritated, Problem

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