Responding to the ‘heroic’ avant-garde of the 1970s.

A film of and documentary about Brian Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II for cello/cellist and electronics (1973-76).

I first encountered Brian Ferneyhough in the mid 1990s during a stint as the principal cellist of Music Projects/London. I’d heard his music several times in concert and been fascinated by the sweep of the musical narrative and the textural density of the material, but something hadn’t yet clicked. That changed completely seeing him first hand in rehearsal. His physical, quasi-choreographic, relationship with his music made a compelling impression – as did his acute sense for how the detail of the music could be made to speak (and when – and when not – to insist on pinpoint accuracy). Like a lot of musicians, I expect, I am naturally a bit suspicious of complexity for its own sake and seeing and hearing Brian in action immediately dispelled any fear that this might be the case in his music.

A couple of years later I was invited to play the second Time and Motion Study in a London festival and it has been part of my life since. The films here were made in 2005 when Brian was in London for performances of Shadowtime at English National Opera. Although they’re now almost historical documents I have them on the site partly because I’m very proud of them and partly because I still want invitations to play the piece! This is one of many projects I’ve done in collaboration with Colin Still, of Optic Nerve. I am enormously thankful to him for his vision in helping see these films through – and also of course to Paul Archbold who has been my performance partner for this piece since 2003.

An ideal concert partner for this is Jonathan Harvey’s Advaya (1994), which I also play with Paul.