Quote For The Middle of March

Brian Ferneyhough: perhaps just after reading a funny computer printout.

One of the 'complex' things about 'complex' music is its quality of of refusing to present a straightforward object (as for instance in much minimal sculpture): it is always perceived in the act of underlining it's own ongoing and provisional nature. It doesn't present the illusion of not being an illusion - in large measure because of the continual problematization of the performance/interpretaton context.

Brian Ferneyhough; Responses To A Questionnaire on 'complexity' (1990), from Collected Writings (you can get the relevant pdf extract plus another one in this previous 'free stuff' post.)

My note, this concept of a piece being ongoing and provisional reminds me of Derrida's idea about meaning always being deferred, perhaps one could speculate that music like Ferneyhough's is a product of the same post-structuralist/post-modern milieux (if you like, or perhaps it would be better just to drink beer and crush the empty cans on our heads, it's probably post-something)