INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL FINNISSY (OCTOBER 2004 – MAY
2005)
The following interview with Michael Finnissy on the
theme of writing music for amateurs was conducted by Malcolm Atkins (using
e-mail and post) between October 2004 and May 2005. Due to Michael’s many
commitments (and the Christmas season) there were intermittent gaps and
agreements to delay the interview. However, what is contained below is just the
correspondence that relates to Michael’s work.
MA (21/10/2004)
For many contemporary
composers the call to write a piece for amateurs involves an integration of
experimental and extended technique that utilises the strengths (of enthusiasm and open-mindedness) that those who choose to play new music have
compared to many student or professional performers. Plain Harmony, in
contrast, appears to focus on an older amateur tradition of church or community
choir, employing dense textures (again
unusual in much of this kind of work),
which, despite frequent false relations,
seem designed to emphasise a collective response. This is especially
true of the opening - straight in with the direction 'Lustily, as in hymn
singing' - as the instruction that 'no line should take precedence over any
other'. Even the use of contrasted solo and group work (a common approach to
facilitating the use of the more skilled performer in conjunction with a less
experienced group) does not seem to be used to highlight individual interpretation but to enhance a
collective sound. Was there a communitarian aim in your choice and style of
material in this work and did the history of western collective music making
(especially by amateurs) influence this choice?
MF (08/11/2004)
To answer your last point
first (as it provides a context for the rest), both my father (staunch socialist)
and my principal teacher Bernard Stevens (Marxist/communist) had introduced the
notion of and emphasised 'community' to me in a particular way. My love of
Rossellini's early (neo-realist) films - where he uses the term 'chorality' to
define the collective voice of the people (or protagonists) - informs this too.
I love this in Pasolini's poetry and cinema too, or the 'sensibility'
(distancing, analysing) in Brecht or his 'disciples' here: Edward Bond or
Howard Barker. There is a sense in which 'Plain Harmony' deliberately draws on
a 1930s to 1950s tradition: the Workers' Music Association type of thing -
Eisler, Wolpe, Blitzstein, Hindemith, inter alia gebrauchmusik. And
particularly a 'choral' or sung aspect of this tradition, albeit that I tempered
it with 'Ivesian' hymn-like references
(particularly to methodist, and Shaker American styles of hymnody) rather than
other types of 'popular' music - cod-jazz for example. I'm happier with forming
a critique of this 'old' tradition - socially and politically. I know more
about it. It seems richer in 'ideals', more solid, more objectified. More to
get one's teeth into than amorphous 'extended techniques'.
In some ways the
'collective' is also very different from my compositional 'norms' - of
soloistic and chamber music with one (usually virtuosic) player per part. So
for 'Plain Harmony' it seemed right to find an appropriate 'metaphor' before I
wrote anything. I can't just write music from an 'outside', from an all-purpose
stylistic dogma. Having decided that no individual voice would dominate any
part of the texture, I worked at a textural archetype (chordal homophony) that
accomodated this aim. And I hoped that the 'tidal wave' of the music's
discourse would carry less-experienced and more-experienced players along
together. I'd already written (in 'East London Heys') music in which different
strata are aimed at different levels of ability, and pieces ('Maldon' and
'Anima Christi') in which amateurs and professionals work together 'discreetly'
side by side, so I wanted to try something else.
I chose (Grainger-esque)
open score so that anyone (regardless of instrument, except by virtue of range)
could join in. It's not supposed to sound like a traditional orchestra, indeed
not blended smoothly at all. The ideal would be to include accordions, kazoos,
musical-saws, folk-instruments alongside violins and clarinets. Thereby
disavowing any sense of 'proper' or 'improper'.
MA (11/11/2004)
I was particularly interested that in writing a piece
for amateurs you were choosing to comment on the history of that practice. Not
just writing within an established genre (or set of genres) but exploring the
possibilities and limitations of collective music making by reference to its
history and aspects of the history that have particular resonance for you.
It seems that as a result of this you have two
contrasting purposes. One derived from the need to create a piece that reminds
people of (or educates people in) the pleasure of collective non-competitive
music making. The other to explore a series of compositional aims: to survey
within one work different aspects of collective music making - strident and
passionate hymnody, sentimental harmony, lyrical folk song - and the
contrasting moods these engender; to question notions of what instrumentation
is allowed in an ensemble and to question expectations of how the material
prepared will develop and culminate. This seems to generate a tension in the
music where a traditional direction or resolution is implied and then avoided or
contradicted. The eight part extended diatonic texture at the start imediately
leads to expectations of a chorale style cadence which never appears. But the
music continues to explore different voicing arrangements in a traditional
manner full of diatonic relations, and often in traditional four bar sections.
The structure of the piece seems to hark back to an archetype of the symphony
in its four section move through affirmative, sentimental, lyrical to strong
and passionate. But in the first and last sections the affirmative start does
not reappear at the culminations which are unexpected (in the case of the
first) and indeterminate ( in the case of the last). The pauses in the second
section deliberately break the melodic thread and in the third, snatches of
beautiful lyrical melody break through randomly although the power of any one
individual voice never overcomes the other parts.
Is this a fair summary of your aims and did meeting them
in the context of the limitations you imposed (of equality of sound amongst all
parts) present any particular compositional problems or advantages ? How far
are the issues that you explore in the piece, of exploring historical reference
and challenging the normal teleology of that historical material, common to
your compositional practice ?
MF(19/11/2004)
Spot on! ALL my music is designed to challenge
accepted teleologies and historico-musical praxis. The pieces are (at least
partly) 'critiques' and 'commentaries' on (usually recognisable and, at some
level, quoted and acknowledged) extant musical objects or ideas. This notion
also preoceeds from (i) all music is culturally determined, reliant on
'analogical forms' (poetical or architectural), organisationally remote from
sound in Nature; (ii) our relatively insistent 'Museum Culture', the invasive
presence of canonical 'classical music' as determinant, as the 'norm' (actually
Euro-centric and imperialistic) for (most types of? I'd include jazz, pop and
Hollywoodesque schmaltzy "world-musics") musical composition.
There is, then, a
collusion between me and the performer and the audience, a shared (though often
latent and even unacknowledged) link - possibly 'expectation' - with which I
(and they) can PLAY. This 'ludus' (a serious game probably) has layers [e.g.
spotting references, detective work, archeology] or can proceed entirely
superficially [in ignorance] as a (sensually/emotionally attractive) 'journey'.
"Problems and
advantages" (Your Paragraph 4)?
Neither. Of course any
decent composition establishes certain notional (though temporary) criteria
which must somehow be met, more or less rigorously, more or less enjoyably. For
me composing is mostly 'discovering', uncovering possibilities and proposing
connections, trying not to sacrifice spontaneity, trying not to chew things up
into baby-food. So that the result is like REAL LIFE. I am aware that, as
Alaric Sumner, the writer, put it "technique can obscure iconic
essence". Meaning that the act of [trained] writing can erase as much as
it can reveal, obscure as much as it can evoke.
"Contrasting
purposes" (Your para.3)?
These can be useful,
creating a 'formalising' dialectic in the composition, positing factors that
perhaps require 'resolution' or at least 'investigation'. The composition is
then this (investigative or resolving) process, not its aftermath. The piece,
most importantly, IS the action itself (from 'inside') - NOT a description of
the action (as it were from 'outside').
MA (23/11/2004)
It seems to me that your approach to composition is in
itself a working out through practical application of the contradictions
between modernist and post-modernist thought. What you appear to be doing is
developing a way of working that allows for an expression of aesthetic value
despite opposition to the traditional idea of the art-music establishment that
this value only resides in a body of techniques and methods evolved within the
western notated tradition. You see the posibility of inherent value in
composition, but more through an existentialist position of the composer acting
in good faith in the interpretation of whatever materials are worked on, than a
tradition of Romantic inspiration, or mathematical process or any other dogma
that acts out the expectations of the western canon. You are wary of the
cultural imperialism of Western music but seek to work in that medium by
deflating its pretensions, both by subverting its expectations and highlighting
your personal processes - especially in your re-interpretation of the past.
This seems to lead to a wide range of styles and
references in your work where the unifying factor is your assimilation and
interpretation. You have pointed to the influence of Ives and Grainger and the
tradition of writing music for amateurs that informed Plain Harmony. A piece
such as Tango ( in Spectrum 2) takes a playful look at an institutionalised
dance form ( with a definite sense of Satie in the instruction to play with
'relentless elegance'). In contrast, a work like Red Earth, seems to me
resonant of the expressionist tradition of modernism in its powerful evocation
of landscape and the psychological effect it has on the viewer.
Is this a fair assessment of your approach to
composition ? How far is this approach one evolved through praxis and how far
through reflection on your role as a composer in contemporary society ?
MF (23/12/2004)
You are most perceptive in your analysis of
my compositional thinking, and - as I think I did reply to one of the other
questions 'spot on' with regard to the proposition of 'dialectical' positions between
'established' aesthetic arguments, I see the work as 'interlocutor' -
restlessly investigative, and indeed I find the modernist arsenal of techniques
(ensuring through barely disguised replication an imperialistic (euro-centric)
dominance and reductionism) quite prohibitively confining (and also stupid,
which makes the techniques themselves easier to parody and jettison!).
MA (06/01/2005)
Looking through your work there seems to be a consistent thread of interest in folk music. In this case there seems to be more than a dialogue with the past in that you seem to be seeking to encapsulate the ideas of lyrical expression and the a-rhythmic complexity that the human voice in solo expression can capture ( before it gets trapped into the patterning that the transcription of this raw expression can impose). This would apply to the folk song elements in Plain Harmony section 3 as well as the solo parts in Red Earth, not to mention the many pieces you have written which explicitly reference folk music. Do you seek to capture something archetypal in human expression in your use of folk melody (or stylistic reference to it ) that was lost in the Western tradition ? How do you distinguish your use of folk melody from the way that composers from Monteverdi , Haydn and Bartok have attempted to use it to re-vitalise a stagnating Western tradition or even the way our world-music lite culture now attempts to commodify it in exotic juxtapositions (and their usually happy resolutions) ?
(MF 01/04/05)
Folk
music: Your supposition
about “lyrical expression and a-rhythmic complexity” is entirely correct – I
was, still am, looking to convey SPONTANEITY of utterance (as distinct from
contrivance). Of course folk-music exists “in terms of/within the confines of /
is often rigidly proscribed by “ convention (limited patterns )… even if the
impression (illusion ?) we have is that the singer is improvising (qv.
!) on the spur of the moment. I suppose
its another ‘rhetoric’ – a stance – a contradiction/paradox : Way back (1960’s)
I was indeed exploring, hunting ‘archetypes’ (melodic/rhythmic/gestural) and it
seemed (Jung) that if these existed WITHIN cultures (and informed art-forms
within those cultures) one would have to consult folk-music as much as
Art-music, as the relationship between the two (relative dependency or
influence or impact of one on the other) is not a simple one. Once one
had information about ‘fons et origo’ later accretions would make more sense. I
read anthropology ! I don’t think of folk-music as different from
what I do in particular of its ‘intent’ or even ‘creation’ – to give voice to /
to reveal / to explore the human condition; to offset conventional wisdom with
individual experience. I don’t think this has been entirely lost in
Western concert-music, in my politics (?) I’d prefer parity to supremacy
(equality rather than dominance), I suppose folk musics do introduce the notion
of “re-vitalisation”, or perhaps suggest a means of “counter-acting” pomposity, dogmatism, sterile re-cycling of
convention etc. etc. but I’m more interested in the notion of AUTHENTICITY
(truth), and I find much English art-music clouded by pretence and artifice. If
folk music is a symbol of Authenticity, its attitudes and methodology can /
might be instructive. (Note : during my study of the
collecting-procedures used in English folk music I found that Cecil Sharp instructed
his field-workers to correct the modalities and to omit the
ornamentation of melodies, to bring them into line with “correct usage” (i.e.
art-music conventions). Grainger’s method – transcribing “exactly” from slowed
down wax-cylinder recordings – was spurned. Too complex and contradictory ? Too
intellectual ? Too unconventional ? Sharp’s views found widespread publication,
Grainger’s are in the recesses of the Library or Congress in Washington. An
entire ‘mini-culture’ has been falsified.)
My
SYMBOLIC use of folk-musics is to suggest ANTI-elitism, i.e. egalitarian
towards folk- and art-traditions. Rather than trying to domesticate folk-music
I’m suggesting ‘rough-housing’ art-music (un-domesticating it). I’m also quite
(not very) interested in truthfully declaring the indebtedness of some
‘modernist’ gestures to folk sources (Xenakis à Bartok and
‘Les Noces’ –era Stravinsky) ( Boulez à gamelan,
melismatic vocal music of Islamic/ Indian tradition, also appropriated by
Messiaen) where these remain under-acknowledged. (Jacques Longchamp recently acknowledged a late work of Xenakis
in “Le Monde” as being “mercifully free of the CONTAMINATION of folk music “ (my
capitals).)
I’ve
more recently alluded to Beethoven’s folk-song arrangements (the largest strand
of his vocal music !) as a way of suggesting
a ‘tradition’ WITHIN European art music of “composing WITH “ folk /
popular /banal elements … and critically exploring them (is that
distinct from ‘exploiting’ or ‘appropriating’ them? Perhaps this is a question
of perspective … Is Grieg, for example, trying to define HIMSELF by the use of ethnic
stereotyping ? When the ‘folk’ usage permeates the music that much it
can’t be putting on funny hats ? Adorno suggested such usage WEAKENED the
substance, rather than re-vitalised it !)
I
don’t distinguish my use from Haydn/Bartok except in very obvious ways
(i.e. I don’t collect in the field, but rely on existing collections,
often historic). I do make the (small) distinction that I declare my awareness
of their precedent in the form (often) of a critique, or indeed a
critical (and frequently politicised) DISTANCE. Moreover this is often IRONIC,
or SATIRICAL. I don’t (I’m not
convinced this is Haydn’s or Bartok’s aim either) ‘civilise’ or ‘innoculate’
myself, though I empathise in some ways and abstract in others.
I
only know circumstantial things about ‘world-music lite’ – what I’ve heard I DISLIKE
quite strongly : too sugary, with inappropriate (ill-considered) harmony –
concepts OVER-cooked and larded with inappropriate ‘sauce’. Resembling (rather
disturbingly) the Soviet folk-music-inspired (?!) agenda of Zhdanov and
co. Also resonating with ‘happy-clappy’ Christianity and ‘feel good’
commodities generally.
“Nature Seems to look on
all
fixed-up
poetry and art as something
almost impertinent.”
WALT
WHITMAN