Customer Reviews

Chamber Music by Brian Ferneyhough

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This is not a review, as I have not yet heard the recordings. However, the "Product Description" above is in error. All but two of the works on this disc have been previously recorded: "Trittico per G.S." appeared on a Naive Montaigne disc (1996/2003) with Stefano Scodanibbio on contrabass; "Flurries," "In Nomine a 3," and "Incipits" appeared on an Ensemble Recherche CD in 2005. It's great to have new versions of these excellent pieces, especially as the other discs are getting harder to find; "Flurries," inspired by an A. R. Ammons poem, is a very strong piece.

As far as I can tell, this IS the first recording of "Coloratura" and "Allgebrah." The music of Brian Ferneyhough is one of the great treasures of the contemporary music scene; hopefully we will have a recording of the 5th string quartet soon. In the meantime, these recordings are welcome.

Brian Ferneyhough, the British composer long based in California (now at Stanford), has written mainly chamber music, and it can be found on several discs, some now out of print. Nearly all overlap, with various ensembles performing the same works. This 2009 Metier disc is a perfect example -- despite what some have said, all the pieces included here have been recorded before. These performances and recordings are of the Ensemble Expose, a British new music ensemble formed in 1984 to play works by the "New Complexity" school of composers. Ferneyhough has been claimed by this school, though he insists otherwise. Roger Redgate, a co-founder along with Michael Finnissy and Richard Barrett, here conducts the group. His brother Christopher Redgate, a new music specialist, is featured on oboe on three of the works, and that is what makes this disc essential in my view.

"Flurries" (1997 -- 10'31) is longer here than the excellent ensemble recherche recording for Stradivarius, and not nearly as compelling. "Trittico per G.S." (1989 -- 8'56), a solo work for double-bass, is quite fine. The recording of "Incipits" (1997 -- 11'43), this time faster than the ensemble recherche, sounds great, a piece featuring viola, percussion and ensemble.

The three oboe features are grouped together: "Coloratura" (1966 -- 7'20) for oboe and piano, a lovely early work, slower and less challenging than Ferneyhough's characteristic mature works; "In Nomine a 3" (2001 -- 2'36) for piccolo, oboe and clarinet; and finally, the disc's standout number and longest composition, "Allgebrah" (1996 -- 17'46) for oboe and nine strings. The title is the term used by the Swiss schizophrenic artist Adolf Wolfli to refer to the fundamental creative principle. (The disc's cover is a Wolfli painting from 1910.) According to Roger Redgate's liner notes, "the solo oboe...moves through this unstable landscape of independent textures and sudden outbursts seeking to find its own role..."

While overall I would recommend the ensemble recherche disc ("if you could only have one Ferneyhough chamber music disc"), this Ensemble Expose set can be strongly recommended on the strength of "Allgebrah" and Christopher Redgate's oboe!

You may also be interested in Ferneyhough's "thought opera" Shadowtime (see my review).