Finnissy: English Country Tunes

For my last "chosen piece," I wanted to find something interesting to me. I researched to find out what pianists generally think is the hardest piece of music ever written. While it is clear that this is a loaded question (and depends heavily on the strengths and weaknesses of the performer), I did come across an interesting piece by Michael Finnissy (b. 1946). The score of one section is below:



(a side note: I can (barely) read music, and I really enjoy looking at piano scores, even if I can't come close to playing them. For some reason, I find them beautiful in their own way)

Of course, writing down a collection of the hardest notes to play doesn't make something music, but playing it does (YouTube video), at least in some respects. Listening to this piece is almost (but not quite) like listening to someone banging on a piano as fast as they can. It's the not quite that gets you. The piece is incredibly dissonant, and really hard to listen to as music. The movement and range is ridiculous, if you can even call it movement and not banging. But the difficulty is that at the end of the day, like John Cage's 4'33", we must admit that it at least resembles music.