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.

Cage: 4' 33"

Author

John Cage (see author description in previous post)

About the Piece

• Genre is general instrumental
• indeterminacy plays large role in piece
• background noise "is" the music
• perhaps the most controversial piece of all time
• three movements
  
• Wikipedia Article
• YouTube Video
  

Purpose

• question the meaning of music and the distinction between music and noise
  

Reflections

I still don't know what I think about this piece. I could argue either way as to whether it is music, but I'm not really sure myself. It is certainly something that can never be imitated, and raises the interesting question that transends music: What is nothing? That is a far more loaded question even than "what is music?"

Prokofiev: Toccata in D minor Op.11

Author

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953: Russian)

• wrote first piano compositions at age 5
• composed his first opera at age 9
• graduated top of his class from the St. Petersburg Conservatory
• wife was arrested in 1948 for "espionage"
• died on March 5, 1953, the same day as Stalin
• Wikipedia Article
  

About the Piece

• Genre is piano toccata
• as title indicates, piece possesses minor key tonality throughout
• theme throughout involves alternating of two low D's
• piece is very tense throughout
• lots of fast movement throughout piece
• no clear melody is ever established
• strong use of dissonance
• huge range: parts of the piece are played with one hand in the highest register of the piano and the other in the lowest
  
• theme returns at the end, slows down, fades, then transitions to dramatic Coda including a glissando
• YouTube Video
  

Purpose

• entertainment
• virtuosity
  

Reflections

I love this piece. The amount of hand movement and the shear number of notes is incredible. I especially like seeing the pianist playing notes inside one hand with the other (the two hands superimposed). As for the musical quality of the piece, I love the tension built throughout the piece that finally bursts into a dramatic glissando in the Coda.