Download 1 New Complexities: Ferneyhough and Parra by Joan Arnau Pàmies

1
New Complexities: Ferneyhough and Parra
by Joan Arnau Pàmies
One of the commonest assumptions among new music audiences is to categorize “New
Complexity” into one single box. I have heard in many occasions that Ferneyhough, Finissy, Dench,
Barrett, Cassidy, and Parra sound “the same” (whatever that means). Such a misbelief has been
repeated throughout history—it is generally assumed that Debussy and Ravel are impressionists;
Schoenberg, Berg and Webern defne the Second Viennese School; and Cage, Brown, Feldman, and
Wolff are members of the New York School. Therefore, the goal of this essay is to clarify the nuances
that defne what New Complexity is. To do so, I picked two composers of this trend whose musics at
frst may look alike: Brian Ferneyhough and Hèctor Parra. Through the development of this essay, I
hope the reader ends up noticing that, despite sharing comparable characteristics, Ferneyhough and
Parra are severely concerned with different aesthetic and philosophical issues.
1. A Defnition of “Complexity”
What categorizes music as complex is an extremely vexed topic. Being aware of this fact, it is
not the goal of this essay to develop any further thoughts on what complexity in music means, for the
literature about such a topic I believe is substantial enough for what this essay is concerned with.
Nonetheless, the reader still might ask for an explanation of what is understood as “complex” or not
within the following context, although there is no intention whatsoever to elaborate an objective
response to this issue. I found thus two remarkable defnitions of what complexity represents in a
musical setting, both of which are quite similar and compelling. The frst one is by Brian Ferneyhough:
“As a term, ‘complexity’ pertains more to the relationships linking situations, tendencies
or states than to the amount and type of sonic material defning a particular space. What
may, on the local level, be perceived as chaotic or not amenable to useful prediction is
often seen to be highly ordered when observed from a differently-scaled perspective.
This sort of gradual transformational re-assessment capability is by defnition complex
in respect of the codifcation and transmission potential since it encourages the active
2
contraposition of hypothetical formal models on the basis of momentary and
incomplete information.” (Ferneyhough 1995, p. 66).
The second defnition is by musicologist Richard Toop, which can be found in his article “On
Complexity” published by Perspectives of New Music (I strongly recommend this reading for further
investigation on the topic). The author, after having explored the terminological intricacies between
complexity, complicacy and diffculty, ends up drawing the following conclusion:
“[Complexity] is, in my view, essentially a subjective, perceptual phenomenon—not an
objective, material-based one. For me, the word ‘complexity’ evokes a situation in which
there are not necessarily ‘many things’ (there could be many, but there might be only a
few), yet in which I sense many levels of relationships (organic, mechanistic, or even
fortuitous), their outcome is something I unrefectingly sense (I can refect microseconds
later…) as ‘richness’.” (Toop 1993, p. 48).
Both defnitions have my most absolute respect, not only because of their inner coherence, but also
because of the seriousness and rigor that the writings of both Ferneyhough and Toop have shown over
the years; this is evidence of the credibility that both authors deserve. Taking the aforementioned
defnitions of complexity in music as models, ours will be the following:
Complexity in music is a subjective phenomenon that occurs as a consequence of
perceiving surprising, unconventional, and unexpected sonic relations within a cohesive
structural context, whether they are microscopic or macroscopic in the scope of the
formal development of the piece.
This defnition is not fnal nor does it pretend to be an absolute truth, although it summarizes what I
believe is an extremely thoughtful and well-argued trend in music academia—so far, the only one that
convinced me. Therefore, I personally see this defnition as a rigorous enough entity that will help me
(and hopefully the reader too) go decisively deep into the main body of this essay.
3
2. What Makes Ferneyhough's Music Complex
Brian Ferneyhough: Second String Quartet (1981)
Nowadays, the old debate among new music connoisseurs of whether Brian Ferneyhough's
scores can be treated seriously or not is fortunately over. Thirty-four years after his Sonatas for String
Quartet—a 20th Century milestone of string quartet literature—, there is no doubt that Ferneyhough's
music is eloquently unique. Despite using extremely diffcult rhythms, fast and large microintervallic
jumps, and vast dynamic range (among many other characteristics that end up leading to
extraordinarily densely-notated scores), the composer's ability to artistically express himself is
undeniably evident. Ferneyhough's music is, in my opinion, complex in two separate planes.
First of all, the most obvious one: his treatment of musical syntax and large-and-small scale
structure presents—to quote again Toop—“richness”. In order to explain what I understand as
richness, I will start by sharing with the reader a funny anecdote that took place a couple of months ago
in Graz, while at Impuls Festival. I met there Italian composer Pierluigi Billone, with whom I ended up
discussing about whether or not it is relevant to connect all the aspects (pitch, rhythm, dynamics,
4
texture, etc) that form musical material to successfully achieve expression. Billone, while looking at one
of my scores, stated something similar to the fact that my music is very different to Ferneyhough's, in
that my materials are not treated separately during precompositional stages. According to Billone,
Ferneyhough would create different processes for each aspect of music—Process A for pitch
organization, Process B for rhythmic construction, Process C for dynamics organization, and so forth—,
without caring so much about what the sonic result would be once he puts them all together. This is
both true and false (ironically, it is much more complex than that). On the one hand, it is true because
Ferneyhough does actually precompose the material separately. On the other hand, it is false because he
ends up ordering the precomposed material in a way in which the fnal sonic result is extremely
important. French composer Fabien Lévy explains in his doctoral thesis how Ferneyhough treats and
develops material. I will now summarize Lévy's research 1, which I believe is going to be very important
for the reader to eventually understand my point:
After his solo guitar piece Kurze Schatten (1983-1987), Ferneyhough formalizes pitch and
rhythm with IRCAM software Patchwork (today's Open Music), which allows him to
further develop his earlier technique of permutation. However, the difference between
conventional serial permutations and Ferneyhough's own approach is that he takes
advantage of the paradoxes that the software produces. Patchwork is based on a code
named LISP. For example, in order to insert a rhythmic pattern such as 1 quarter note
and 1 dotted half note in a 4/4 bar, one has to type it the following way: (4 (1 3)), in which
the four represents the 4/4 bar, the one the quarter note, and the three the dotted half
note:
Now, if the composer wants to subdivide the quarter note into a triplet, he or she has to
use a certain amount of parentheses for the software to understand what to do. Thus,
instead of only having one number one, we will have 3 number ones within parenthesis—
each number one now represents an eighth note within a triplet:
1 The examples given are Lévy's own, they are not mine.
5
Ferneyhough, by dealing thus with such a simple process, is able to construct extremely
diffcult patterns not directly, but indirectly—it is a matter of choosing the amount of
digits and parentheses that one wishes to use and order them in a certain way. Here's an
example of Ferneyhough's “famous” rhythmic permutations (notice how despite the
ordering of digits is very simple, the resulting rhythmic patterns are extremely
complicated):
This is one of the methods (probably the best known) that Brian Ferneyhough does not only use to
formalize rhythm, but also other aspects of music—if we learned something from serialism is that any
musical parameter can be translated into numbers. In Ferneyhough's work, precompositional
formalization takes place as a result from communicational paradoxes between human and computer,
or to be more precise, conventional musical notation translated into LISP code. However, Ferneyhough
doesn't get trapped by the knickknacks of computerized-music. He is aware of the fact that computers
“cannot” write music. For him, to use Patchwork is only a way to develop the materials that he will
further use in a piece, the same way Haydn knows that in order to achieve musical tension, he needs to
6
write a dominant seven chord. Ferneyhough, therefore, arranges the materials the same way composers
have been doing for centuries: following his own aural intuition and musical taste. The relationship
between serial methods of formalization, paradoxical communicative issues between computer and
composer, and the composer's own improvisatory intuition is, to my opinion, what makes Ferneyhough's
work rich.
The second aspect that is relevant in Ferneyhough's music is the aesthetically-charged quality of
the score, which irrefutably infuences how the performer perceives and performs the actual sonic
message. Fabien Lévy points out this aspect in a very eloquent way:
“L'extrême complexité de l'écriture est cohérente avec le propos du compositeur (…).
Ferneyhough cherche en particulier, par la double complexité graphémologique de la
notation et de la lecture, à pousser le musicien professionnel hors de ses conventions et à
créer, par les tensions qui en résultent, une sonorité inouïe, bruitée, imprévisible, instable,
dépassant les catégories de la note harmonique et entretenue comme celle des rythmes
«mètrisés» et «maîtrisés»” (Lévy 2004, p. 68)2.
Ferneyhough's scores are not just mere practical objects from which the performer learns what sounds
the composer has in mind. Instead, his scores transcend the historically-given role of music notation,
thus making the aspect of how-a-sound-is-visually-perceived-by-the-performer much more relevant
than the conventional “what-sound-needs-to-be-produced”. What such a feature produces to the sonic
outcome of the score is what Lévy identifes as unheard, noisy, unpredictable, and unstable sounds. By
doing so, Ferneyhough opens a new path of musical exploration, in which the dichotomy of notational
“content vs. form” allows the composer to investigate the intricacies of complexity in a newly different
plane3.
2 “The extreme complexity in notation is coherent with the purpose of the composer. In particular, Ferneyhough—with the graphological
complexity in both notation and reading—leaves the professional musician out of his or her conventions to create, with the resulting tensions, an
unheard, noisy, unpredictable, and unstable sound, which surpasses categories such as “the harmonic note”, although still maintaining
'metricized' and 'controlled' rhythms”.
3 One could argue that earlier forms of notation such as the ones developed by Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, or
Earle Brown had already considered such a dichotomy. However, those forms of notation would be mainly concerned
with form rather than content—the level of detail in asking the performer to produce “that exact sound” in
Ferneyhough's scores is ridiculously enormous compared to, for example, Cardew's scores, whose approach to notation is
thus radically divergent.
7
3. Hèctor Parra's Own “Complexities”
Hèctor Parra: Hyperprologue Music (2009)
Just by looking at this score, one could argue that the music of Catalan composer Hèctor Parra
(b. 1976 in Barcelona) has many similarities to Ferneyhough’s work. In fact, Parra studied with him, but
also with Jonathan Harvey and Michael Jarrell, both of whom have strongly infuenced him as well.
Furthermore, Parra’s scores can also be recognized by their rhythmic diffculty, microintervallic pitch
relations, and extreme textural density. With such characteristics, one could say that Parra is just
another composer of the New Complexity school. Erik Ulman, however, makes an interesting point
when he writes the following:
“I am ambivalent about what seems to have been labeled the 'New Complexity'. One
reason for this is that many 'new complexities' are grouped under this heading, and are
not variably interesting but potentially contradictory. Casually to subsume these in a
'school' is to obscure this variety and to defect attention to relatively trivial surface
similarities among composers, such as taste for elaborate rhythmic notation, or the fact of
performative diffculty.” (Ulman 1994, p. 202).
8
Following Ulman's point, we should realize that “New Complexity” is just a mere label—Parra's
“complexity” comes from a very different locus than Ferneyhough’s, a fact that places his music on a
totally different plane. Furthermore, Parra's own version of the potential infuence Ferneyhough had on
him ratifes Ulman's views:
“No puedo negar que Brian Ferneyhough ha sido para mi una potente infuencia en mis
comienzos de compositor. Fue David Padrós, mi profesor en Barcelona y antiguo
compañero de estudios de Ferneyhough en Freiburg quien, después de mostrarle mis
primeras piezas para piano en 1999, me sugirió leer y escuchar su música. La fascinación
fue inmediata, y entre 2001 y 2003 seguí algunos de sus cursos en Europa y tomé clases
con él. Paralelamente en 2000 conocí a Jonathan Harvey, y el contacto dilatado pero
constante que he mantenido con él también ha ejercido una fuerte infuencia estética en
mi música. En todo caso, después de estos años iniciales, he ido siguiendo mi camino sin
muchas infuencias realmente personales o directas. Viviendo en Paris desde 2002, más
bien me he dedicado a componer y a viajar constantemente para trabajar con los músicos
y estrenar las obras. En realidad, creo que nunca me he planteado “artifcialmente” qué
tipo de música quería escribir. En todo caso, puedo asegurar que mi objetivo no es la
complejidad sino la riqueza.” (Parra 2010)4.
The music of Hèctor Parra is extremely concerned with how the listener perceives time, or how
densely-notated sonic material forces the listener to approach the dimension of time in a different way
than in earlier music. Markus Böggemann describes Parra's music as the following:
“If we are to perceive time as something we can form and modify, and if time passing can
become a unique aesthetic experience, then it has to materialize frst, it has to be given a
body and volume. In Hèctor Parra’s music this manifestation occurs with technical
innovation and structural consistency. At the same time the acoustic phenomenon alludes
in various ways to the composer’s affnity for the visual arts: Karst – Chroma II (2006) for
large orchestra begins with a dense homogenous sound which is broken down in the
course of the piece, it is washed out, in a similar way to the geological formation
mentioned in the title. It is replaced by succession of rhythmically and acoustically
dissociated episodes, which, formally quite additive, explore extremes of instrumental
expressiveness. The idea behind this 'géomorphologie acoustique' is genuinely plastic: to
work away at the musical material like at a stone, to chisel out the surprising, individually
4 “I cannot deny that Brian Ferneyhough was to me an important infuence in my early pieces. It was David Padrós—my teacher in Barcelona
and former colleague of Ferneyhough in Freiburg—who, after showing him my early pieces for piano in 1999, suggested to read and listen to
Ferneyhough's music. I was fascinated immediately by it, and from 2001 to 2003, I followed some of his masterclasses throughout Europe
and took lessons with him. At the same time, in 2000 I met Jonathan Harvey, whose contact has been a strong aesthetic infuence on my music.
In any case, after those early years, I've followed my path actually without many personal or direct infuences. Living in Paris since 2002, I've
spent most of my time composing and constantly traveling in order to work with performers and premiere my works. In reality, I think I've never
thought 'artificially' about the music I plan to write. In any case, I can assure that my goal is not complexity, but richness.”
9
formed details from an opaque foundation—this principle informs Hèctor Parra’s music
even when it does not explicitly follow a geological or sculptural metaphor.” (Böggemann
2011).
It is this materialization of time that allows Parra to mold how the listener eventually perceives the
temporal dimension. In addition, I have had the pleasure of knowing Hèctor for two years now, and I
can tell from my own personal experience that he is a composer that “sees” sounds:
“En 2002 descubrí el mundo de la informática musical, la electroacústica y la
composición asistida por ordenador—en el que había estado soñando durante años pero
que apenas me había sido accesible hasta entonces. Una visión frecuencial del sonido tan
plástica como la que ofrece el programa Audiosculpt unida a las casi infnitas y modulares
posibilidades de tratamiento en tiempo real de Max/MSP no te dejan indiferente frente al
acto creativo. Además, en este primer contacto trabajé a fondo en la formalización—con
la ayuda del programa Open Music—de un lenguaje rítmico generado a partir de la
realización de un paralelismo estructural entre tensiones colorimétricas y acústicas. (…)
[Esta tecnología] me ayudó a categorizar y a estructurar mi pensamiento sonoro de forma
más profunda, rica, sólida (según mi punto de vista…) y a la vez relacionarlo con el
mundo de la pintura y la percepción de ciertos estímulos visuales.” (Parra 2010)5.
On the other hand, Parra's interest in science (particularly physics) is crucial in order to appreciate how
his music is constructed. The composer treats his works as if they were physical phenomena that keep
evolving over time. Speaking to him, one can recognize words such as “atoms”, “molecules”, and
“quarks” used in a structural musical context. If we were to be poetic, Parra's goal would be to create
universes rather than just musical works—his opera Hyperprologue Music is the paradigm of such an idea:
“Hypermusic Prologue era un proyecto en el que había estado soñando ya muchos años antes
del 2006, año en que se puso en marcha. Lisa Randall, la libretista de la ópera, es todo
menos conformista. Inmenso talento de la física y auténtico prodigio de las matemáticas,
renuncia de bien joven a una carrera estandarizada en el marco teórico del modelo
estándar de partículas elementales para aventurarse en los innovadores e inestables
caminos de la física post-cuántica. Al elegir este camino, gente como ella encarnan para
mí lo que podría llamarse una fgura para la ópera del siglo XXI. Es actual, su
5 “In 2002, I discovered the world of computer music, electroacoustic music, and computer-assisted composition—a world that I dreamed of
during years, but which I never had a chance to explore. Such a 'frequential' and plastic vision of the sound in software Audiosculpt connected
to the almost-infinite and modulative possibilities of real-time treatment in Max/MSP don't leave you indifferent in front of the creative act.
Furthermore, in this first contact I deeply worked towards formalization—with software Open Music—of a rhythmic language generated from
a structural parallel between 'colorimetrical' and acoustical tensions. This technology helped me structure and categorize my sonic thought in
deeper, richer, more solid levels (to my opinion) while also relate it to the world of painting and the perception of certain visual stimuli.”
10
pensamiento es avanzado, y sus aspiraciones son clásicas y universales: trata de
comprender la realidad física como el ser humano lo ha hecho desde los griegos, pero de
manera vanguardista. Fue esta actitud intelectual y humana, el hecho de cuestionar tan
fuertemente los fundamentos de su propio pensamiento, lo que me propulsó a pedirle de
escribir un libreto que tratara de una hipotética quinta dimensión, siendo tan
tremendamente difícil de concebir algo que vaya más allá de las tres dimensiones físicas
con las que estamos familiarizados. Más de una vez la propia Lisa Randall ha afrmado
que la pasión de un científco debe ser expresada a través de un camino distinto al de
objetividad y sentido crítico—tan imprescindibles para su trabajo. Sin embargo,
momentos como el presente, donde ciertos conceptos que estructuran los presupuestos
básicos de una ciencia comienzan a tambalearse y a cambiar, dejan entrever las profundas
relaciones que hermanan ciencia y arte, donde la pasión por el conocimiento y por la vida
pueden estar unidas al trabajo estructural de una manera más explícita. La pasión nutre
el trabajo tanto del científco como del músico, pero el primero siempre debe equilibrar lo
objetivo y lo pasional, mientras que el músico debe hacer universales sus pasiones con el
fn de compartirlas con el mayor número de gente. El objetivo entonces se convirtió para
nosotros en llegar a una gran forma, a una arquitectura sonora nacida de nuestras
pasiones y bañada por una estética que podría inspirarse sin complejos en elementos
científcos, en la comprensión científca de la naturaleza (las propiedades de las cuatro
fuerzas o interacciones fundamentales, la naturaleza del espacio-tempo curvo de Einstein,
ciertas características de la teoría de supercuerdas, los propios modelos de Lisa Randall y
como estos podrían cambiar nuestra visión del Universo…).” (Parra 2010)6.
The music of Hèctor Parra is complex, but also contrasting from aforementioned conceptions of
complexity. His concerns are far from Ferneyhough's, although Parra's complexity can also be
summarized triptychally. To my opinion, the relationship between the use of physical theories to
develop structural parameters, the interest in manipulating the perception of time through the use of
dense textures, and a musical thought based on visualization makes Parra's music uniquely rich and quite
differently complex from the works of Brian Ferneyhough.
6 “Hyperprologue Music was a project which I had been dreaming of many years before 2006, the year which actually started. Lisa
Randall, the librettist of the opera, is everything but a conformist. Having an immense talent in physics and being an authentic prodigy of
mathematics, at a very early age she renounced a standardized career within the theoretical frame of the standard model of elementary particles
in order to go deeper into the innovative and unstable paths of post-quantics physics. By choosing this path, to my opinion, people like her
embody what one could see as 'the figure' of opera in the 21 st Century. She is modern, her thought is advanced, and her aspirations are classical
and universal: she tries to comprehend physical reality the same way mankind has been doing it since the ancient Greeks, although in an avantgarde way. It was this intellectual and human attitude (questioning so strongly the foundation of her own thought) what made me ask her to
write a libretto about a hypothetical fifth dimension—a fact that is extremely difficult to conceive since it goes beyond the three-dimensional
notion which we are so familiar with. More than once, Lisa Randall has stated that the passion of a scientist needs to be expressed through a
different path from objectivity and critical sense—these being extremely important in her job. Nonetheless, moments such as the present time—
where certain concepts that structure the basic preconceptions of science start changing—let us see the profound relationships between science
and art, where both the passion for knowledge and life can end up being together in a much more explicit way. Passion nurtures work—both of
the scientist and the musician—, but the former always must balance objective and passional thoughts, whereas the musician needs to bring his
or her passions to the realm of universality in order to share them with the largest possible amount of people. To me and Lisa, the goal was to
reach a great form, to reach a sonic architecture born from our respective passions and surrounded by an aesthetic sense inspired in scientific
means to understanding nature (the properties of the four forces or fundamental interactions, the nature of Einstein's curved space-time, certain
characteristics of string theory, the models developed by Lisa Randall and how these could change our vision of the universe...).”
11
WORKS CITED
Böggemann, Markus. “Hèctor Parra”. Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. 17 April 2011.
<http://www.evs-musikstiftung.ch/en/composers-grants-in-aid/composers-prize-winners2011/hector-parra/>.
Ferneyhough, Brian. Collected Writings. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995.
Lévy, Fabien. Le compositeur, son oreille et ses machines a ecrire. Not published yet, 2004.
Parra, Hèctor. “Entrevista”. Espacio Sonoro, No. 22, September 2010.
<http://www.tallersonoro.com/espaciosonoro/22/Entrevista%20H%C3%A9ctor%20Parra.htm>.
Toop, Richard. “On Complexity”. Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1993.
Ulman, Erik. “Some Thoughts on the New Complexity”. Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 32, No. 1,
1994.