Michael Finnissy (b. 1946)
Organ Works
Forrest Eimold (organ)
rec. 2022, Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn, UK (Symphonies 1, 2, 4 and Blackburn); 2023, Memorial Church of Harvard University, Cambridge, USA (others)
Metier MEX77208 [2 CDs: 134]
This is a fascinating companion set to that of Michael Finnissy’s piano works I reviewed last year. I must confess that I had no idea that Finnissy had such a substantial body of work for the organ. Whereas the piano music is centred around Finnissy’s grand project of Verdi transcriptions, here it’s the symphonic format which has captured the composer’s imagination. He tells us that his preoccupation is ‘symphonic discourse… locating a rhetoric which fearlessly approaches the “higher world of knowledge” ‘.
Three of Finnissy’s four Organ Symphonies were composed in the 2000s. The other, the Symphony No. 3 is a transcription of his 1962 orchestral ‘Symphony No. 1’ written in his teens and submitted as part of his application to the Royal College of Music. Does it sound like an outlier? Not exactly, because all four have fascinatingly varied starting points. The (Organ) Symphony No. 1 is based on late Baroque to mid-Classical models, with a special focus on the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. But—and we are in familiar Finnissy territory here— it’s hidden under what the composer calls ‘layers of compositional modification’. It’s the first in an engrossing series of explorations. My overwhelming sense was of a landscape coming into focus slowly at first, then rapidly and excitedly as the piece develops. If there is any discernible sign of those historical models, then I agree with Christopher Fox’s observation in his booklet notes that it’s in the Beethovian vitality which emerges as the work develops.
In the Symphony No. 2 Finnissy envisages that the sound should seem ‘French (lateninenteenth century) – Strings, voix celestes, Vox humana, and enclosed Reeds’. The work’s florid opening might be the best indication of that compositional spark, for it develops into something which seems to have Brucknerian roots, monumental in its scope and pacing. The transcription of that early three movement Finnissy work, which became the Symphony No. 3, retains something of the ‘eccentric’ orchestration for soloists, organ and orchestra, where layered harmonies alternate with more linear (I assume originally soloistic) passages at the same time as statuesque reflections contrast with much more pointed and energetic writing. Even if it only found its settled form (and first performance) in this later incarnation, the original must have been a wholly remarkable achievement for a teenager.
The Symphony No. 4 reaches back to the heart of organ composition by taking a tiny fragment of music by Bach—a bar and a half of an incomplete chorale prelude—and apparently presenting it in an authentically Bachian manner. This skilled pastiche breaks off after a relatively short time then starts again. The fragmented sequence continues, where with each break the music on resumption sounds less and less like Bach. As it does so, the writing also becomes denser and louder with Finnissy giving a direction to the performer to ‘sustain as many of indicated pitches as possible’ testing the boundaries of both instrument and performer to the limit. It’s very exciting writing.
I’ve been hugely impressed by Forrest Eimold, who plays all of these varied works with care and considerable technical accomplishment. He’s clearly given so much thought to the approach, and his choices of registration and colours are inspired. This can be strikingly experienced in some of those Brucknerian passages in the Symphony No. 2 for example, where Eimold’s selection from the palette of the organ at Blackburn Cathedral actually feel as if they are decisively contributing to a crucial sense of momentum. Here and in the Symphony No. 4, Eimold also displays an unerring sense of pacing and architecture which are absolutely pivotal to the impact of the music.
There are four other compositions apart from the Symphonies on the disc: a typically iconoclastic and rewarding set of Hymn-Tune Preludes, some of which are based on Norwegian sacred folksongs; a very early short piece originally written to accompany a school production of Macbeth, …ere the set of sun…, atmospheric and prodigious; Xunthaeresis, a later 1960s piece written when Finnissy was at the RCM which consists of fifteen short passages that may be played ‘in any order’, with ‘unconventional juxtapositions of timbre throughout’ where Eimold responds to the challenge with typical inventiveness; and Blackburn, Finnissy’s most recent work for the organ, written during the recording sessions at Blackburn for these discs, inspired by both the impact of mechanisation in the city in the eighteenth century and the slightly later tradition of choral singing in Northern industrial towns. Despite the uplifting effect of that second element, the work seems rooted in the bleak aspects of the industrial revolution, its textures somewhat dark and bleak. Taken as a whole these other compositions are a fascinating adjunct to the substantial body of work the Symphonies represent and have been approached in a similarly thoughtful and ingenious way by Eimold.
Metier have done an excellent job in capturing the sound and character of the two instruments involved: the fine E.M. Skinner organ at the Memorial Church of Harvard University and the extraordinary Walker/Wood instrument at Blackburn. I came to revere the Blackburn organ after immersion in Fugue State’s remarkable Messiaen DVDs last year (review). To his credit Eimold quite overcame any initial reservation I had about the switch of instruments to Harvard for the later recording sessions, he’s so thoroughly at home there and immersed in the instrument’s capabilities. As with the Piano Music discs, there are excellent booklet notes on the music. If I have a slight criticism, it’s that I would like to have seen specifications given for the instruments and something on the choice of registrations but given the excellence of the rest of the presentation that’s downright picky of me. This is an important release of some interesting and significant music by one of our leading composers and a cause for celebration as he approaches his 80th birthday in March.
Dominic Hartley
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Contents
Organ Symphony No. 1 (2002-3)
7 Hymn-Tune Preludes (2012-22)
Organ Symphony No. 2 (2003-5)
Organ Symphony No. 3 (1962; 2008-9)
…ere the set of sun… (1965)
Xunthaeresis (1967)
Blackburn (2022)
Organ Symphony No. 4 (2006-8)
