Michael Finnissy: Folklore

£6.99£9.50

Catalogue No: MSVCD 92010
EAN/UPC: 809730201028
Artists:
Composers:
Release Date: June 1998
Genres: ,
Periods:
Discs: 1
Total Playing Time: 63:46

One of Britain’s most accomplished, celebrated and prolific composers, Michael Finnissy here plays a programme of his works based on folk music from several countries.

For more music by Michael Finnissy on Metier and Divine Art visit the composer index.

Track Listing

    Michael Finnissy:
  1. Folklore II (29:38)
  2. Three Dukes went a-riding (3:57)
  3. My love is like a red,red rose (3:40)
  4. How dear to me (4:31)
  5. Willow Willow (2:34)
  6. Vieux Noel, op. 59 no. 2 (1:03)
  7. Australian Sea Shanties, Set 2 no. 1 (1:30)
  8. Australian Sea Shanties, Set 2 no. 2 (1:27)
  9. Polskie Tance, op. 32 - No. 1 - Kujawiak-Kozak (0:25)
  10. Polskie Tance, op. 32 - No. 2 - Kozak-Drobny (0:36)
  11. Polskie Tance, op. 32 - No. 3 - Kujawiak (0:59)
  12. Polskie Tance, op. 32 - No. 4 - Zbojnicki (0:55)
  13. Terekkeme (3:20)
  14. Lylyly Li (8:25)
  15. Svatovac (0:46)

Reviews

5Against4

The geographical range of folk music drawn on in this collection of works is considerable, spanning Romania, China, Poland, Azerbaijan, Afro-America, Australia, Macedonia and Britain. A great deal of human history and culture is thereby encompassed in these pieces. The source materials aren’t merely served up as quotations, but make themselves manifest in the music. Truly engrossing.

” —Simon Cummings
Avant

Finnissy reinvests folk tunes with the musical equivalent of a complex psychology; his transcriptions countervail against the cosy, sanitised, skipping-round-the-maypole version of rural life in bygone days that organisations such as English Heritage promote.

” —Brian Marley
Gramophone

Finnissy has a refreshingly inauthentic approach to traditional sources, redefining their harmonic and rhythmic qualities in his often virtuoso pianism.

” —Richard Whitehouse
BBC Music Magazine

a programme of subtle and absorbing sounds. Michael Finnissy’s piano style…[transforms] folkish melodies into evocative vistas of colour.

” —David Breckbill
BBC Music Magazine Critics Choice 1998

This is a sublime and vigorously enthralling disc of folk-inspired works from one of the most important living composers… the beauty of the playing and the music are never in doubt. CRITICS’ CHOICE 1998

” —Christopher Dingle
The Sunday Times

This is the first of several Finnissy discs planned by Metier and a fair taster of his sound-world and aesthetic outlook.

” —Paul Driver
The Guardian

[Folklore II] is elusive music, and the other folk-based pieces are useful primers for the greater sophistication and subtlety of the larger works.

” —Andrew Clements
Classic CD

Often euphonious music – an ideal introduction to one of Britain’s most important avant-gardists.

” —Andy Hamilton