Interview with Michael Finnissy at the JdP Music Building

Composer Michael Finnissy interviewed by Tom Stafford at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building (St Hilda's College, Oxford) ahead of his piano recital on Tuesday 20th May 2014 featuring his First Political Agenda and Second Political Agenda performed together by the composer in concert for the first time in the UK.
Video created for the JdP Music Building (www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/jdp) by Amelia Parker and Joel Baldwin.

[@sexy350Zowner]

The last shirt I would've expected Michael to wear was a Cartman shirt...

[@dingusmoped]

+sexy350Zowner exactly!

[@sanicyouth6540]

+sexy350Zowner Seeing that made my day.

[@dingusmoped]

All my time and lessons with Michael summed up into one phrase he said: "I want to do things that are unacceptable."

[@georgeholloway3981]

Lovely interview!

[@danyelnicholas]

Thank you for posting this extremely interesting interview. Mr. Finnissy's statements are very crucial for any serious discussion of music today. As far as Schönberg is concerned, I would stress that he wanted to devise a method for making motivic relations even denser rather then controlling harmonic coherence. Quite often he composed against the grain of the harmonic implications of rows (or devised rows with odd structures: "Tonal, oder Atonal"), but motivic relations, every note being thematic, was his prevalent goal.

[@OperaCantata]

Respect my Autoritah!

[@DmitryTimofeev]

Genius!

[@user-lb4ew7gr2j]

nice

[@urbulibaba]

I love his work but really hate that he sounds so much like Roger Scruton!

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

interesting observation! They speak at about the same speed but the intonation is quite different to my ears.

[@urbulibaba]

@@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist I guess you're right, and besides, Scruton sounds even posher and is far more irritating!