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Top 25 Brian Ferneyhough Quotes (2025 Update)

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.”

1. “Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “There would seem to be a limit, even for an art preoccupied with boundaries and transgressions, beyond which a work reaches its breaking point and becomes an actual failure, a mere experimentation.”

2. “There would seem to be a limit, even for an art preoccupied with boundaries and transgressions, beyond which a work reaches its breaking point and becomes an actual failure, a mere experimentation.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Questioning the nature and implications of liminal instances necessarily involves failure, if only in the specifically technical sense of entering spaces where prevailing criteria of success scarcely apply.”

3. “Questioning the nature and implications of liminal instances necessarily involves failure, if only in the specifically technical sense of entering spaces where prevailing criteria of success scarcely apply.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “So: we’re all tired. Now what? Manuscripts written in Club Med?”

4. “So: we’re all tired. Now what? Manuscripts written in Club Med?”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.”

5. “The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent.”

6. “In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Naturally enough, I couldn’t have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.”

7. “Naturally enough, I couldn’t have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “In my model, important interference phenomena arise when individual strata come into contact. These chaotic fluctuations are, I suppose, what my music is really about.”

8. “In my model, important interference phenomena arise when individual strata come into contact. These chaotic fluctuations are, I suppose, what my music is really about.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of ‘variation’ much as if measure lengths were concrete musical ‘material.’”

9. “I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of ‘variation’ much as if measure lengths were concrete musical ‘material.’”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow.”

10. “By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “I would not say that I was, these days, a ‘student’ of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists.”

11. “I would not say that I was, these days, a ‘student’ of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “In any case, the fewer boundaries that exist hindering free movement between all forms of articulate human cognition, the better.”

12. “In any case, the fewer boundaries that exist hindering free movement between all forms of articulate human cognition, the better.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.”

13. “Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “The idea of ‘machine assemblage’ is, especially, very alien to my sensibility, since it suggests a relative indifference of the strata to one another during the process of construction.”

14. “The idea of ‘machine assemblage’ is, especially, very alien to my sensibility, since it suggests a relative indifference of the strata to one another during the process of construction.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic ‘family’ in the world outside.”

15. “Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic ‘family’ in the world outside.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “I don’t like listening to my music, not even new pieces. Generally, they sound pretty much like I expected them to sound, so it’s what I wanted, and that’s it.”

16. “I don’t like listening to my music, not even new pieces. Generally, they sound pretty much like I expected them to sound, so it’s what I wanted, and that’s it.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?”

17. “What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Composers dialogue – and obsessively, bitterly argue – with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.”

18. “Composers dialogue – and obsessively, bitterly argue – with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.”

19. “When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “As a necessary prerequisite to the creation of new forms of expression one might, I suppose, argue that current sensibilities respond uniquely to the notion of exhaustion as exhaustion, although that does de facto seem rather limiting.”

20. “As a necessary prerequisite to the creation of new forms of expression one might, I suppose, argue that current sensibilities respond uniquely to the notion of exhaustion as exhaustion, although that does de facto seem rather limiting.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “When I speak of “cycles,” I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity, if not in the resolving of problems, than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.”

21. “When I speak of “cycles,” I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity, if not in the resolving of problems, than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “I suppose that the scope and implications of such forces have rendered my personal accounting ritual pretty much obsolete. That’s how things sometimes go.”

22. “I suppose that the scope and implications of such forces have rendered my personal accounting ritual pretty much obsolete. That’s how things sometimes go.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “It is still true that it is easier to compose a poem in the form of a manual for adjusting a VCR than it is to write a piece using just tuning as a symphony.”

23. “It is still true that it is easier to compose a poem in the form of a manual for adjusting a VCR than it is to write a piece using just tuning as a symphony.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.”

24. “The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “If nothing is at risk, nothing is established.”

25. “If nothing is at risk, nothing is established.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “If the work of art is to continue pursuing the vision of both being in and of the world but nevertheless in some fashion being more than just one more object to the mounting clutter, this is the specific point, I think, where this must be assured.”

26. “If the work of art is to continue pursuing the vision of both being in and of the world but nevertheless in some fashion being more than just one more object to the mounting clutter, this is the specific point, I think, where this must be assured.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “This was possible only by dint of extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion.”

27. “This was possible only by dint of extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough Quote: “Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me.”

28. “Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me.”

— Brian Ferneyhough

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