"Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me"
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Ferneyhough is admitting, with a wry half-smile, that the “public intellectual” version of a composer is mostly a PR construct. When he speaks in interviews or on panels, he’s not delivering neutral theory from on high; he’s airing the private logic of his own workshop. The line lands because it punctures a common fantasy in new-music discourse: that composers can offer universal prescriptions about craft, complexity, or “the future of music” without those claims being traceable to their own aesthetic investments.
The phrase “come back to haunt me” is doing heavy lifting. It frames generalization as a kind of artistic boomerang: if he declares a principle, listeners and critics will rightly demand to hear it borne out in the score. For a figure associated with “New Complexity,” where every notational decision can become evidence in an argument about modernism, rigor, and accessibility, that accountability is especially sharp. Ferneyhough has been canonized and caricatured in equal measure; his public remarks can easily be weaponized into a doctrine that either sanctifies or ridicules his music.
Subtext: he’s resisting being turned into a spokesperson for anything bigger than his practice. There’s also an ethical tell here. Instead of hiding ideology behind lofty talk, he acknowledges the self-interest embedded in aesthetic pronouncements. It’s a disarming gesture, but not a retreat: it’s a demand that we read composer talk as situated, contingent, and inseparable from the technical, obsessive, deeply personal act of composing.
The phrase “come back to haunt me” is doing heavy lifting. It frames generalization as a kind of artistic boomerang: if he declares a principle, listeners and critics will rightly demand to hear it borne out in the score. For a figure associated with “New Complexity,” where every notational decision can become evidence in an argument about modernism, rigor, and accessibility, that accountability is especially sharp. Ferneyhough has been canonized and caricatured in equal measure; his public remarks can easily be weaponized into a doctrine that either sanctifies or ridicules his music.
Subtext: he’s resisting being turned into a spokesperson for anything bigger than his practice. There’s also an ethical tell here. Instead of hiding ideology behind lofty talk, he acknowledges the self-interest embedded in aesthetic pronouncements. It’s a disarming gesture, but not a retreat: it’s a demand that we read composer talk as situated, contingent, and inseparable from the technical, obsessive, deeply personal act of composing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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