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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2017
Features of Michael Finnissy's music are considered through some of the ideas and writings of anthropologist Tim Ingold. Finnissy and Ingold share a preoccupation with line and, more specifically, exploring Finnissy's compositional approach as applied anthropology provides productive insights into his music and performance practice. The starting point for this investigation is a consideration of three of Finnissy's pieces connected to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Completion of the Requiem KV 626 by W.A. Mozart and F.X. Süssmayr (2011); Cibavit eos (1991); and WAM (1990–91). These pieces provide a convenient set of examples with relevant features: music that connects to the past; music with elaborate line(s); music written for amateur performers; transcription; and instrumentalists that move as part of the performance. These recurring features of Finnissy's composition could be considered indicative of this anthropological approach; they are informed by an investment in people that aspires to musical and personal transformation.
1 Pace, Ian, ‘The Piano Music’ in Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, ed. Brougham, Henrietta, Fox, Christopher and Pace, Ian (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1997), p. 98 Google Scholar.
2 Finnissy, Michael, Completion of the Requiem KV 626 by W.A. Mozart and F.X. Süssmayr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)Google Scholar, p. vi.
3 Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem, p. vi.
4 Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem, p. vi.
5 Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem, p. vi.
6 Ingold, Tim, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 3 Google Scholar.
7 Richard Toop, ‘Four Facets of The New Complexity’, Contact 32 (1988), p. 10.
8 Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem, p.vi.
9 Christopher Fox, ‘The Vocal Music’, in Uncommon Ground, ed. Brougham, Fox and Pace, p. 214.
10 Fox, ‘The Vocal Music’, p. 214.
11 Toop, ‘Four Facets of The New Complexity’, p. 10.
12 Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, ‘Conversations with Michael Finnissy’, in Uncommon Ground, ed. Brougham, Fox and Pace, p. 2.
13 Ingold, Tim, Lines: A Brief History (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), p. 42 Google Scholar.
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15 In fact Mozart’s Cibavit Eos K 44 (73u) has been shown to be a transcription of Johann Stadlmayr’s (c. 1557–1648) Musica super cantum gregorianum. Finnissy may not have been aware of this, as the confirmation (Ernst Hintermaier’s discovery of the Stadlmayr source) was published only in 1991 (the same year Finnissy wrote his version). See Eisen, Cliff, ‘The Mozart's Salzburg Music Library’, in Mozart Studies 2, ed. Eisen, Cliff (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 102 Google Scholar.
16 Thomas Irvine, ‘An Introduction to Michael Finnissy's Requiem Completion’ in Michael Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem.
17 Finnissy, Michael and Norsworthy, Michael, WAM (New Focus Recording, fcr157, 2016)Google Scholar.
18 Ingold, Lines, p. 78.
19 Ingold, Lines, p. 79.
20 Ingold, Lines, p. 78–80.
21 Ingold, Lines, p. 79.
22 Toop, ‘Four Facets of The New Complexity’, p. 9.
23 Finnissy, , ‘Cibavit eos’, The Musical Times, 132, No. 1785 (1991), p. 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Ingold, Lines, p. 83.
25 Finnissy, Completion of the Requiem, p.vi
26 Hooper, Michael, ‘Reaching Higher: Finnissy's “Greatest hits of all time” as the Impetus for Innovation’, The Musical Times, 152, No. 1916 (2011), pp. 55–6Google Scholar.
27 Bennett, Alan, The Uncommon Reader (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), p. 22 Google Scholar
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