Kirjahaku

In this piece a solo (for the first violin) runs parallel to a trio (violin, viola, cello), but is independent in metre, speed, and style. The title is from Foucault: 'Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint.' The work was commissioned in 1997 for the Kreutzer Quartet.

This piece was written for a group of my students at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven (Belgium). The set of parts, two melodic with two 'echoing' them and three 'keyboards', is not strictly co-ordinated and not specific as to instrumentation. By the time of the first rehearsal I had still not found a title. As the musicians returned home from the rehearsal they chanced upon a group of ducks in the road, the ducks were scared. Hence the title Ettelijke bange eenden: Several scared ducks'. © Michael Finnissy 2008

The music is based on the work of the same title by the Medieval French poet and composer, Guillaume de Machaut. Originally written for specific forces (a mezzo-soprano voice with flute[doubling piccolo], oboe, and percussion), Le Lay de la Fonteinne has subsequently been revised to accommodate a wider range of instruments.