Brian Ferneyhough Solo Works

Solo works of Brian FERNEYHOUGH performed by members of ELISION Ensemble ETCETERA KTC 1206 Total timing 74:17 Released 1998

Excerpt from the cover notes:
On Ferneyhough's solo compositions

--Richard BARRETT © 1998

Time and Motion Study No. 1 (1971-77) 8:16

Carl ROSMAN, bass clarinet

Kurze Schatten II (1983-89)

Geoffrey MORRIS, guitar
1:46 1:15 2:04 2:07 1:45 2:35 2:49

Bone Alphabet (1991) 12:32

Vanessa TOMLINSON, percussion

Unity Capsule (1975-76) 16:16

Paula RAE, flute

Time and Motion Study No. 2 (1973-76) 22:04

Friedrich GAUWERKY, violoncello

Critical Acclaim

From time to time one still comes across the idea that modernist music, by its very nature, is ugly and inexpressive, and that the newly tuneful composers of the last couple of decades have saved the art from going down some blind alley. If evidence were needed to counter that notion, a recent CD of solo works by Brian Ferneyhough (Etcetera KTC 1206), played by the extraordinary musicians of the Australian group Elision, would do the trick.

One work on this disk, Kurze Schatten II (`Short Shadows II´), for guitar, owes something to the Baroque suite: it has several short movements in different tempos, a certain dance flavor, if only intermittently (much in this highly volatile music being intermittent) and a sense of practical handiwork, of music springing from the way the instrument is handled and touched.

In an essay that gave the work its title, Walter Benjamin writes, according to the composer, of "the sun which, as it approaches its zenith, casts shadows which become progressively shorter and darker until, at noon, they are so perfectly united with their objects that the latter stand uniquely and completely themselves, naked, without residue." To follow this analogy, each movement of Kurze Schatten II is a shadow cast by a new tuning on the multifarious possibilities of the guitar. Or one might imagine in each movement a new net, a different mesh, being used to catch different glittering fish.

Kurze Schatten II is brilliantly played by Geoffrey Morris. But perhaps the most sheerly stunning performance here is Carl Rosman's of Time and Motion Study I for bass clarinet, an earlier piece, from the 1970s rather than the '80s, going back to a steamier period in Ferneyhough's music.

Mr Rosman suggests something of the sound and atmosphere of a jazz improvisation, and perhaps for Ferneyhough the bass clarinet was a more eloquent, precise and versatile alternative to the baritone saxophone. But those extras are vital. The piece covers the ground from frenetic burblings to intense tones in a register one never thought this instrument could reach, moving to a powerful climax, after which all that is left is dust in the air.

A companion piece, Time and Motion Study II, has a solo 'cellist bound with contact microphones and tape delay systems; it probably needs to be seen in performance as well as heard. Even so, Friedrich Gauwerky's performance is forceful. Also included are Bone Alphabet, a labyrinth of pattering cross-rhythms for a solo percussionist, and Unity Capsule for flute.
--Paul GRIFFITHS New York Times 4 April 1999

The immense surface complexity of Brian Ferneyhough's instrumental writing-- the arcanely irrational rhythms, the meticulously detailed dynamics and articulation--have never disguised the visceral force that drives his music. Ferneyhough's creative impulse is a thoroughly Romantic one, and the quest for transcendence is one of the persisting concerns of all his music. That energy and ambition emerge most clearly in his solo works, and particularly in those from the Seventies--the first two of the Time and Motion Studies, for bass clarinet, and cello with electronics respectively (there is a third, for unaccompanied voices), and the immensely challenging Unity Capsule for flute. The endlessly striving bass clarinet lines that work themselves up into ever greater fury, the live cello's gradual suffocation by technological distortions and reflections, and the flute's constant struggle to articulate a lyrical, expressive line through a welter of special effects, all conjure up vivid and compelling images.

In that period Ferneyhough deliberately made impossible demands on his interpreters, adding yet another layer of tension to music that was already highly wrought; on this disc the members of the Australian group Elision make sure that dramatic tension never slackens. The solo works for guitar and percussion are later, cooler and in a sense less Utopian, yet the writing remains immensely virtuosic, and still driven by fundamentally simple impulses. In Kurze Schatten II the guitar strings shift steadily from quarter-tones to conventional tuning, as if a musical object was gradually coming into focus; in Bone Alphabet the non-specific instrumentation (Ferneyhough just prescribes seven different sound sources) allows him to concentrate on rhythmic layers which overlap and interweave to create constantly changing webs of pulsation. Intriguing, if not packing the same punch as the earlier pieces.

Performance: *****
Sound: ****

--Andrew CLEMENTS BBC Music Magazine April 1999

Performers and Production

Friedrich GAUWERKY violoncello, Geoffrey MORRIS guitar, Paula RAE flute, Carl ROSMAN bass clarinet, Vanessa TOMLINSON percussion

Richard BARRETT producer (tracks 1-8 and 11), editing (track 9); Daryl BUCKLEY and Carl ROSMAN co-producers (tracks 9 and 10); Jim ATKINS recording engineer (all tracks) and editing (tracks 1-8, 10, and 11); Richard BARRETT electroncs (track 10); Michael HEWES additional electronics (track 10); Daryl BUCKLEY project producer, Robin KIRKHAM the gaps

Brian FERNEYHOUGH cover artwork, Richard BARRETT liner notes, Edition Peters music publisher

Recorded between December 1995 and November 1997, Iwaki Auditorium and PS1, ABC Southbank Studios, Melbourne. Released by ETCETERA Records, Amsterdam. KTC 1206. Total timing 74:17 (DDD).