An important new premiere recording from Métier: Michael Finnissy’s complete organ works

The team at Métier Records is delighted to announce a double-disc album of the complete organ works of the luminary British composer Michael Finnissy performed by 23-year-old American organist Forrest Eimold.

Made up entirely of world première recordings, the release will include one of Finnissy’s longest and most ambitious compositional cycles: his nearly 90-minute set of four Organ Symphonies. These ﬁendishly virtuosic and varied pieces amount to one of the most signiﬁcant and sustained contributions to the organ repertoire by any living composer.

Alongside the Symphonies, Eimold presents Finnissy’s colourful set of Hymn-Tune Preludes, as well as various shorter pieces, including the recent “Blackburn,” a piece written specifically to mark the 50^th birthday of the Blackburn Cathedral Organ.

Representing the sheer diversity of material included in Finnissy’s output, the recording was made on an international array of organs: from several works recorded on the inimitable instrument at Blackburn, with the remainder to be recorded at the Memorial Church of Harvard University in the USA. This album marks one of the organ world’s most ambitious recording projects in recent memory.

Forrest Eimold

Composer-keyboardist Forrest Eimold, 23, has been hailed as “incredible” and “fearless” by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, “extremely impressive” by Harmonie, and having “ably responded to the many virtuosic demands” of today’s compositional vanguard by The Washington Post.

Equally at ease when working at the cutting edge of new music as when seeking newfound insight into older music, Forrest ﬁrst gained notice for having performed all ﬁve hours’ worth of Olivier Messiaen’s post-1945 organ music by age 16. Forrest’s committed engagement with the music of living composers has since led to collaborations with composers like Gerald Barry, Molly Joyce, Paola Prestini, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Judith Weir. Furthermore, as répétiteur, Forrest has helped bring world première projects to life by the likes of Du Yun, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Arvo Pärt, and Tyshawn Sorey. A passionate advocate for historically-informed performance practice, too, Forrest regularly plays continuo for the GRAMMY®-nominated Trinity Baroque Orchestra—including for what The New York Times has described as “the best Messiah in New York.”

As a composer, Forrest’s music has been performed by ensembles including the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, National Sawdust Ensemble, and Wet Ink Ensemble. Compositional honors include two National YoungArts Awards, as well as the Boris and Eda Rapoport Prize (from Columbia University) and the Blueprint Fellowship (from National Sawdust and the Juilliard School). Having recently graduated from the dual undergraduate program between Columbia University and the Juilliard School with the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts, Forrest currently studies music composition with Martin Bresnick at the Yale School of Music.

Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy needs little introduction as he is without doubt among the most pre-eminent of composers, usually linked (not always accurately) to the ‘new complexity’ movement.
Michael Finnissy was born on 17th March 1946, at roughly 2 in the morning, at 77 Claverdale Road, Tulse Hill, London SW2. His parents were Rita Isolene(nee Parsonson) and George Norman Finnissy. At that time his father worked for the London County Council, assisting through his photographic documentation the assessment of damage to and re-building of London after the war.

Michael started to write music almost as soon as he could play the piano, aged about four and a half, and was tutored in both by his great aunt, Rose Louise Hopwood (Rosie). He attended Hawes Down Infant and Junior schools, Bromley Technical High, and Beckenham and Penge Grammar schools. Music was not taught in any formal or examinable way, though not discouraged either. His best subjects were graphic art, mathematics and English literature.

He received the William Yeats Hurlstone composition-prize at the Croydon Music Festival, a factor which assisted his parents’ decision to let him apply to music college. He was awarded a Foundation Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. Michael’s composition teachers at the Royal College were Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Searle. He was subsequently awarded an Octavia travelling scholarship to study in Italy with Roman Vlad.

Michael earned money for his studies by playing the piano for dance-classes: Russian-style classical ballet with Maria Zybina, John O’Brien and Kathleen Crofton; and jazz with Matt Mattox. After his studies in Italy, and with no formal qualifications, he continued to work in dance, freelancing, and at the London School of Contemporary Dance – where, with the encouragement of its course-director Pat Hutchinson, he founded a music department. During these years he worked with the choreographers Jane Dudley and Anna Sokolow from the pioneering era of modern dance, and in more experimental work by Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies, Jackie Lansley and Fergus Early.

Michael Finnissy’s concert debut as a solo pianist was at the Galerie Schwartzes Kloster in Freiburg, playing a concert mostly of first performances, Howard Skempton and Oliver Knussen as well as his own. In the meantime he had started to appear in Europe, firstly at the Gaudeamus Music Week in 1969 and thereafter until 1973, at Royan Festival (1974-6) and Donaueschingen.In many of these events he was twinned with Brian Ferneyhough, a friend since student days. His initial attempts at serious composition teaching, at Darlington Summer School in the mid-seventies, were also partnered by Ferneyhough.

In England, Michael’s early work had received encouragement from Ian Lake, Colin Mason and Martin Dalby. Two pieces had been published by International Music Publishers (Ascherberg), some others by edition modern in Munich and two by Suvini Zerboni in Milan. With the support of Bill Colleran he signed a contract with Universal Edition (London) in 1978, and subsequently with United Music Publishers and (in 1988) with his principal publisher Oxford University Press. Other works are available from Tre Media Verlag (Friederike Zimmermann) in Karlsruhe.

Michael had been a member of the ensemble Suoraan (founded by James Clarke and Richard Emsley) and then its artistic director since the early 1970s. He joined Ixion (founded and still directed by Andrew Toovey) in 1987 – in both of these groups he not only played the piano but also conducted concerts. In the late 1980s he was invited by Justin Connolly to join the British section of the ISCM, and from 1990 until 1996 he served as its President, travelling widely to Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has since been elected to Honorary Membership of the Society.

Michael has been attached to C.O.M.A. (initially known as the East London Late Starters Orchestra) since its inception, and has been in residence as composer to the Victorian College of the Arts (in Melbourne, Australia) and to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney. His principal teaching has been at the Royal Academy of Music (London), Winchester College, the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (Belgium), and at the Universities of Sussex and (currently) Southampton.

His work has been recorded for CD by Metier, NMC, and Metronome in the UK, and Etcetera and BVHaast (Holland), CRI (USA), Artifact Music (Canada), and ABC Classics (Australia).

A book on the music of Michael Finnissy – Uncommon Ground – edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, is published by Ashgate.