Michael Finnissy: Gershwin

Editorial Reviews
The Sunday Times
"...He pays homage...from his very personal avant-garde standpoint as 'one of the most original composers of our day.'"

About the Artist
Born in London in 1946, Michael Finnissy studied composition at the Royal College of Music and in Italy. His works are widely performed and broadcast, and he has been featured composer at many festivals worldwide.

Album Description
This recording presents two cycles of Michael Finnissy's brilliant arrangements of Gershwin songs for piano solo. These are not nostalgic attempts to recreate the spirit of the originals, but personalized restylings to suit scenarios and emotions often remote from those originally intended. The two cycles comprise 22 song transcriptions altogether.

Michael Finnissy: Gershwin

Michael Finnissy: Gershwin, Music, Michael Finnissy, Nicolas Hodges, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers, Keyboard, Music for Keyboard

Average customer rating:

every time i listen to i fall asleep. is "it" good or bad? :P

wonderful crazy subdued stuff

Gershwin
Michael Finnissy , and Nicolas Hodges
Manufacturer: Metronome
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Jazz | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B000255LU2
Release Date: 2004-07-06

Tracks:

How Long Has This Been Going On?
Things Are Looking Up
A Foggy Day In London Town
Love Is Here To Stay
They Can't Take That Away From Me
Shall We Dance?
They're Writing Songs Of Love, But Not For Me
Fidgety Feet
Embraceable You
Waiting For The Sun To Come Out
Innocent Ingenue Baby
Blah, Blah, Blah
Boy Wanted
Limehouse Nights
Wait A Bit, Susie
I'd Rather Charleston
Isn't It Wonderful
Nobody But You
Swanee
Dixie Rose
Someone Believes In You
Nashville Nightengale

Album Description

This recording presents two cycles of Michael Finnissy's brilliant arrangements of Gershwin songs for piano solo. These are not nostalgic attempts to recreate the spirit of the originals, but personalized restylings to suit scenarios and emotions often remote from those originally intended. The two cycles comprise 22 song transcriptions altogether.

Customer Reviews:

every time i listen to i fall asleep. is "it" good or bad? :P.......2007-04-23

it was my fault not having listened to the AMAZON audio samples above. it was a rush purchase: i heard something about Finnissy (Maurice Hinson's and David Dubal's books), got interested, did some research (New Grove Dictionary) and found the informative homepage of pianist Ian Pace. There you can find many full reviews of discs by Pace and or Finnissy. The review of the Gershwin opus was very good and by chance I found very cheap disc offers at amazon marketplace, so within a second i decided to buy the Hodges CD. Well, the CD cover and liner notes are nice, and the Hodges performance is excellent (I guess.) as well...but it is the music. The music is slow, quiet, flowing. Nothing 'interesting' is happening, nothing to catch my interest. This Finnissy music is neither (not at a single instant) virtuosic nor complex (Finnissy doesnt like being seen in the 'New Complexity' movement) nor convincing. If you expect to hear fascinating, catchy Gershwin sounds (see the 4CD-boxed set "The Authentic George Gershwin" by Jack Gibbons), you won't; see also the amazon audio samples! If you expect to hear complex and or virtuosic piano solos, because that's what wikipedia, Hinson and Dubal tell about Finnissy's music, you won't either. To tell the truth, I find this disc absolutely boring and meaningless. No fun at all, no enjoyment. And this, although I love much of Gershwin and much of Finnissy (check his 5.5hours opus magnum "The History of Photography in Sound"!). At least I got it for a few EURO's only, so i dont regret its purchase too much :P

wonderful crazy subdued stuff.......2005-01-23

You cannot get away with rendering Gershwin without pondering each tune deeply here. You simply cannot bang these tunes out as one usually hears otherwise its indulgences no one cares about. Georgy Boy had too much talent, and a deep gift for building constructing a tune, where it goes and that comes to be implanted in ones consciousness long before you bring your lover home. So Finnissy here you can tell, has thought about these tunes, played them himself as improvisations, and that's what this is here written out for posterity. They are not as if George would have played them, Gershwin if you ever heard him live tended to get as much resonance out of the piano as possible, fast furious syncopations abounding. Here the approach, the aesthetic is more subtle,more subdued, and Finnissy takes great leaps of chances into the unknown, for the tunes are what they are, you cannot mess with them without doing irreparable damage circumventing their idle escapist message. The Thirties when they (the tunes) were born was no place to live, it was Adorno who said, Bread,Film, The Bomb all else is/was extranneous to the politic to the state of the globe with the rise of fascism not only in Europe but in the Good ol USA.

Take "Swanee" here it is a bustling rambling tune, building to incredulous frenzy, but here it is as if we are hearing it in a dream sequence, very gentile, simpatico. Like "Fidgety Feet" is rendered quite tame going for the beauty of chords. Finnissy makes you think about the tune musically,for we don't know the context, and that wouldn't help anyways.Finnissy remains a tonal composer things need to have direction for him to circumvent the proceedings at times.He needs to have a large apllette of piano resonance as well, textures, convolutions that cross the atonal and tonal realms. "Wait a Bit Susie" is pretty straighforward with ample interesting syncopation. as "Limehouse Nights" here we descend are plunged into the depths of the piano.This is like an extended/distended nocturne.

Hodges here has a better grasp of the gestural sensitivities, the import and content of the tunes than the previous recording Metier CD of Ian Pace. I found that disk rather timid and un-inspired. I have had a chance to listen again and I found discovered more here than usually meets the ear firstly.

You come away from this music with a deep sense of the fascinations for simple melodies and where they can be takened,what situations they can be placed in how something happens a synergy of sorts. The problem now is that I simply cannot experience a Gershwin tune by itself it is far to simplistic and common, it needs something, an interpretation.