Quotes by Brian Ferneyhough

As a necessary prerequisite to the creation of new forms of expression one might, I suppose, argue that current sensibilities respond uniquely to the notion of exhaustion as exhaustion, although that does de facto seem rather limiting.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

I suppose that the scope and implications of such forces have rendered my personal accounting ritual pretty much obsolete. That's how things sometimes go.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

I'm perplexed, though, by your application of the term 'negative' to my figural imagery.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Courage

I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of 'variation' much as if measure lengths were concrete musical 'material.'

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

Questioning the nature and implications of liminal instances necessarily involves failure, if only in the specifically technical sense of entering spaces where prevailing criteria of success scarcely apply.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Success

Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic 'family' in the world outside.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Success

When I speak of 'cycles,' I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity, if not in the resolving of problems, than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

With respect to the respective French and German traditions you are no doubt correct, although I am reluctant to see individual achievement reduced to archetypes.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Success

Why, in such a case, should the performer essay any sort of considered approach at all?

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Education

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

If nothing is at risk, nothing is established.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

In any case, the fewer boundaries that exist hindering free movement between all forms of articulate human cognition, the better.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Life

So: we're all tired. Now what? Manuscripts written in Club Med?

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

This was possible only by dint of extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom

I am certainly not arguing for the de facto autonomy of the individual work, even though there is much to be said for making the attempt to see it in that light as one facet of the reception process.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Success

I don't like listening to my music, not even new pieces. Generally, they sound pretty much like I expected them to sound, so it's what I wanted, and that's it.

— Brian Ferneyhough

Wisdom