Posts Tagged ‘Brian Ferneyhough’
Sounds: Brian Ferneyhough: Terrain, performed by Mark Menzies and WasteLAnd
We did a rather large post about the difficulties of performing music by Brian Ferneyhough just before this WasteLAnd concert back in February. While that post covered soprano Stephanie Aston’s part in Ferneyhough’s Etudes Transcendantales, the difficulty and intensity is much the same for anyone attempting this music. And let me tell you, violinist Mark Menzies SHREDDED on Terrain, Ferneyhough’s violin concerto.
The other reason for posting this today? Menzies joins wild Up for another performance of Terrain this Sunday at UCLA. The show, titled FILIGREE, also has music by Gerard Pesson, George Lewis, William Byrd, Nico Muhly, Arnolt Schlick and Whitney Houston, with two World Premieres by Chris Kallmyer and Andrew McIntosh.
The FREE concert is an early one, starting at 4pm at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall. Full details are on the facebook event page at facebook.com/events/664460340325127.
How Stephanie Aston learns music by Ferneyhough
On February 27, WasteLAnd presents a concert titled Terrain at ArtShare. It’s a heavy-duty program of music by Brian Ferneyhough, Elizabeth Lutyens, and Brian Griffeath-Loeb, featuring Mark Menzies as violin soloist on Ferneyhough’s Terrain (see concert title) and soprano Stephanie Aston singing Etudes Transcendantales. I was lucky to be invited to a rehearsal, and the ensemble (which also includes Rachel Beetz, Ashley Walters, Richard Valitutto, and Paul Sherman, conducted by Nick Deyoe), let me film a few snippets of them preparing.
Nick had an extra copy of the score for me. If you’ve never seen Ferneyhough’s music, well, here’s a photo I took:
One measure of Ferneyhough’s Etudes Transcendentales
The whole score – all of his scores, really – is similarly difficult. I asked Stephanie how she approaches music like this (in this case, the measure above) and her answer was enlightening:
Here’s a copy of the same section, this time with Stephanie’s markings:
And now the part you’ve all been waiting for, this excerpt with the ensemble. The measure in question hits at 0:06:
Want to hear to the rest? Come to the concert at ArtShare on February 27. Details are available at wastelandmusic.org/concert-archive/february-27-2015.