Michael Finnissy: Organ Works

Ahead of the 80th birthday of one of Britain’s most singular compositional voices, this double album presents the complete organ works of Michael Finnissy—a body of music as rich in intellectual depth as it is in imagination. Performed with careful nuance by acclaimed American organist Forrest Eimold, these works span over six decades and chart the evolution of a composer constantly challenging himself to think beyond presumed forms.

At the heart of the collection are Finnissy’s four Organ Symphonies: bold, searching works that pay homage to—and wrestle with—the legacies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler, while also evoking the French organ tradition of Vierne and Widor. “Why even write a Symphony?” Finnissy asks in a personal note for this release. “To explore and learn. To challenge oneself with the abiding presence of awe-inspiring history… to locate a rhetoric which fearlessly approaches the ‘higher world of knowledge.’”

From the youthful drama of …ere the set of sun… (written as incidental music for Macbeth in 1965) to the industrial solemnity of Blackburn (2022), the album presents not just a body of work but a kind of inner autobiography. The Hymn-Tune Preludes – transformations of Sacred Harp and Norwegian folk melodies – offer a striking contrast: intimate, harmonically volatile, and unhitched from convention. Even the earliest works here, like the student piece Xunthaeresis, reveal the seeds of a language already driven by risk and complex expression.

Forrest Eimold, a formidable interpreter of 20th and 21st century keyboard music, brings dazzling technique and interpretive depth to this music. His command of registration, colour, and pacing allows each piece – from the vast landscapes of the symphonies to the epigrammatic preludes – to speak with clarity and conviction.

Recorded on a range of instruments, including the organ of the UK’s Blackburn Cathedral, this is a release release which anchors Finnissy’s contribution to the organ repertoire as one of bold imagination and philosophical depth. It also continues Métier’s retrospective celebrations for Finnissy’s 80th year, with further releases to follow.