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Quote by Brian Ferneyhough

“There would seem to be a limit, even for an art preoccupied with boundaries and transgressions, beyond which a work reaches its breaking point and becomes an actual failure, a mere experimentation.”

Quote by Brian Ferneyhough

Author

Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough, born on January 16, 1943, is a renowned composer. His works are known for their complex structures and innovative use of modern musical technology, having a profound impact on the contemporary music scene. more

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“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.”

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

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“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.”

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“Naturally enough, I couldn't have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.”

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“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.”

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Author:Brian Ferneyhough

“The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.”

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“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.”

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

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Author:Brian Ferneyhough

“As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But it’s there.”

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“It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and the prospect of satisfying it can be the most exciting of emotions.”

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