Dissertation Index
Author: Orvek, David E Title: Experiencing the Music of Brian Ferneyhough Institution: Indiana Univesrity Begun: August 2019 Completed: December 2025 Abstract: This dissertation is my attempt to answer a seemingly simple question: what is it like to experience Brian Ferneyhough’s music? I seek to answer this question by analyzing my experiences of listening to and watching performances. Approaching Ferneyhough’s music in this way is important because his notation problematizes assumptions about scores and their relationship to “the work” that lie at the heart of exclusively score-based approaches to analysis. Ferneyhough’s scores are not simply graphic representations of his music; “the work” emerges from a dialogue between performers and scores. To date, however, the analytical literature on Ferneyhough’s music has relied almost exclusively on his scores and sketches, thus operating under the tacit assumption that these documents provide direct access to “the work.” In Chapter 1, I point out the assumptions about scores and their relationships to works that undergird score-based approaches to analysis and show how Ferneyhough’s notation undermines these assumptions. I then review the English-language literature on Ferneyhough, demonstrating that existing analytical work has not yet wrestled with the implications that Ferneyhough’s notation has for analysis. Chapters 2–4 are analytical case studies in which I explore what it might look like to take an experience-centric approach to analyzing Ferneyhough’s music. These chapters enact a vision for analysis rather than a particular theory or analytical methodology. In Chapter 2, I analyze Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study I (1971–77) for solo bass clarinet, exploring how the movements, efforts, and noises involved in performing the piece play a role in my experience of it. In Chapter 3, I explore how texture and silence shape my experience of form in Ferneyhough’s Second String Quartet (1980). Finally, in Chapter 4, I analyze Ferneyhough’s La chute d’Icare (1988) for solo clarinet and chamber ensemble, showing how the piece’s connections to other artworks lend meaning to seemingly insignificant aspects of the music. Through these analyses, I hope to demonstrate that analyses of Ferneyhough’s music need not consult his sketches or reconstruct his compositional process. Above all, my goal is to help readers hear new things and find more enjoyment in Ferneyhough’s music. Keywords: Brian Ferneyhough, Experience, Listening, Performance Analysis TOC: Introduction Chapter 1: The Analytical Implications of Ferneyhough's Music Chapter 2: Time and Motion Study I (1971–77) as Performance Art Chapter 3: Hearing Form in the Second String Quartet (1980) Chapter 4: Intertextuality in La chute d'Icare (1988) Conclusion Contact: davideo23@yahoo.com |