Daily Inspiration Quote by Brian Ferneyhough

“Extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion” is Ferneyhough in a nutshell: artistry framed not as inspiration but as metabolizing difficulty until it becomes technique. The phrase “by dint of” matters. It’s old-fashioned, almost grudging, insisting that whatever “this” refers to (a breakthrough, a piece, a method) wasn’t unlocked by talent or luck but earned through brute duration. He’s staking an ethic: the work is the point.

“Reflection and digestion” is a telling pairing. Reflection flatters the mind; digestion drags the body into it. Ferneyhough’s music - famously dense, hyper-notated, and physically taxing - asks performers to do exactly this: think and chew, over time, with resistance. The pain isn’t romanticized as suffering-for-art; it’s procedural, the discomfort of confronting limits. “Frequently quite painful” reads like dry understatement, a British hedging that actually intensifies the claim. He’s not posturing. He’s normalizing struggle as the necessary condition for clarity.

Contextually, this aligns with the so-called New Complexity, often caricatured as difficulty for difficulty’s sake. Ferneyhough’s language pushes back: complexity is an outcome of sustained engagement, not a stylistic flex. The subtext is also institutional: contemporary music’s gatekeeping can hide behind talk of “rigor.” Ferneyhough quietly admits the toll while reaffirming the bargain. If you want the result, you submit to the process - and the process will not be comfortable.