Finnissy second quartet inspires research
Professor of Composition Michael Finnissy's String Quartet no. 2 (2007) is at the centre of a collaborative project investigating the performance of new music.
The composer and the internationally renowned Kreutzer quartet have worked with musicologists Amanda Bayley (Wolverhampton) and Michael Clarke (Huddersfield) to document and analyse composer and performer interactions during the process of bringing Finnissy's work to the concert hall and commercial recording studio. The results include not only a recent study by Amanda Bayley ('Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal', included in a special 2011 issue of Ethnomusicology Forum devoted to the ethnomusicology of Western art music), but also a new interactive DVD. The DVD, Evolution and Collaboration, includes 50 pages of Finnissy's compositional sketches, along with instrumental parts, reconstructed score, extensive music analysis, two and a half hours of rehearsal with the composer, and 4 hours of composer interviews as well as 4 full performances of the work.
A short explanation and demonstration of the DVD is available on YouTube in advance of the launch on 7 March, click here to view
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Professor Michael Finnissy
Professor Michael Finnissy is an Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Southampton.
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