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Michael Finnissy

  • Advent Calendar

    Michael Finnissy – Two Motets

    by 5:4 December 8, 2024 • 06:00
    December 8, 2024 • 06:00

    British composer Michael Finnissy has so often turned to extant music in his own compositions that it’s practically one of the defining features of his work. Today’s Advent Calendar piece is one of his most blissful responses to earlier music, rethinking material by Byrd and Ockeghem as Two Motets for …

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Michael Finnissy – Polskie tańce ludowe (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 21, 2022 • 05:00
    December 21, 2022 • 05:00

    Michael Finnissy’s Polskie tańce ludowe (Polish folk dances) have had multiple lives. Their origins are in a volume of Polish folk music given to Finnissy as a child by his godfather, Peter Klos. Finnissy recently recalled to me that … he served with the Polish Airforce, he was not a …

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  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #65 : Love

    by 5:4 July 4, 2022 • 12:38
    July 4, 2022 • 12:38

    Almost as soon as i finished the previous 5:4 mixtape, focusing on war, it seemed necessary that the next one should go in the opposite direction. For this love-infused mix, i’ve not allowed myself the usual interpretative free rein but have for the most part focused on songs and tracks …

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  • CD/Digital releasesListenings

    February/March 2017 listenings

    by 5:4 April 20, 2017 • 08:26
    April 20, 2017 • 08:26

    Of the music that’s been making a special impact on me in the last couple of months, i particularly want to flag up various albums of piano music. Peter Hill‘s renowned three-disc recording of Olivier Messiaen‘s epic cycle Catalogue d’Oiseaux has been reissued under license from Unicorn by Treasure Island Music. i …

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  • CD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    Michael Finnissy at 70: A Metier Retrospective – Part 3. Piano music

    by 5:4 March 14, 2017 • 14:41
    March 14, 2017 • 14:41

    It’s only a few days until Michael Finnissy‘s 70th birthday year comes to an end, so in the nick of time, here’s the final part of my retrospective of his music released by his most loyal label, Metier. In turning to the piano music, i’m conscious that, to some extent, i’m …

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  • CD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    Michael Finnissy at 70: A Metier Retrospective – Part 2. Chamber music

    by 5:4 December 23, 2016 • 14:45
    December 23, 2016 • 14:45

    As with his vocal works, Michael Finnissy‘s chamber music is represented on four Metier discs, comprising around twenty pieces composed across three decades, from 1977 to 2007. This is only a miniscule proportion of Finnissy’s vast quantity of chamber music, but it nonetheless provides a valuable demonstration of various aspects of his …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Mark Knoop + Juliet Fraser

    by 5:4 November 28, 2016 • 14:49
    November 28, 2016 • 14:49

    My final concert at HCMF 2016 was in St Paul’s Hall in the company of pianist Mark Knoop and soprano Juliet Fraser, who presented the UK premières of two song cycles, Michael Finnissy‘s Andersen-Leiderkreis and Bernhard Lang‘s The Cold Trip, part 2. Despite the fact that some of the Finnissy …

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  • ConcertsPremières

    A mass of miniature miracles: Alba New Music 2016

    by 5:4 October 12, 2016 • 11:01
    October 12, 2016 • 11:01

    A couple of miles out of the centre of Edinburgh, emblazoned in brightly-lit capital letters, is a stark, startling sentence: THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE. Created by Nathan Coley in 2009, and situated outside the Modern Two gallery, the unequivocal message of this bold piece of art rang entirely …

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  • CD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    Michael Finnissy at 70: A Metier Retrospective – Part 1. Vocal music

    by 5:4 August 19, 2016 • 11:57
    August 19, 2016 • 11:57

    Composers habitually form relationships with performers and ensembles, but less often with record labels. And while various labels have put out one or two releases featuring the music of Michael Finnissy, only one, Metier, part of the multi-faceted Divine Art Recordings Group, has shown substantial long-term commitment to his output. To date, Metier …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: Michael Finnissy – WAM

    by 5:4 April 11, 2016 • 10:01
    April 11, 2016 • 10:01

    The other recent release dedicated to Michael Finnissy‘s music is the product of a collaboration between the composer and clarinettist Michael Norsworthy. WAM, released on US label New Focus Recordings, explores five works composed during the last 25 years, three of them written specifically for Norsworthy, and all but one of …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New releases: Michael Finnissy – Singular Voices

    by 5:4 April 9, 2016 • 13:59
    April 9, 2016 • 13:59

    What with 2016 being Michael Finnissy‘s 70th year, it’s heartening to see some new releases celebrating his work. Throughout his career, no label has done more to champion Finnissy than Metier, whose latest CD Singular Voices, released yesterday, is their twelfth devoted to Finnissy’s music (i’ll be exploring the rest …

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  • Lent Series

    Michael Finnissy – Offshore

    by 5:4 March 26, 2016 • 13:58
    March 26, 2016 • 13:58

    To conclude my Lent Series celebrating the work of Michael Finnissy, i’m turning to the composer’s first orchestral score, Offshore, written 40 years ago in 1976. It was composed in the aftermath of a traumatic relationship break-up, which no doubt accounts for a lot of things, not least the work’s title and particularly …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Michael Finnissy – John the Baptist (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 20, 2016 • 12:35
    March 20, 2016 • 12:35

    A great deal of Michael Finnissy‘s output is choral, encompassing the same broad range of expression as his instrumental music. John the Baptist, a short work composed in 2014, falls at the simpler, more immediate end of the continuum. Adapting words from the York Mystery Plays, Finnissy creates both a …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Michael Finnissy – Beat Generation Ballads (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 17, 2016 • 16:43
    March 17, 2016 • 16:43

    Happy 70th Birthday, Michael! To celebrate his birthday, it seems appropriate to revisit Michael Finnissy‘s most recent large-scale composition, the piano cycle Beat Generation Ballads, premièred at the 2014 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The work comprises five movements, the first four of which are very short, only two or three …

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  • Lent Series

    Michael Finnissy – Judith Weir

    by 5:4 March 14, 2016 • 22:35
    March 14, 2016 • 22:35

    Michael Finnissy‘s chamber work Judith Weir was composed as a 50th birthday present for her in 2004. Back in 1985, Weir had written a short piano piece as a gift for Finnissy titled Michael’s Strathspey, an all-too-momentary dazzlement littered with ‘scotch snaps’, the familiar rhythmic device associated with that traditional …

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  • Lent Series

    Michael Finnissy – “above earth’s shadow…”

    by 5:4 March 11, 2016 • 10:05
    March 11, 2016 • 10:05

    It’s abundantly clear in the works explored so far in this Lent Series that Michael Finnissy has a keen interest in melody. The ways in which he presents, transforms and contextualises melody are often startlingly simple, but in the case of “above earth’s shadow…”, for solo violin and ensemble, it’s …

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  • Lent Series

    Michael Finnissy – Viitasaari

    by 5:4 March 5, 2016 • 17:26
    March 5, 2016 • 17:26

    In 2009, Michael Finnissy was composer-in-residence at the annual ‘Time of Music’ contemporary music festival that takes place in the town of Viitasaari, in central Finland. Finnissy composed a short chamber work for the occasion, named after the town and including the kantele, a traditional Finnish string instrument similar to …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Michael Finnissy – Back on Earth (World Première)

    by 5:4 February 29, 2016 • 18:28
    February 29, 2016 • 18:28

    In 2004, Michael Finnissy was invited to contribute to an edition of the journal The Liberal, specifically an issue devoted to the subject of outer space. Finnissy chose to adopt the journal’s title and apply the idea to perfomers responding “liberally to the score”, which comprised two pages of graphic …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Michael Finnissy – A-lang Felton Lonnen (World Première)

    by 5:4 February 22, 2016 • 21:20
    February 22, 2016 • 21:20

    An interesting, small-scale example of Michael Finnissy‘s take on folk music is his re-thinking of the Northumbrian tune ‘A-lang Felton Lonnen’ (“a long Felton lane”). Finnissy places the traditional Northumbrian pipes alongside piano, viola and cello, all of which initially sound saturated by the harmony, contours and the tone of …

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  • Lent Series

    Michael Finnissy – Aijal

    by 5:4 February 19, 2016 • 17:08
    February 19, 2016 • 17:08

    On a number of occasions, informed by periods of time spent in Australia (due to a paucity of work opportunities in the UK), Michael Finnissy has composed works inspired by Aboriginal culture. Most of these date from 1982–3, one of the earliest being Aijal for oboe, clarinet and percussion, the …

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5:4
  • About
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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
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