brian ferneyhough and the 'avant-garde experience' - benjamin tropes in 'funerailles

7/23/2019 Brian Ferneyhough and the 'Avant-Garde Experience' - Benjamin Tropes in 'Funerailles'

1/39

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Brian Ferneyhough and the "Avant-Garde Experience": Benjaminian Tropes in "Funrailles"Author(s): Peter RosserSource: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 48, No. 2 (SUMMER 2010), pp. 114-151Published by: Perspectives of New MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076968

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2/39

Brian Ferneyhough and the

"Avant-Garde

Experience":

Beniaminian

Tropes

in Funrailles

Peter Rosser

We

have

long forgotten

the ritual

by

which

the house of our life was erected. But

when it is under assault

and

enemy

bombs are

already taking

their

toll,

what ener

vated

perverse

antiquities

do

they

not

lay

bare in the foundations. What

things

were

interred and sacrificed amid

magic

incantations,

what horrible cabinet of

curiosities lies there

below,

where the

deepest

shafts are reserved for what is most

commonplace.

Walter

Benjamin, One-Way

Street1

THE

impression of Walter Benjamin's thought on the continuing

artistic career of

Brian

Ferneyhough

is both

easily

defined

and

ambiguous.

The

composer

has

signalled

his indebtedness

in overt

ways,

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/39

Benjaminian

Tropes

in

Funrailles

I 15

in work

titles and in the

explication

of

pre-compositional and opera

tional

concepts,

and his immersion in

Benjamin's writings

has been

productive,

most

notably

in

the

full-length

"thought-opera"2

Shadow

time

produced

with

librettist Charles Bernstein and

premiered

in

2004.

This is a work that creates

a

musico-literary

commentary

on

the

thoughts

of

Benjamin

and a

quasi-narrative

compaction

of

biographical

detail

relating

to

the writer's final

days

and

suicide on the Franco

Spanish

border in

1940. The

ambiguity,

however,

resides in

the

depth

of this

impression

on

the

deeper-level

structural decisions the

com

poser

has made

over the course of more than four

decades of

writing

music, and on how far this impression can explain long-standing philo

sophical,

intellectual and

compositional

practices.

It

is,

of

course,

common

for

composers

to

invoke

comparison

with non-musical

expression

as a means of

providing

intellectual context for their

pieces.

In the

treatment or

setting

of

primary

source

or

adapted

text,

as in

Shadowtime,

the

method is at its most

transparent

and

parallels

between words and music are

easily

understood;

symbolism

and

affec

tive

word-setting

are

ways

in which the

composer

can

emerge

from the

confines of the

discipline

in

hand. But the

retrospective

projection

of

literary

and

philosophical

influences onto

earlier,

more

protean periods

of a composer's artistic activity, and onto pieces that are less clearly

associative,

often

yields greater

results.

Over the

period

1969-80 Brian

Ferneyhough

wrote

Funrailles,

a

twofold structure that

remains

unique

in

the

composer's output.

The

piece

consists of

the

representation

of a

ritual,

in

the first

instance,

and

then a further

presentation,

a rewritten version of

this

ritual,

to be

performed

in the

same concert as the

first,

but

under no circumstances

immediately

following

it. Neither version is

to be

played indepen

dently.

The

writing

of

Funrailles, therefore,

was undertaken twice in

Ferneyhough's

career.

This

stutter,

this double

take,

is in

itself

incentive

enough

to take a closer look at the

piece.

It also occurs at a

defining

moment

for

the

composer

when the

beginnings

of a

rapprochement

with tradition can be detected. What is often

forgotten

is that

many

of the

defining

characteristics of the

Ferneyhough style

as

commonly

understood

todaythe

microscopic

attention to

detail,

the

idiosyncratic

notation,

the

multiple layers

of

material,

and the

proliferation

of

nested irrationalsall

emerge

at a time

when

Ferneyhough

was both

experimenting

with

the conventions of the

score and

re-engaging

with ideas of

musical structure and

gesture

that

come from the nineteenth

century

and earlier.

Funrailles comes

in

the

wake of the

psychological

torture

chambers

of the

Time and Motion

Studies

(1971-77),

and the

expansive Webern-inspired

textural

essay



4/39

I I 6

Perspectives

of

New Music

Sonatas for String Quartet (1967). At this time the large-scale

symbolist

works such as Transit

(1972-75)

and La terre est un homme

(1976-79) give way

to a more

refined,

formally

rhetorical

model,

first

seen in the

Second

String

Quartet

(1980).3

The soi-disant

Benjamin

pieces, Lemma-Icon-Epigram

(1981)

and Kurze Shatten II

(1985-88),

appear

soon afterwards.

Funrailles,

with its double

exposure,

its

sudden

change

of

tack,

represents

the

only

time in

Ferneyhough's

career when a

retreading

was deemed

necessary

and unavoidable. It is

also

in

Funrailles

that we see the introduction of several

distinctly

Benjaminian tropes

that would come to individuate

Ferneyhough

philosophically, stylistically, and intellectually within (or against) the

established

and,

arguably, already

ageing

central

European

musical

avant-garde

that

emerged

out of Darmstadt

during

the 1950s.

In

1979,

Susan

Sontag,

in her introduction to the

Verso

edition of

Walter

Benjamin's One-Way

Street and other

writings,

was

dealing

with

an imminent

subject:

a

saturnine,

marginal,

melancholic

figure, yet

to

be absorbed

by

the

intellectual

world. At this

date

Benjamin's

biographical

reminiscences,

Berliner Kindheit um

neunzehnhundert,

and the

essay

on Goethe's Elective

Affinities

had

yet

to be translated

into

English

and

publication

in Frankfurt

of Gesammelte

Schriften

(seven

volumes,

1972-1989)

was still in

progress.

The influence of

these

writings

was therefore limited and can be considered

negligible

in

the case of

the immediate

post-war generation

of

composers.

The

true

impact

of

Benjamin

was reserved for

Ferneyhough's generation,

active

after

1968,

the

year

the

young composer

moved to central

Europe.

This

generation

was saddled with an

altogether

more

problematic avant-garde

as the

high-modernist

tabula rasa of 1945

gave way

to the

political

activism of the late

1960s and

early

1970s.

For

Ferneyhough,

the

Coventry-born migr

who

had no formal

training

in

(nor

even

exposure

to)

contemporary

music before he was

eighteen years

of

age,

there was an

early understanding

of the

need for

a route around the

radically Utopian

and

progressivist thinking

of the

musical

avant-garde

as he then saw it.

Stockhausen's "intra

spection

... his move

away

from the

responsibility

of

reifying

the

continuumsuch as remains of itof western

consciousness"4 was

anathema

to

Ferneyhough,

and in

staying

behind to attend to the ruins

of western cultural

society

he had

demarcated his

project's

boundaries.

Sontag's

Benjamin

is

equally preoccupied by

ruins. The critic

philosopher,

afflicted with "Saturnine

acedia,"

moves

slowly through

a

world not of personal relationships (he is always a lonely figure) but of

burdensome

things.

He is doomed to bear witness to the debris of

history laying

around him in the

shockingly

real "now-time" or



5/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

I 17

Jetztzeit:

If

this

melancholy temperament

is faithless to

people,

it has

good

reason to be

faithful to

things. Fidelity

lies

in

accumulating things

which

appear, mostly,

in

the form of

fragments

or ruins. . . .

Both the

baroque

and

Surrealism,

sensibilities with which Ben

jamin

profoundly

identified,

see

reality

as

things. Benjamin

describes

the

baroque

as a

world of

things

(emblems, ruins)

and

spatialized

ideas .... The

genius

of Surrealism was to

generalize

with ebullient

candour the

baroque

cult of

ruins;

to

perceive

that

the nihilistic energies of the modern era make everything a ruin or

fragmentand

therefore

collectible.

A

world whose

past

has

become

(by definition)

obsolete,

and whose

present

churns out

instant

antiques,

invites

custodians,

decoders,

and collectors.5

Benjamin's temperament

dictated his life's

work. His studies of

German

baroque

drama,

Surrealism and the commercial arcades of

the

nineteenth

century

were fuelled

by personal

traits that

pushed

him

always

outside of the

neo-Kantian school of

thought

that

pre

dominated in

his time. The

obscure,

the

microscopic,

the

lost,

and

the

incidental nourished his

thinking.

He loved

marginalia,

kitsch

souvenirs,

secret

languages,

codes,

emblem

books,

and

anagrams.

And

the

combination of these traits and

attitudes offers a

potent

mix of

competing

forces: the

slow-moving,

the

ponderous,

the

wide-eyed

shock of a

never-ending martyrdom

(witnessing)

is shot

through

with

the

incessant,

teeming

energy

of

infinite small

particles

and

details.

Despondency

and

fetishism;

these

coupled

contradictions

spark

atomic

(dialectical)

energies.

How

closely

does this weave of

incompatible impulses correspond

to

Ferneyhough's

music? On the

surface,

at

least,

the similarities are real.

The

music at the close of

Funrailles Version 2

(Example 1)

exists in a

liminal

state,

on the

border between

audibility

and

inaudibility,

of

pitch

and

noise and of sure and

fragile

timbre. The

gestures

extend

to

the limits of the

instruments'

ranges

and

force

questions

on the

sustainability

of controlled execution.

Time,

variously disguised,

is

also

pushed

towards extreme states. The

global (conducted)

tempo

in

this

excerpt

is

pulled gradually

downwards

from,

previously,

^>=36

(marked

desolato in

measure

126)

to "less than

JW30"

at the end of measure

132,

moving uniformly

by way

of a

decrescendo

(al niente),

and

the

marking quasi al asenza movimento," to a long 9/8 general pause final

bar. The last

measure is a

mapping

of

empty

time

(empty

at least of

markings by

the

instrumentalists),

and uncovers at the end of the

piece



6/39

I I 8

Perspectives

of

New Music

a view

of

the durational

apparatus upon

which the

gestural activity

has

taken

place.

The fact that the measure commands a time

signature,

but

is nonetheless marked

with a fermata

pause-marking,

creates

the

necessary

moment

of

ambiguity

as measured time dissolves into

motionlessness,

thereby detaching

itself from clock-time.

Temporal

flow has

effectively

been

wiped

over

by

the

slowly fluctuating

and

ponderous

tempi operating

through

the

previous

132 measures. The

ending,

in other

words,

is

a double

leaf;

page upon page

the

closing

of

a book. Gesture is followed

by

measured

time,

then

by

stasis and then

ultimately,

when the

piece

is

complete, by

the reintroduction of

normalised,

societal

time.

Overlaying

the last four

slowly petrifying

durational units

(measures)

is an active surface of

microscopically

detailed movement

in

the

top

three

staves,

picked

out on artificial

harmonics,

projecting

beyond

the

auditory scope

of the

piece

and

effectively

smeared,

in an

intrusive and tactile

way, by glissando

and

tremolo.

The

harp

and the

accompanying

tutti

string quartet

are in the

process

of

playing

out

distantly

related durational

processes

with a

close concentration on nuanced timbrai transformation.

In the last measures of Funrailles Version

1

(Example 2)

the

structures and materials are identical, but the execution is very

different. The final measure of

simultaneously

metered and held time

does not exist

(interestingly,

a clock-time measured "nine seconds of

motionlessness,"

initiates Version

1

while Version

2

begins

suddenly,

sfap),

and

although rapid

movement takes

place

with the

tremolo

figures

of

the

upper

lines,

these remain textural and

do

not

compare

with the

rhythmical

detail

impressed upon

the

closing

bars of Version

2.

In

performance,

the sonic results

yielded

by

the two versions are not

of a

materially

different

order,

but the neurotic need for a further

layer

of

generated impulses

in Version 2 transforms the

music's

gestural

weight. Version 1 tails off gradually towards its final double barline;

Version 2 creates a state of

energised

activity

that needs to be

dispelled

in

order that measured

musical time

and,

subsequently,

real time

can

be

brought

into

sharper

relief.

Contiguity

of

temperament

between writer and

composer

is

usefully

underlined

by comparing

the

profile

of the

above extracts from

Funrailles

(especially

of

Version

2)

with

Benjamin's

letter of

May

29,

1926

to his friend Gershom Scholem:

I couldn't build a

Lilliputian

state with

this,

as it

were,

Marxist let

ter. But let me tell you that in the Jewish section of the Muse

Cluny

I

have discovered

the Book

of

Esther written on a

page

a

little more than

half

the

size of this one. That should

perhaps

speed your

visit to Paris.6



7/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

I 19

EXAMPLE 1 :

FERNEYHOUGH,

FUNRAILLES,

VERSION

2,

CLOSING MEASURES

Reprinted y

kind

permission

f Peters ditionLimited

Scholem's telling of the subsequent visit, where "Benjamin dragged

him to . . . the Muse

Cluny

to show

him

'two

grains

of wheat on

which a kindred soul had

inscribed the

complete

Shema

Israel,'"7

is

equally

fantastical.

Why

the need for this

compression

of

materials and

gestures

into

small

spaces?

For

Sontag,

this

process

of

miniaturisation has a number

of

motives. For

one,

it is borne of

necessity

for the wanderer or the

refugee

because

it makes

things portable.

And

portable things

can

be

dislocated,

concealed,

and

ultimately

made useless:

For what is so

grotesquely

reduced

is,

in a

sense,

liberated from

meaningits

tininess

being

the

outstanding thing

about it. It is



8/39

I

20

Perspectives

of

New Music

EXAMPLE 2:

FERNEYHOUGH, FUNRAILLES,

VERSION

1,

CLOSING MEASURES

Reprinted ykindpermissionf Peters ditionLimited

both whole

(that

is,

complete)

and a

fragment (so tiny,

the

wrong

scale).8

This underlines two tendencies

shared

by Ferneyhough

and

Benjamin:

the first is towards

micronisation,

the

breaking up

of a material into

very

fine

particles;

the second

belongs

to what

Sontag

refers to as

the

micro-logical, the understanding and utilisation of structural relation

ships

between

the smallest of

things.

Both tendencies are

ways through

and

beyond process.

Processual

philosophies

(and

musical

forms)

elevate the

practice

of

pattern-making

on

increasingly large

and



9/39

Benjaminian

Tropes

in

Funrailles 121

increasingly global scales and make the smallest details ultimately

immaterial.

Benjamin

and

Ferneyhough

elevate the

microgesture

at the

expense

of

larger

formal

devices. This

belongs

to the

type

of

revolutionary

ethics that both

artists inhabit and that

Benjamin

detailed most

directly

in his

"Theses on the

Philosophy

of

History."

The

intensity

of concentration on the

smallest detail slows the

perception

of

the flow of time down to such an extent that

concrete,

physical

extractions of the

otherwise unseen are

given

a new

permanence

outside

of their

temporal

environs:

Thinking

involves not

only

the flow of

thoughts,

but their arrest

as well. Where

thinking suddenly stops

in

a

configuration preg

nant with

tensions,

it

gives

that

configuration

a

shock,

by

which it

crystallizes

into a monad.9

The

predilection

for the

thing-like,

the

protean, free-floating

monad

will

hold

major implications

for the

comprehension

of time and for its

political interpretation.

Ideas become

decoupled

from

time,

they

become

contingent

rather than

consequential;

but this

only

enhances

their historical immanence. A

radical,

indeed

revolutionary, linguistic

methodology

is needed to enable the

replacement

of transference of

meaning (metaphor)

with

"the world of universal and

integral

actualities."10

In

this materialist

historiography,

outlined

in

Benjamin's

early

work The

Origin of

German

Tragic

Drama,

image

{Bild)

takes

precedence

over

metaphor,

action over

contemplation,

and

body

over

intellect.11

Ferneyhough's

continuous

referencing

of

Benjamin

throughout

his

career marks his commitment to

philosophical

concerns inherent in the

writer's

"struggle

to maintain the advent of the modern."12 This is a

struggle

that saw

Benjamin

advance a

type

of

thinking

that formulated

an

explosive, dynamic

and dialectical model out of the tensions that

existed between

progressivist

or

teleological

historicisms and the

destructive

and self-destructive modern life to which he was witness.

Central

to

Benjamin's project

was a

critique

of

Enlightenment philo

sophies

of time in which the

actuality

of

time,

its affective

presence,

was denied.

The

passage

of a

preordained progression

towards

perfect

ibility

and

through

a

neutral,

or

uniform,

historical time-line was

roundly rejected by Benjamin.

Replacing

"past

and

present"

with

"then and

now"

he

was able to

fragment

the illusion of

continuity

and

progress to powerful effect and thus, importantly, to create

opportunities

for

intervention.

Out of this destructive

topos

came a

number of radical notions:

in

particular,

that

retardation,

interruption



10/39

I 22

Perspectives of

New Music

and fragmentation were powerful and useful philosophical agents, and

that

tradition,

anachronism and the idea of

the outmoded were as

powerful

in the

exchanges

within

modernity (and

as vectors of

change

therein)

as the

utopianism

of

teleological

historicisms was

reactionary.

As Andrew

Benjamin

says:

"with

historicism,

time

becomes natural

ized. To denature time is a further

part

of a

project

marked

by

inter

ruption."13

And this

project

would be detailed

through

a move

away

from institutionalized

philosophy

and towards a

thinking

that came

"'directly'

out of the

objects

of cultural

experience"14a

materialist

historiography,

in other

words,

which is

variously

described in

Benjamin studies as the "Surrealist" or the "avant-garde experience."15

The

proximity

of

Ferneyhough

and

Benjamin

becomes, therefore,

a

matter of both

temperament

and

philosophy.

For the close

observer,

it

places

the

composer's operative

interests

within the

experimentations

of

late nineteenth and

early twentieth-century

modernism at its most

revolutionary

and destructive. This

proximity

to

Benjamin

also

highlights

how the

superficial reading

of

Ferneyhough

that

positioned

him

during

the 1980s and 1990s as the

figurehead

of a loose

grouping

of

(mostly

British)

composers

under the banner The

New

Complexity,

failed to

incorporate

his

antique European

sensibilities.

Looking

back

from the vantage point of the twenty-first century the incompatibility

of

Ferneyhough

with

these other individuals is

suddenly

more

pronounced.

Composers

such as Richard

Barrett,

Michael

Finnissy

and

James

Dillon became

increasingly

inclined towards the

prevalent post

modernistic

tropes

of the 1980s

and 1990s: Barrett

through

a

dys

topian (and

Beckettian)

politically negotiable

theatre of the

absurd

(he

was

subsequently propelled through

the

technological/improvisatory

route);

Finnissy through

a

type

of

poly-stylistic,

critical

cosmopolitan

ism;

and Dillon

through spectralist

thinking

that found sustenance in

the

extrapolation

of

large-scale

formal

designs

from the

physical

properties of sound itself.16 Reading Ferneyhough's works of the late

1970s and

early

1980s

through

the

(then)

emerging light

of

Benjamin's

thought,

however,

is

not

only

to

provide

for

a

readjustment

in the

composer's place

in

a

stylistic

tradition,

but also an

attempt

to

re-imagine

the

distracting,

often

dazzling

techniques

on

offer in the scores and to

redirect their

significance

away

from

post

serial

apotheosis,

or

narratological

and authorial

subversion,

and

towards an esoteric tradition

that emanates from

the nineteenth

century

of Baudelaire

(as

seen

through

the

eyes

of

Benjamin)

and from

the revolutionism

(Marxist

and

Surrealist)

of

the first

quarter

of the

twentieth

century. Ultimately,

the

objective

is to

re-engage

with the

origins

of the emotional

energies

of the

music,17

and to offer a number

of

questions

that seems

prerequisite,

especially

when

dealing,

however



11/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

obliquely, with Benjaminian thought. If Walter Benjamin's writings

cannot be

fully

understood without recourse to the consideration of

moral

imperatives, historiographical aporia

and

consequently

to

politics,

do we have a

responsibility

to examine

Ferneyhough's

music

in the same

way?

How

do

the local

concerns

of

BenjaminSurrealism,

the

revolutionary politics

of the 1920s and

1930s,

film,

the

reading

of

nineteenth

century

Paris,

even hashish

eating

and

graphology,

the

natural

subjects

of his

writingfind

expression

beyond

cultural

criticism and

philosophy

and

contribute

to an

analysis

of

Ferneyhough's

music?

FunraillesPreliminary Remarks

The

progress

of

Funrailles

through

its two versions is one of

metaphor giving way

to

(Benjaminian) image.

The

original concept

is

one

centred

on ritual. The title refers to

obsequies:

solemn,

ritualistic

celebrations of

mourning. Ferneyhough's original

intention was to

recreate the modes of ritual

in

a non-ironic

way,

to channel

the "entire

associative

complex

into an

imaginarya mythicdimension.

A rite

taking place

behind a

curtain,

or in the far distance."18

However,

it

seems

that

very quickly

the music

began

to work

against

these con

cepts:

"The

seeming incongruity obtaining

between the associations

prompted by

the title and the actual emotional world of the

composi

tion itself

might

be seen as

bordering

on

the

deliberately perverse,"19

Ferneyhough

concedes. And it is this

perversity,

the

incongruity per

taining

in the

relationship

between the

pre-compositional conceptual

spur

and

the

progress

of the music itself that

prompted

the

composer

to return to

radically

rewrite his material.

The

primary

and most

obviously apparent

distinction between the

two versions is one of architecture. Both versions are

antiphonal,

pitting

a solo trio

(violin,

viola,

cello) against

a tutti

quartet

(violin,

viola,

cello,

double

bass).

The two

groups

are mediated

by

a

harp.

The

difference

in the

deployment

of forces over the two

versions, however,

is

striking

(see

Example

3).

Version

1

is accretional:

the solo trio

material,

as

a basic

building

block,

is constant

(excepting

the

general

pause bar),

the tutti

quartet

shapes

three sections

(or

four

if

the

general pause

is considered

as

structurally defining),

and the

harp

provides

mediation and

heralds the tutti sections in each case. As a

construct, Version 1 is predictable, progressive and teleological. The

progress

of the formal

design

is more

powerful

than the

individual

detail;

it fulfils its

objective

of

presenting

a ritual. Version

2

is

opposed



12/39

124

Perspectives

of

New Music

to the structural assumptions of its predecessor. This is a more complex

terrain in which the basic solo

material

sparks

disparate

communi

cations

(and simultaneities)

with the

harp

and the tutti

quartet.

The

plan permits

a

greater degree

of freedom in the

deployment

of forces

and of the characterisation of

protagonists.

The

harp

has been elevated

onto a

different

level,

removed

from its

purely mediatory

role

in

Version 1. It has a

major

solo

passage

at the centre of the

piece

(measures 54-62)

and

it takes

part

in two duos with the lowest

instrument of

each

group:

cello

(measures 21-27)

and double

bass

(measures 63-67).

The more nebulous

relationships

that

pertain

between the various

groupings

in this second version is underlined

by

the manner in which the tutti

quartet

can

step

outside of the timbrai

set-up

towards the end

of the

piece,

transforming

itself into a

percussion

ensemble

by taking up

stones, maracas,

claves and wood

block

(measures 114-121).

The

harp

also leaves its normalised

space

with the use

of

two

crotales from measure 107. Effective

in

delimiting

sections

as the

deployment

of forces

undoubtedly

is,

it nevertheless

forms

only

one view

of this more

sophisticated

Version 2. The

composer

makes

clear in his score that the transformation

of

dry,

"natural" sounds

to

pitched

"artificial" sounds

be

effected

as

smoothly

and

organically

as

possible.

Also in Version

2,

the

composer

uses

rehearsal

letters in an unconventional

way, highlighting

structural

layers

of

independent

material to be used as an

interpretational

aid

by

the conductor rather

than as reference

points by

the instrumentalists.

The music of Version

2,

therefore,

is borne of

competing

tendencies.

On the one

hand,

it is the result of

a

destructive

act,

a

pulling apart

of

existing

material,

with

disjunction given

structural

import.

On the

other,

the

organicism

of the

original

is recreated

through

instructions

to the

performers.

This

is

Ferneyhough's

own

description

of his

methods:

I

constructed

a

grid

which

I

then overlaid

on the score of

Version

One,

already completed.

This

grid separated

the material into

small,

independent

frames,

completely decontextualising

it,

in

effect. ... I then took each isolated

frame and

investigated

its

autonomous

properties

very carefully, trying

to

establish what

seemed to

me to be the most

significant

characteristics of that

fragment

andequally importantmy

own current attitude

towards them. I was fascinated to discover that some

fragments

imposed themselves on me in quite unexpected fashions, that is to

say,

in

ways

unconnected

with the

original

intention or means of

composition.

It was

like,

shall we

say,

a form of creative archaeol



13/39

Benjaminian

Tropes

in Funrailles

ogy, but before the fact in the sense of utilizing the information

gleaned

to create

a

new

context

rather than

recreate a

previous

one.

Working

with

givens

possessing

an

amazing

will of their own

led to the

production

of an

uncharacteristically unprestructured

discourse;

I was

compelled

to invent moment-to-moment strate

gies

to accommodate what I was in the

process

of

discovering.

I

don't want to

imply

the absence of strict

processes;

rather,

that

these

processes

arose out of the

specific

nature of the material situ

ation "discovered" in

every

frame. The

priorities

were often

wildly

different from

frame

to frame.20

The rehearsal marks

give

the

key

to

the

structuring

in Version 2.

They

demarcate

passages

that are

physically

extracted from their

origins, developed independently

of the wider narrative strictures of

Version 1 and

replanted

into the foundational duration scheme. The

two enactments remain

essentially

the same

piece.

Any

transformation

of

pitch

or

rhythm

in Version 2 does not destabilize the content of

Funraillesit is

significant

that

despite

the violent

pulling apart

of

Version

1

its

doppelganger

remains

just

that:

separate

(and

therefore

separately

constructed)

but

intrinsically

identifiable as the same.

Funrailles Version

2,

therefore,

doesn't

supersede

Funrailles Version

1.

The two

remain

co-dependent

in

performance despite

the

necessity

of the "Non attacca "

signalled

in the

score

after the final measure of

Version 1.

The

rewriting,

and indeed the

re-performing,

is the essential

modus

operandi

of the cumulative Funrailles

experience

and the

instruction

in

the score to effect transitions as

smoothly

as

possible

indicates the need for Version 2 to

appear

as a

whole,

despite

the

destructive conditions of its

conception

and the

seemingly

discontinuous

assembly

of its

fragments.

Walter

Benjamin

and the "Avant-Garde Experience"

For

Benjamin,

destruction was a

prerequisite

of construction.

It is

important

for the materialist

historian,

in the most

rigorous

way possible,

to differentiate the construction

of a historical state

of affairs from

what one

customarily

calls its "reconstruction." The

"reconstruction"

in

empathy

is one-dimensional. "Construction"

presupposes "destruction."21



14/39

126

Perspectives

of

New Music

Destruction is always meant as "the destruction of some false or decep

tive form of

experience

as the

productive

condition of the construction

of a new relation to the

object."22 Again,

object

takes

precedence

over

experience,

and the

perception

of these

objects

takes

precedence

over

the search for clear

process.

Thus,

as Andrew

Benjamin

and Peter

Osborne

note,

. . .

allegory

is seen to

destroy

the

deceptive totality

of the

symbol,

wrenching

it out of context and

placing

it in

new,

transparently

constructed,

configurations

of

meaning.

. . .

Similarly,

photogra

phy

is seen to

destroy

the aura of the

object,

opening up

the

possi

bility

of a

radically

new

knowledge (the

optical

unconscious).23

The site of destruction affords

opportunities

for

intervention;

and

with this

opportunity

comes

the

necessity

of

choice,

and therefore of

political

action. Destruction does not come with

preordained

consequences,

of

course,

it remains a site of contention

and

of a

force

that needs to be won over. This is

at the heart of

Benjamin's thinking

on

modernity,

and it is a

thinking

that

demands much of the artist.

The

danger

of

Fascism,

to take one

powerful example

from "The

Work

of Art in the

Age

of Mechanical

Reproduction,"

resides in its

utilisation of destruction for the

purpose

of the restoration

of

ideology

and tradition. The task of

Benjamin's writings,

on the other

hand,

is to

introduce

concepts

to

the

theory

of art that are

"completely

useless

for

the

purposes

of Fascism." These

concepts

"brush aside . . .

creativity

and

genius,

eternal value and

mystery"24

and confront the

crisis of

representation

in

art.

This

is also the site of the most

deeply

involved

consideration

in

Benjamin

studies: that of

aura,

a

subject

that needs to

be

traced

through

considerations of twentieth

century

technological

media,

but one that will also

provide guidelines

for the

beginnings

of

an

analysis

of

(the

non-technological)

Funrailles.

Assembled around the idea of the

single

authentic

artwork,

the

theory

of aura

in

the hands of

Benjamin

emanates from

the

perception

of a

"strange

weave of

space

and time: the

unique

appearance

or

semblance of

distance,

no matter

how close it

may

be."25 The

modern

era

of

instant

reproducibility,

of

film

and of

photography,

sees the

"withering"

of

aura,

but

also the emotional

re-enactment of its

memory through

artificial,

technological

means.

The

amalgam

of the

desire to recreate

aura,

and the

knowledge

of the self-delusion inherent

in

this

misguided exercise, epitomises

the

experience

of

modernity

for

the human

subject.

There is a connective line drawn between the

supposition

of aura and the

knowledge

of its demise

that leads from

dislocation

and

melancholy

towards

a

position

that is

irrefutably,

and



15/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

unavoidably, political. This is a consequence of the destruction

wrought by photography

and other

technological

means on

the

mythic

status of the artwork

and its

perceptual

apparatus.

Photography

and

film do this

through

their

power

of

uncovering

and

disassembling:

"Photographic reproduction,

with

the aid of certain

processes,

such as

enlargement

or slow

motion,

can

capture

images

which

escape

natural

vision."26

In

so

doing,

the

relationships pertaining

between

time,

space,

and

gesture

are

reconfigured:

With

the

close-up, space expands;

with slow

motion,

movement is

extended. The enlargement of a snapshot does not simply render

more

precise

what

in

any

case

was

visible,

though

unclear: it

reveals

entirely

new structural

formations of the

subject.27

The

thinking subject's

relationship

with the material

world

suddenly

becomes

disentangled

from traditional

mediation because

"for the first

time

in world

history,

mechanical

reproduction

emancipates

the work

of art

from its

parasitical

dependence

on ritual."28

In the absence of a

ritualistic

mediating presence

the

materiality,

the

thin[-ness,

of

the

object

of

perception

will

increase, and,

in

its

turn,

magnify

the

strength

of the

perceptive gaze

directed towards it. Fetishism

subsequently

becomes a

major

character trait of

the modern mind:

"every day

the

urge grows stronger

to

get

hold of an

object

at

very

close

range

by way

of its

likeness,

its

reproduction."29

Art has

always

been

politicalthat

is to

say,

it has contained

political

messages;

it

generates political

response;

it has

always

been

subject

to

repression

or

appropriation

by

state,

monarch or church. But

the

artwork's basis

in ritual

ultimately protected

its

independence,

because

it

remained,

essentially,

functional.

Ritual was where the

original

use

value of art was to

be found. With

the advent of

photography

("the

first

truly revolutionary

means of

reproduction"30)

art faced a crisis. If

the

authenticity

of

the

original

artwork,

along

with its ritual

function,

had been diluted to

the

point

of

having

no societal traction at

all,

then

it follows that

the need for artistic

practice

would come

under

scrutiny.

Benjamin

outlines the

reactions

with which the artistic

community

met

this

challenge:

l'art

pour

l'art,

for

example,

attempted

a

theology

of art

itself and

"this

gave

rise to

what

might

be called a

negative theology

in

the form

of the idea of

'pure'

art,

which not

only

denied

any

social

function

of art but also

any

categorizing by subject

matter."31 There

follows a

polarization regarding

the

reception

of art. Art is seen either

to

rely

on its

inherent cult value

or on its exhibition

value: "with the

emancipation

of the

various art

practices

from

ritual

go

increasing

opportunities

for the exhibition

of their

products."32

But,

of

course,

as



16/39

I 28

Perspectives

of

New Music

the means of reproduction change, the nature of the artwork changes

accordingly:

"its fitness

for exhibition"

resulted in a

"qualitative

trans

formation

of its nature."33

As a

result,

the traditional

artistic functions

of the artwork

may

even come

to be

recognized

as incidental.

The cult

value,

however,

does

not

evaporate,

not

immediately

and

not

completely,

it retires onto

other levels.

In

early photography,

according

to

Benjamin,

the

human face is the

sole

subject;

a

vestige

of

a cult of

mysticism

and

melancholy

as absent or dead

loved-ones take

up

a

new,

and

imminently reproducible,

permanence.

Later,

as the

human

countenance itself

recedes from

view,

the deserted

streets of

Paris

("like

scenes of

crime"34)

stir the viewer out of free-floating

contemplation

and towards

a more

intense,

and

intensely uneasy,

relationship

with the

subject

matter.

Photographs

become moments

(note

the

importance

of

time)

of

undecidibility, ready

to

be filled with

political charge.

Benjamin

observes that

images

now

require captions

(rather

than

titles),

as the decentred

content

sparks

connections,

social

and

political,

with forces

outside

of itself. The

single

frame,

the

momentary snapshot,

becomes

energised;

the

monad,

or

single

gesture,

is a

potentially explosive

bundle of

conflicting,

radical and

destructive

energies;

and its inherent

charge

makes its

position

in time

contingent.

As

photography

gives

birth

to

film,

as the illusion

of a naturalised

time

passing

is

artificially

reconstructed

in the

editing

suite,

"the

meaning

of each

single picture

appears

to

be

prescribed by

the

sequence

of all

preceding

ones."35

The

"integral

whole" is

no

longer.

Instead,

the

sequence

of

positional

views

which the editor

composes

from

the material

supplied

him constitutes the

completed

film. It com

prises

certain factors

of movement

which are in

reality

those

of the

camera,

not

to mention

special

camera

angles, close-ups

etc.

Hence the

performance

of the actor

is

subjected

to a series of

optical

tests.36

Testing

is

important

here because

the audience is

obliged

to take the

position

of the

camera,

in its

critical, forensic,

fetishistic close

concentration

on detail.

For the screen actor

his

performance

is no

longer

"all of a

piece

. . . there are

elementary

necessities of

equipment

that

split

the actor's

work into a series of

mountable

episodes."37

Thus,

the actor is required to engage in a series of mini-performances, non

sequentially,

and isolated

in

the

moment of creation

from the intended

audience.

But the destructive

nature of

film-making goes

further,

and

narrative

is not the

only

victim in this series

of destructive

acts;

the



17/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

actor, too, is bodily thrust apart and the separate considerations, in the

form of isolated

close-ups

of

head,

face,

torso,

gait,

take on

special

significance.

The idea of

physical integrity

becomes

just

that,

an

idea,

supposed

but not

actualised;

it is the

supposition

of the authentic

through

inauthentic

means.

Thus,

as film

attempts

to reconstruct the

supposition

of aura it does so

for its own

purposes,

not

those of the

subject

under consideration. This simulation

of aura has a number

of

consequences.

The

armoury

of

techniques

at the film-maker's

disposal

make-up, lighting, close-up,

retouching,

shutter

speed,

etc.

conspire

in the creation

for the

object

(human

or

otherwise)

a

"special

intensity, beauty and authority."38 It becomes fetishised, inordinately

detailed,

unavoidably

vital,

overwhelmingly

seductive.

The mundane

becomes

extraordinary,

and

intoxicating.

The

supposition

of the

integrity

of the

thinking subject

and,

indeed,

of

time,

is

forcibly

impressed upon

the narrative creation

without

regard

for

its

truth

value.

Here the

challenge

of

Benjamin's

thinking

reveals itself at

its

most

urgent:

if

we succumb

to the attractions of

fabricated aura

available to

us

through

modern

technologies,

do we then lose

the

experience

of truth?

Film,

even in its

revolutionary

birth

pangs,

has

already

become for

Benjamin

the site of the

struggle

between

Fascism

(destruction for tradition) and revolution (destruction towards

redemption).

Benjamin's

studies of

photography

and film take their

places

in the

wider

region

of

thought

referred to above as the "Surrealist"

or the

"avant-garde experience."

This is

important

for the

musicologist

because it releases

the technical considerations of

reproducibility

and

the theoretical

implications

of aura from

film and

photography

studies

and makes

the

philosophical

off-shoots

useful outside of those

disciplines.

This is as

it should

be,

of

course,

considering Benjamin's

"desire for the

philosophical

articulation of an

expanded

or 'total'

concept

of

experience (Erfahrung)

. . . which would exclude no

domain,

however

marginal,

bizarre or

esoteric,

from its

compass."39

And this "total"

concept,

in essence a

counterpoise

to

neo-Kantianism,

would

incorporate

for the future

development

of

epistemology

the

vitality

and

vagaries

of the

subjective

mind: "to determine the

true

criteria for

differentiating

between the values of

the various

types

of

consciousness

will be one of the

highest

tasks of the future

philosophy."40

If the instance of the fabrication

of aura in film is seen

as the site of a

dangerous

battle

between the forces of

repression

and the forces of

revolution,

an

important question

needs

to be articulated: can

we

hope

to

find other routes to the consideration

of the

problematics

of aura

that do not overwhelm

the

necessity

of

living

in

society?

In other



18/39

Perspectives

of

New Music

words,

can an aesthetic model be

developed

to make useful the

energies

of not

only

active revolutionism but also latent

redemption?

Benjamin

may

have said that Surrealism's "most

particular

task" was "to

win

the

energies

of intoxication

for the

revolution,"41

but he also

allowed for

a

"revolutionary experience,

if not action."42

Two themes now

emerge

for consideration: mimetic

perception

and

the free association

of

disparate

ideas

and

images

that

finds

its

most

important

aesthetic

expression

within Proust's

concept

of mmoire

involuntaire.

Both

enable

a

widened

application

of

the

principles

of

auratic

experience

and both find

expression

in

Surrealism,

especially

in

its

ability

to make

possible

a

philosophical enquiry

that

opens

modern

subjectivity

to

the

pressures

of intoxication.

This

was

explored through

a number of

phenomena,

including

the

consumption

of

opium

and

hashish in a

never-completed

book that

was,

as

Benjamin

claimed,

to

"mark off the real site of ruin

or

catastrophe."43

Benjamin

undertook a

number of controlled

experiments

with hashish

("a

divided,

contradictory experience,"44

he

reported)

and

found the common

effects"heighted perceptual acuity,

the

experience

of an

expansion

of

space,

the

'derangement

of one's sense of time

[Zeitsinn\,'

a return to

the

infantile,

the

frequent

activation of

memory"45to

resonate with

his

thinking

on

Surrealism.

Benjamin's

task was to draw from

Proust,

Baudelaire,

the Surrealists and from their

perceptual realignment

vis-

vis cultural artefacts and

everyday living,

a

type

of

experience

that

could

rejuvenate

the

capacity

and the influence of the

imagination.

This is

only possible (in agreement

with

Freud) by initiating

a

close

"encounter with the unconscious."46 The

faculty

of

imagination,

Benjamin

says

in

One-Way

Street,

is

. . . the

gift

of

interpolating

into the

infinitely

small,

of

inventing,

for

every intensity,

an extensiveness to contain its

new,

com

pressed

fullness,

in

short,

of

receiving

each

image

as if it were that

of the folded

fan,

which

only

in

spreading

draws breath and

flour

ishes,

in its new

expanse,

the beloved features within it.47

The

heightened

awareness common with intoxication is

revelatory.

It

promotes

an

"image space"

within which

phenomena

make

themselves

available for the

purpose

of

defining

an aesthetic

modality through

which the

Surrealists and others could find a

"profane

illumination;"

an illumination that would exist

beyond

the strictures

(political

and

theocentric) of established society. "Experiences are lived similar

ities"48

Benjamin

says,

and this

opens up

the

possibility

of a

type

of

perception

that

challenges

received notions of

time,

history

and mem

ory.

The

living

through

of

contiguities

and similarities across time



19/39

Benjaminian

Tropes

in Funrailles

131

means that the experience of the

past

in the

present

is suddenly vital,

not

languid:

The

appearances

of

superposition,

of

overlap,

which come with

hashish

may

be

grasped through

the

concept

of similitude. When

we

say

that one face is similar

to

another,

we mean that certain

features of this second face

appear

to us in the

first,

without the

latter's

ceasing

to be what it has been.

Nevertheless,

the

possibili

ties

of

entering

into

appearance

in this

way

are not

subject

to

any

criterion and are therefore boundless. The

category

of

similarity,

which for the

waking

consciousness has

only

minimal

relevance,

attains

unlimited relevance

in

the world of hashish.

There,

we

may

say, everything

is

face:

each

thing

has the

degree

of

bodily pres

ence that allows it to be searchedas one

searches

a

facefor

such traits as

appear.

Under these conditions even a sentence

(to

say nothing

of the

word)

puts

on a

face,

and

this face

resembles

that of the sentence

standing opposed

to it. In this

way every

truth

points manifestly

to its

opposite,

and

this state of affairs

explains

the existence of doubt. Truth becomes

something living;

it lives

solely

in the

rhythm by

which statement and counterstate

ment

displace

each other in order to think each other.49

This is Proust's

"thoroughly

alive and creative

sleep

of the uncon

scious."50

"A

sort of

productive

disorder is the canon of the mmoire

in.volunta.iresays

Benjamin,

before

quoting

from Le

Temps

retrouv.

"And I had

already

lived

long enough

so

that,

for

more than one of

the

human

beings

with

whom I had

come in

contact,

I

found

in

antipodal regions

of

my past

memories another

being

to

complete

the

picture."51

The "avant-garde experience", then, can be summarized as a

political

renegotiation

of the

perception

of

time and

history

that

incorporates

the

possibilities opened up by

the

vagaries

of the

conscious

and

unconscious

minds. In

dealing

with

the

music of

Ferneyhough,

as seen

in his

early piece

Funrailles,

the aim will

be to

extract

positive

conclusions in the

acceptance

of intoxicationin its

Surrealist

expressionon

the

aesthetic

perception

of the

workings

of

art. In

particular,

this

will include the

derangement

of the sense of

time,

the

heightened perception

of

objects

and the

imagination's

ability

to

find

non-consequential

similarities

through

the

workings

of

memory, the increased micronisation of structural decision-making and

the

acceptance

of destruction as a

presupposition

before

the

conceptualisation

of construction.



20/39

I 32

Perspectives

of

New Music

Brian Ferneyhough and the "Avant-Garde Experience"

Ferneyhough

had dealt

directly

with the collision of man and

machine,

of

human,

subjective

time and

society-induced

mechanistic time in his

Time and Motion

Studies. But these studies drew

existential,

psychopathetic

and nihilistic conclusions.

Funrailles,

on the other

hand,

represents

a

deep

well in

which the initial return

to material

doesn't obviate the

potential

of further

versions,

ad infinitum if

necessary.

The

concept

of

reproducibilty

in

Benjamin's

"Work of Art"

essay

focuses attention on the

ongoing process.

As in

the case of

Funrailles there is no hierarchy of original and copy, both are equal

and indeed remain

ready

to be

joined by

further

equals.

It seems clear

that the

very

nature of

Funrailles as a

unity

of two

aspects,

with

its

own

combinatorial

fecundity,

and its

readiness and

aptness

to be

reproduced,

is the

point

of the

piece.

And the

Benjaminian argument

that contends that the

unique

existence of an

artwork is

compromised,

or at

least

fundamentally

altered,

by

the

creation

of

a

copy

further

strengthens

the

concept

that

emerged

out of Funrailles. The

signifi

cance of Funrailles Version 1 becomes

heightened (without

it

being

subjected

to material

change)

when it is

impelled

to

project

outside of

its own

workings

and towards the

relationship

it is now forced to live

vis--vis

its

double.

In

Proustian

terms,

this is

the other

being,

drawn

from

antipodal regions

of the

memory

"to

complete

the

picture."

Benjamin's

interest is

replication

or

regeneration

in

exact detail but

with a

confused source and a decimated

origin;

Ferneyhough's

Version

2 is

rearranged

and

rewritten,

effectively

a re-enactment

of its

predecessor.

Yet,

despite

the absence of

mechanical

reproduction,

Ferneyhough

has created a

commentary

on

the various

possibilities

surrounding

the

concept

of

reproducibility,

and on the

problems

it

causes for the

understanding

of the

workings

of the modern

mind,

whether it is actively engaged with technological processes or not. The

effort in this

case, however,

is

retained

by

the

composer,

and not taken

over

by

machine or

computer.

There

are

parallels

in film

and the visual

arts;

for

example

Gus Van Sant's tribute to

(and

reconstruction

of)

Hitchcock,

in

Psycho

(1998),

or the

Chapman

Brothers'

re-imagining

of

Goya,

Insult to

Injury

(2003).

Works such

as these seek

to

exploit

the dramatic ironies of late

capitalism

within which

the authorial

presence

is

subsumed

by

market

forces;

where

distribution,

rather than

production,

is

given

pre-eminence.

If Van Sant and

the

Chapmans

can

be seen as

subverting

or

undermining

the

idea

(the myth)

of

originality,

Ferneyhough

is more

convincingly

seen as a custodian of

Sontag's

instant

antiques,

where lost

originality

becomes a more

compelling

vehicle

through

which

contemporary expression

can be



21/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in Funrailles

explored. What is clear, nevertheless, is that Benjaminian tropes

abound

in

all of these works. With

relation to Funrailles we can see a

complex

web of associations

and

suppositions

that deals

directly

and

indirectly

with aura and its

problematic

appearance/disappearance

and

more

particularly

with its

manifestation

(real

or

fabricated)

through

the

treatment of

extant,

concrete materials.

Benjaminian

tropes

in

Funrailles

Both versions of Funrailles play "at a distance" for the majority of

their

durations;

the "rite

taking place

behind a

curtain,

or in the far

distance"52 is effected in

performance through

the use of mutes in the

strings

or

by

the

use of "restrained harmonics." The

physically

shocking

moment of

breaking through

this barrier occurs in

measure

94 of Version

1,

measure 97 of Version

2,

where the

string players

remove their

mutes: "the listener feels that he has been

bodily

thrust

across the

intervening space right

into the sounds

themselves;

there is

the sensation of

outraged

violation."53 The allusions to

opticity

and

tactility

are

important

and

serve as useful

engagers throughout

the

composer's subsequent output.

The

"practised

hand"54

(which

was

once the

artist's,

and now

holds the film-maker's

scalpel)

is

highlighted

by Femeyhough's disassembly

and

reassembly

of Version

1;

the

severing

of units from their contexts

and their

remounting

in

locally

defined surface contexts is the main

point

of the

piece.

Fundamental to

an

understanding

of

Funrailles

is the

story given

in the

original

score

(since

removed in the current Peters

Edition)

in which

the

composer

pictures

"a

Martian

landing

on

top

of

a

large

hill and

looking

down at

a

parade ground, watching

these

creatures

wandering

backwards and

forwards in

various

patterns,

and

wondering precisely

what he would

feel

about it."55 This double

gaze,

of

looking

at,

and of

looking

at

oneself

looking

at,

heightens

the

bodily presence

of the

subject.

Distraction is now the

perceptive topos,

not

contemplation.

Here

Benjamin

addresses the distracted

experience

of the

spectator

in the

case of film: "the

distracting

element

. .

. is . . .

primarily

tactile,

being

based on

changes

of

place

and focus which

periodically

assail the

spectator

... no sooner has his

eye grasped

a scene

than it is

already

changed.

It cannot be arrested."56

Femeyhough's

Funrailles

is

such

an

experiment,

it is music

that is not

merely

composed,

but

composed

and editedits scenes, its re-contextualised frames, its shifting of

perspective,

its

bodily comportment,

and

its

denial of

immediacy,

make

it

very

much a filmic

experience.



22/39

I 34

Perspectives of

New Music

The

following

is a number of

distinctly Benjaminian tropes

that can

usefully

be

mapped

onto the structure of Funrailles. The

aim is to

offer

types

of

approaches

through

which a more detailed

analysis

could

be directed.

The focus is the

assembly,

within

Funrailles,

of notational

and

strategic techniques

that

engage

with facets of

Benjamin's

"avant

garde"

or "Surrealist

experience," namely:

a sense of

derange-ment

in

the

perception

of

time;

the

coupling

of destruction and

construction;

the establishment of

sequential, positional

views;

the

value of

exhibition over

ritual;

the

promotion

of distinct

micronised

performances;

the creation of immanent

profiling;

and the

adoption

of

the filmmaker's

inauthentic

techniques

in

the face of

a

disappearing

aura.

ZEITSINN

Funrailles Version 1 establishes

its

expressive

ambit

clearly

from the

outset. The texture from measure

1

is

comparatively simple, consisting

of held

notes,

coloured

by

use of timbrai transformations

(

non

vibrato

to vibrato ordinare, for example, in violin one, measure 1) and

dynamic

swells.

This linear material

progresses

on the

whole

by

semitones

and is treated to microtonal

variation;

the microtones are

used here as ornaments

and without structural

import.

Isolated

notes,

alla

punta

harmonics,

short-lived trills and

pizzicato punctuate

this

texture.

Declamatory

annunciation is of

great

importance

to this

opening passage.

The first action is marked "sudden and

unexpected"

and comes out of a

nine second

period

of

motionlessness;

elsewhere

the held notes

are introduced

percussively by

a

left hand

pizzicato.

Like

many

of

Ferneyhough's openings

this is

simply

the

unfolding

through space (register) and time (duration) of crude material. What

activates this

material,

and enables it to

uphold

a narrative

impulse,

is

the

subsequent

decollement

that sees

duration,

gesture, pulse, pitch

cycles (and

other

secondary

parameters)

become

decoupled

from their

supporting

mechanisms.

The

pull,

or

torsion,

that is

enacted

upon

the

unfolding

materials

is the

defining

feature of this music. Read in

Benjaminian

terms

in

becomes

an

expression

of

zeitsinn,

a

derange

ment in the

perception

of

time,

commonly

associated with hashish

eating

and also

of the more

generalised

"avant-garde experience."

Example

4 shows a

typical passage

where the

original

material is found

in a more highly developed state.

Held notes are now

more

likely

to be double

stops,

executed with

glissando

or with cross

string

tremolo.

The

punctuating

materials have



23/39

Benjaminian Tropes

in

Funrailles

developed into inchoate but potential micro-gestures. Significantly,

this

passage, despite

the exactitude of

rhythmic

and durational

detail,

does not

play against

a

uniform

pulse.

The

underlying tempo

(as

distinct

from

any

internal

pulse

rates)

fluctuates

constantly:

measure 60

sees the

completion

of

a uniform deceleration

to

,h=48

(from

J^=60,

measure

59),

measures

61 and 62

accelerate,

expressively

(note

the

pi

agitato)

and

narrowly,

before

descending

to

j>=42;

this is followed

by

a

further

acceleration

towards

JV=50

at the

beginning

of measure 64.

Again,

this

tempo

is not

established,

it

is

merely

a marker within a

continuously

undulating

timeline.

Variation,

in this

context,

is

achieved not (only) as the working through of material or by the

transformation

of

pitch

contour

but,

more

importantly, by

establishing

a

tension

between the

perceptual

flow of time and the

mapping

of

gestural

vocables. Version

1 sustains itself

through

line. The held note

may

become

punctuated by

smaller

gestures

but the

dispersal

and

development

of

energy

is

univocal,

with

all

players contributing

together

as a

single

ensemble,

despite

their

antiphonal positioning.

The result is a forced

lyricism

in which th

brian ferneyhough and the 'avant-garde experience' - benjamin tropes in 'funerailles

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