British composer, Michael
Finnissy www.michaelfinnissy.info
was born in London in 1946 and started writing music at an early age, later
receiving the William Yeats Hurlstone composition-prize at the Croydon Music
Festival. Awarded a Foundation Scholarship to study at the Royal College of
Music he studied composition with Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Searle. He was subsequently
awarded an Octavia travelling scholarship to study in Italy with Roman Vlad.
After his return from Italy he freelanced and worked at the
London School of Contemporary Dance where, with the encouragement of its course-director
Pat Hutchinson, he founded a music department.
Finnissy’s concert debut as a solo pianist was at the
Galerie Schwartzes Kloster in Freiburg, playing a concert that mainly featured first
performances of works by Howard Skempton, Oliver Knussen and himself. He also
made his first appearances in Europe, firstly at the Gaudeamus Music Week, the Royan
Festival and Donaueschingen. In many of these events he was twinned with Brian
Ferneyhough, a friend since his student days and who partnered him whilst teaching
composition at Dartington Summer School in the mid-seventies.
By then a number of his pieces had been published, soon
leading to a contract initially with Universal Edition and subsequently with
United Music Publishers and Oxford University Press.
Finnissy has served as President of the British section of
the ISCM and is now an Honorary Member of the society. He has been attached to CoMA
(Contemporary Music for All) since its inception; has been in residence as
composer to the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia and to the
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney and has taught at the Royal Academy of
Music, London; Winchester College, the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven
(Belgium) and at the Universities of Sussex and Southampton.
Finnissy’s music has been recorded by a number of record
companies including Metier www.divine-art.co.uk/composers/finnissy.htm who have done much for this composer’s music.
In this, Michael Finnissy’s
70th birthday year, Metier www.divine-art.co.uk/CD/28557info.htm
have
released a new recording entitled Singular
Voices - Music for voice with
clarinet and piano featuring soprano, Clare Lesser www.divineartrecords.com/AS/clarelesser.htm
; clarinettist, Carl Rosman www.carlrosman.com and
pianist David Lesser https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/academics/faculty/david-lesser.html
 |
| msv 28557 |
Lord Melbourne for
soprano, clarinet and piano was commissioned by the Worfield Charity Concert Trust
and was first performed in 1982 at Rudge Hall, Pattingham, Staffordshire,
England. It is based on a transcription of an English folk-song by Percy Grainger.
Finnissy brings an almost instrumental use of the wordless soprano voice of
Clare Lesser, tacking the melody over David Lesser’s piano phrases that pick
out the theme together with a longer clarinet line from Carl Rosman. These
artists reveal all of Finnissy’s finely conceived colours and intervals as this
quite lovely, very individual piece progresses. The clarinet later takes the
theme whilst the piano continues to pick out the theme. The soprano returns to
lead the music through some very fine textures and harmonies, rising up in some
more passionate moments. Later there are further passages for clarinet and
piano alone where they weave some fine lines around each other. When the
soprano returns she brings an even more flowing line with phrases of varying
pitch reaching superb heights before a sudden coda.
To follow there are a number of songs from Songs 1-18 (1966-1978) intended to be performed
separately, in groups or as complete cycle.
Clare Lesser proves to be particularly fine in Song 1 showing tremendous control and
agility in this remarkable setting of Tasso. Finnissy’s vocal shapes and
colours bring a rather special atmosphere. Song
16 rises wonderfully on the words ‘I saw on earth angelic qualities…’ Clare
Lesser bringing a fine purity of tone, again with remarkably fluent delivery
and intensely fine control, achieving a rather otherworldly quality. She brings
remarkable singing to the faster passages.
Carl Rosman’s clarinet brings equally wide ranging
intervals, textures and colours to the opening of Song 11 creating some quite wonderful sounds. Clare Lesser joins, bringing
Finnissy’s distinctive vocal style, nevertheless, creating just the right
atmosphere for this setting of Swinburne, reaching some extremely high notes at
the coda.
Lesser soars tremendously high in the opening of Song 14 evoking wonderfully the text
of this Whitman poem ‘Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound/The dalliance of
the eagles…’ Indeed the fast moving flow
of undulating lines makes this a very fine setting.
The song, Same As We
dates from 1990 and is a setting of Tennyson. It is a really unusual, quite
lovely song where this soprano brings some wonderful undulating lines that
weave around her own pre-recorded voice creating an innovative way of illuminating
Tennyson’s lines. There are some quite powerful passages in this terrific song
as well as lovely harmonies.
Clare Lesser returns to a song from Songs 1-18 (1966-1978), Song
15 where she weaves some very fine, fast moving wordless lines interspersed
by longer lines. There are some wonderfully controlled quieter moments, finding
many lovely textures and colours as she moves around through wide and varied
intervals.
The later part of this disc is taken up by Finnissy’s Beuk o’ Newcassel Sangs (1988) which was
commissioned by Tapestry and first performed by them at Newcastle University in
1989. They take the texts of traditional Newcastle folk-songs, from A beuk o’Newcassel Sangs collected by
Joseph Crawhall (1888).
In the opening of the first song, Up the Raw, maw bonny Finnissy seems to suggest Northumbrian pipes
as the clarinet and soprano open. His evocation of folk influences, subtly
refracted through his own idiom is extremely effective. Carl Rosman’s microtones
find some superb textures and timbres.
I thought to marry a parson
has a lighter feel yet with a darker subtext, Clare Lesser Carl Rosman and
David Lesser weaving some very fine harmonies.
Clare Lesser brings a folksy yet wholly distinctive theme in
Buy broom buzzems to which the
clarinet adds dissonant harmonies. Clare Lesser rises through some remarkably
fine passages contrasted by a clarinet line with the piano later adding a discordant
texture.
A piercing clarinet line soon finds lower tones as it
introduces A' the neet ower an' ower. Clare
Lesser joins to move around the ever changing clarinet part, bringing some
spectacularly virtuosic moments to this song with the high piercing texture of
the clarinet to conclude.
With As me an' me
marra was gannin' ta wark again a folk style is refracted through
Finnissy’s own unique expressive style. As the piano and clarinet notes die
away at the end, one can hear Finnissy’s lovely harmonies fading.
Piano, clarinet and soprano bring a sparkling There's Quayside fer sailors, weaving a
terrific tapestry of musical lines, creating a very fine texture.
In It's O But Aw Ken
Weel the clarinet brings a sorrowful sound to which the soprano adds her
own melancholy, both creating a haunting atmosphere, Clare Lesser finding a
most lovely coda.
These performances of Finnissy’s quite remarkable songs are
unlikely to be bettered. The recording from the Turner-Sims Concert Hall,
University of Southampton, Hampshire, England is first rate and there are excellent
booklet notes by David Lesser and Clare Lesser. Full texts and, where necessary,
English translations are provided.
See also:
No comments:
Post a Comment