Strauss-Walzer / Michael Finnissy (1967-89)
 

    "The three Strauss-Waltzer (“Where the Lemon Trees Bloom”, “O Beautiful May”, and “Tales from the Vienna Woods”) were originally part of a longer set of 23 Poems/Fantasies written, for the most part, between 1960 and 1968. At that time I was accompanying ballet classes to pay my way through Sixth Form and college, and these pieces reflect (to a certain extent) “balletic” idioms -- and (more specifically) my enthusiasm for the virtuosic transcriptions of Strauss by Tausig and Godowsky. However, these are not straightforward “transcriptions”; the original sequences have been chopped up into tiny fragments, and then re-ordered -- rather in the manner of the re-ordered angles and perspectives of Cubist and Futuristic painting... harmonic and melodic patterns recognizable from Strauss’s originals appear out of sequence and with no fear of the consequent tonal instability. The intention is to evoke the spirit and sensual elevation of a Strauss waltz, and clearly not to try and reproduce (or fake) one. The waltzes have subsequently been re-copied, and re-dedicated to Jonathan Powell, Nic Hodges, and Ben Morison, who gave them their respective first performances."
    - Michael Finnissy
 

   Michael Finnissy was born in Tulse Hill, London in 1946. He was a Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied composition with Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Searle, and piano with Edwin Benbow and Ian Lake. Afterwards, he studied in Italy with Roman Vlad. He has taught or has been guest lecturer or musician-in-residence at many colleges and universities, and currently teaches composition at the University of Sussex where he is a Research Fellow, and the Royal Academy of Music, London. He created the music department of the London School of Contemporary Dance, and has been associated as composer with many British dance companies.
    He is a prolific composer and his curiosity about a wide range of music—especially folk—combines with a fascination by mathematical structures. This interplay between ideas symbolizing the innocent, unconditional response to music-making and rigorous, intellectual processes frequently creates an emotional quality in his work that has been described as “a happy melancholia”.
    He has been featured composer at the Bath, Huddersfield, and Almeida festivals; his work is performed and broadcast worldwide. As a pianist he is particularly associated with the commissioning and performing of new British work; and numerous composers have written pieces for him. A cycle of CDs on the Metier label is underway—discs of 'Folklore' and works for string quartet have been released to great critical acclaim, and further discs are planned. A second disc on the NMC label, chamber music played by Ixion conducted by the composer, was released in October 1998.