It’s always inspiring to return to a work which has inspired me for years. So it was wonderful to spend a night working on Michael Finnissy’s ‘Song 13 (1978), which forms part of my project based around Tartini for this year’s (2016) Bergen Festival. LINK.

The piece is a one-page wonder, marked ‘Relaxed. Extremely Soft’. It demands an exquisite balance between extreme precision, and some typically vertiginous decoration, and a wondrous sleepy-ness, between feathers and needles. It begins with a punctuated, flowing silence, and ends with  a drawn out horizon (D), shaded with every closer microtones – details on a distant landscape. I love it.

Detail from ‘Song 13′ .’With great purity, concentration, and purity of sound’ (9 5 15)

Michael Finnissy-Song 13

Concert performance-London 1999

Peter Sheppard Skaerved

Stradivari 1734 (Habeneck)

Click on ENEK

Michael Finnissy with PSS. 2009. Photo: Richard Bram