Ferneyhough m’impressionne de plus en plus ! Les couleurs sonores sont superbes ! Je m’attendais à quelque chose de froid et distant, mais en fait, c’est intensément expressif !
amazing to see the score on here at last - I have owned a tattered photocopy of it for decades. it was my first ever exposure to Ferneyhough (the Boulez recording on Erato from the 90s) and I had never heard anything like it in the 90s. I still prefer the playing in the Boulez recording which I find more vivid and upfront (it is his most "expressionist" work to my ears): the single crotale strike is a shock in the Boulez/EIC recording and here it's not quite as prominent.
This one should keep the audience awake alright! THIS PIECE MIGHT even WAKE UP THE DEAD ! it's kinda busy. Has good a beat, fun to dance to, I give a 75. he's ripping not not not repeating. it's intense. I like it. it should clear out a room of unwanted guests in just a few bars. cool
I think you’re asking “Is there a limit to the complexity of sounds the average musically-literate person can differentiate and comprehend?” I believe the answer is. “Yes, there is a limit. This music easily exceeds that limit.” There may be such a rigorous, almost superhuman logic behind this “augenmusik” that the composer can reliably state, to paraphrase James Joyce, that he “can justify every note,” but I seriously doubt it. Sometime in the late 1940s, the avant-garde and the serialists made an interesting and perhaps dispiriting discovery: totally random music and totally serialized music can approach each other so closely in texture, pitch distribution, timbre, and rhythm, that they become harder and harder to distinguish one from another. I must say, though, I admire the imagination and brilliant drafting skills needed to create such scores. It’s more fun to look at the scores and marvel at them than to hear them. Sorabji’s 7-hour Opus Archimagicum comes to mind…there’s (yet) no recording of it, but who cares? it’s fun to look at the endless tapestries of textures and imagine the mind that created them. The insight to be gained thusly renders hearing moot. So it is here.
In fact, they are very likely playing it all wrong, The rhythms are so complex they can only be approximated. The probability that they play any of them correctly is extremely low.
“Is there a limit to the complexity of sounds the average musically-literate person can differentiate and comprehend?” I believe the answer is. “Yes, there is a limit. This music easily exceeds that limit.” There may be such a rigorous, almost superhuman logic behind this “augenmusik” that the composer can reliably state, to paraphrase James Joyce, that he “can justify every note,” but I seriously doubt it. Sometime in the late 1940s, the avant-garde and the serialists made an interesting and perhaps dispiriting discovery: totally random music and totally serialized music can approach each other so closely in texture, pitch distribution, timbre, and rhythm, that they become harder and harder to distinguish one from another. I must say, though, I admire the imagination and brilliant drafting skills needed to create such scores as Ferneyhough’s and Sorabji’s. It’s perhaps more fun to look at the scores and marvel at them than to hear them. Sorabji’s 7-hour Opus Archimagicum comes to mind…there’s (yet) no recording of it, but who cares? it’s fun to look at the endless tapestries of textures and imagine the mind that created them. The insight to be gained thusly renders hearing moot. So it is here.
I find this so much more rewarding to listen to than the repetitive post-minimalist blather we in the US are subjected to. But perhaps you are spared that fate. This is a wonderful aural adventure.
@@Cleekschrey I've never heard post-minimalism. I know you said you don't like it but could you recommend some post-minimalism that you don't like? 90% of contemporary music I don't like so I'm used to being disappointed!
@@Cleekschrey I understand the point - I used to disregard minimalism, but in last years I began to appreciate it (or part of it - as in every artistic movement there's a lot of low quality production) - I respect and appreciate Ferneyhough, but, at the very end, his music is really pretty traditional - that's not a problem at all, just a characteristic... I'm more interested in more "radical" approaches (Lucier, just to name one)
Anyhough...the music does not really carry for me any of that baroque conceptual weight...there's nothing in this music that I would associate with ritual....That's all just intellectual overlay...it's one of the things I find annoying and pretentious about conceptual art. This is expressionist music...and highly abstract...that it really conveys such specific things is fanciful at best. Music of this kind has to stand on its own merit and it seems false to try to prop its importance up with extra musical ideas. We have to award Ferneyhough esthetic kudos for his complex and fascinating schematics...I find the 2nd (reconsidered version) somewhat more interesting tonally than the 1st. How any performer is able to interpret such a score is pretty amazing. Which is one reason they are not much performed....the new complexity leaves many cold.
So much of contemporary music is relentlessly boring; it just drifts along and nothing happens. Maybe works if you're in a meditative mood but otherwise it's not really captivating. By comparison Ferneyhough's music is extremely exciting, there's a lot of drama!
Ferneyhough m’impressionne de plus en plus ! Les couleurs sonores sont superbes ! Je m’attendais à quelque chose de froid et distant, mais en fait, c’est intensément expressif !
I wouldn't want this to be played at my funeral, to be perfectly honest.
This is extremely powerful music to me.
what do you mean?
Masterwork! Thank you!
An absolute genius.
Beautiful
I actually enjoyed this more than other works I've heard by Ferneyhough, I do hear a sense of drama in it.....i might actually even like it
amazing to see the score on here at last - I have owned a tattered photocopy of it for decades. it was my first ever exposure to Ferneyhough (the Boulez recording on Erato from the 90s) and I had never heard anything like it in the 90s. I still prefer the playing in the Boulez recording which I find more vivid and upfront (it is his most "expressionist" work to my ears): the single crotale strike is a shock in the Boulez/EIC recording and here it's not quite as prominent.
Pretty entertaining for a funeral
sodelicious....................
This one should keep the audience awake alright!
THIS PIECE MIGHT even WAKE UP THE DEAD ! it's kinda busy. Has good a beat, fun to dance to, I give a 75. he's ripping not not not repeating.
it's intense. I like it.
it should clear out a room of unwanted guests in just a few bars. cool
😮
wow
thats a lot of damage
I've always wondered, if they played it wrong, would anybody be able to tell?
I think you’re asking “Is there a limit to the complexity of sounds the average musically-literate person can differentiate and comprehend?” I believe the answer is. “Yes, there is a limit. This music easily exceeds that limit.” There may be such a rigorous, almost superhuman logic behind this “augenmusik” that the composer can reliably state, to paraphrase James Joyce, that he “can justify every note,” but I seriously doubt it. Sometime in the late 1940s, the avant-garde and the serialists made an interesting and perhaps dispiriting discovery: totally random music and totally serialized music can approach each other so closely in texture, pitch distribution, timbre, and rhythm, that they become harder and harder to distinguish one from another. I must say, though, I admire the imagination and brilliant drafting skills needed to create such scores. It’s more fun to look at the scores and marvel at them than to hear them. Sorabji’s 7-hour Opus Archimagicum comes to mind…there’s (yet) no recording of it, but who cares? it’s fun to look at the endless tapestries of textures and imagine the mind that created them. The insight to be gained thusly renders hearing moot. So it is here.
The lesson is that this music sounds awesome
In fact, they are very likely playing it all wrong, The rhythms are so complex they can only be approximated. The probability that they play any of them correctly is extremely low.
@@johnzielinski9951 nonexistent, I would say.
“Is there a limit to the complexity of sounds the average musically-literate person can differentiate and comprehend?” I believe the answer is. “Yes, there is a limit. This music easily exceeds that limit.” There may be such a rigorous, almost superhuman logic behind this “augenmusik” that the composer can reliably state, to paraphrase James Joyce, that he “can justify every note,” but I seriously doubt it. Sometime in the late 1940s, the avant-garde and the serialists made an interesting and perhaps dispiriting discovery: totally random music and totally serialized music can approach each other so closely in texture, pitch distribution, timbre, and rhythm, that they become harder and harder to distinguish one from another. I must say, though, I admire the imagination and brilliant drafting skills needed to create such scores as Ferneyhough’s and Sorabji’s. It’s perhaps more fun to look at the scores and marvel at them than to hear them. Sorabji’s 7-hour Opus Archimagicum comes to mind…there’s (yet) no recording of it, but who cares? it’s fun to look at the endless tapestries of textures and imagine the mind that created them. The insight to be gained thusly renders hearing moot. So it is here.
I find this so much more rewarding to listen to than the repetitive post-minimalist blather we in the US are subjected to. But perhaps you are spared that fate. This is a wonderful aural adventure.
@@Cleekschrey I've never heard post-minimalism. I know you said you don't like it but could you recommend some post-minimalism that you don't like? 90% of contemporary music I don't like so I'm used to being disappointed!
@@the.spin.doctor try David Lang and Nico Muhly
@@Cleekschrey I understand the point - I used to disregard minimalism, but in last years I began to appreciate it (or part of it - as in every artistic movement there's a lot of low quality production) - I respect and appreciate Ferneyhough, but, at the very end, his music is really pretty traditional - that's not a problem at all, just a characteristic... I'm more interested in more "radical" approaches (Lucier, just to name one)
@@emilianoturazzime too. But sometimes it is refreshing to hear these older approaches to concert music.
Anyhough...the music does not really carry for me any of that baroque conceptual weight...there's nothing in this music that I would associate with ritual....That's all just intellectual overlay...it's one of the things I find annoying and pretentious about conceptual art. This is expressionist music...and highly abstract...that it really conveys such specific things is fanciful at best. Music of this kind has to stand on its own merit and it seems false to try to prop its importance up with extra musical ideas. We have to award Ferneyhough esthetic kudos for his complex and fascinating schematics...I find the 2nd (reconsidered version) somewhat more interesting tonally than the 1st. How any performer is able to interpret such a score is pretty amazing. Which is one reason they are not much performed....the new complexity leaves many cold.
C’est vrai que ça donne envie de mourir !
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So much of contemporary music is relentlessly boring; it just drifts along and nothing happens. Maybe works if you're in a meditative mood but otherwise it's not really captivating. By comparison Ferneyhough's music is extremely exciting, there's a lot of drama!