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Finnissy's Voices

Weeks, James

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Authors



Contributors

Ian Pace
Editor

Nigel McBride
Editor

Abstract

The human voice has a central place in Michael Finnissy’s work. As Finnissy attests, part of the voice’s significance to him lies in its tendency to melody: his is an art of line, of connective lyric movement spun out over a breath. This chapter aims to probe the generalisations a little more deeply and investigates the nature and nuances of Finnissian vocality in two vocal ensemble works written thirty-five years apart: Tom Fool’s Wooing and Gesualdo: Libro Sesto. Demanding as it may be, much of the vocality of Tom Fool’s Wooing is rooted in fundamental vocal archetypes, connected with the work’s similarly archetypal themes of love, courtship and coupling. Thus Finnissy adopts and develops Gesualdo’s harmonic and textural strategies, and the expressive principles underlying them, in different directions within the work. Finnissy’s voices are not only bodies but someone’s bodies, placed in relation to these cardinal questions through which they interrogate their own humanity.

Citation

Weeks, J. (2019). Finnissy's Voices. In I. Pace, & N. McBride (Eds.), Critical perspectives on Michael Finnissy : bright futures, dark pasts. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351031547

Online Publication Date May 24, 2019
Publication Date May 24, 2019
Deposit Date Dec 13, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Publisher Routledge
Series Title Ashgate studies in theory and analysis of music after 1900
Edition 1st ed.
Book Title Critical perspectives on Michael Finnissy : bright futures, dark pasts.
ISBN 9781138491977
DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351031547

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Accepted Book Chapter (1.6 Mb)
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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Critical perspectives on Michael Finnissy : bright futures, dark pasts on 24 May 2019 available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138491977




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