Brian Ferneyhough interview (improved audio/video)

NOTE: this is an improved edit of a video originally posted in 2021. It fixes some audio and video problems. The link to the original video is below.
Brian Ferneyhough is widely recognized as one of today's foremost living composers. Since the mid-1970s, when he first gained widespread international recognition, his music has earned him an enviable reputation as one of the most influential creative personalities and significant musical thinkers on the contemporary scene.
Ferneyhough was born in Coventry, England, in 1943 and received formal musical training at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, London. In 1968 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which enabled him to continue his studies in Amsterdam with Ton de Leeuw, and the following year obtained a scholarship to study with Klaus Huber at the Basel Conservatoire.
Following Ferneyhough’s move to mainland Europe, his music began to receive much wider recognition. The Gaudeamus Composers’ Competition in the Netherlands awarded Ferneyhough prizes in three successive years (1968-70) for his Sonatas for String Quartet, Epicycle and Missa Brevis respectively. The Italian section of the ISCM at its 1972 competition gave Ferneyhough an honourable mention (second place) for Firecycle Beta and two years later a special prize for Time and Motion Study III which was considered the best work submitted in all categories.
Recent works have included Inconjunctions (2014), Contraccolpi (2016), and a collection of encounters influenced by Christopher Tye, Umbrations (2001-2017), premiered by the Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Modern at Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik.
Associated with the most prestigious teaching institutions and international summer schools for contemporary music, from 1984 to 1996 Ferneyhough was Composition Course Co-ordinator at the biennial Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. In 1984 he was made Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and he has since been named a member of the Berlin Akademie der Künste, the Bayrische Akademie der Schönen Künste and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. Most recently, he was awarded the 2007 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.
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[@massimilianoviel5325]

The best professor of composition I ever had

[@kraka2oanIner]

What an opportunity! I hope for you that it was worthwhile !

[@ZachSeely]

Samuel, thank you so kindly for putting this work together. Brian's music and ways of thinking are something very dear to me and I really appreciate that you've made a space for him here.

[@nicholasjagger6557]

Thanks for your work. There is an audience for demanding material, albeit a diminishing one. Best we stick together.

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

is it diminishing though? it's easier to disseminate than ever before thanks to channels like this/ spotify/ score-reader channels etc. On the other hand, attention spans may well be diminishing!

[@nicholasjagger6557]

@@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist It amount to the same result, whether diminishing through age or because of limited attention spans in GenZ. I think it's the same for anything 'hard'.

[@juliusseizure591]

Ferneyhough is not the only type of demanding material. How does one define "demanding," anyways?

[@edscmidt5193]

@@nicholasjagger6557 younger generations have no problem w attention spans, podcast are long form usually lasting 3 hours.

[@topologyrob]

Hmm the comment has something of a supercilious sense

[@dieterammann4]

Samuel, you are one of the few really serious protagonists in this field. Thanks!

[@alessandroseravalle8674]

Great! Thank you!!!

[@davisatdavis1]

His music terrifies me and readings on his style give me the impression of a psychopath or someone highly eccentric by how he conceives music. But when I heard him speak here, I just didn't want him to stop.

[@Cleekschrey]

Love him

[@Rokudammela]

Thank you very much

[@ooinu]

It just occurred to me that the distortion/lag/delays caused by the technical issues of this interview, is very much like the quality and intent of Ferneyhough's compositional style.... a funny coincidence!

[@zewensenpai]

I thought it was Penderecki from the thumbnail lmao

[@scronchman0146]

tage

[@gondoliere8374]

based

[@breckon2684]

Omg hi zewen! Cool to see you here

[@juanfilipwinifred]

Unfortunately Penderecki passed around a year before this interview originally happened

[@kraka2oanIner]

That's the third time I've heard the comment: "based"... explain, someone...

[@TheMotherOfBambi]

41:30

[@FreakieFan]

As expected, he seems to be an arrogant, self-absorbed and fairly unlikeable person. Thanks for this interview though. It was interesting to witness.

[@kraka2oanIner]

I found him likeable(!) "as expected" seems a bit specious, but...I'd be willing to peruse his other works, and THEN pass judgement. Interesting, YES.