New Complexity

In music, the New Complexity is a term dating from the 1980s, principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material" (Fox 2001).

Music of the "New Complexity"

Though often atonal, highly abstract, and dissonant in sound, the "New Complexity" is most readily characterized by the use of techniques which require complex musical notation. This includes extended techniques, complex and often unstable textures, microtonality, highly disjunct melodic contour, complex layered rhythms, abrupt changes in texture, and so on. It is also characterized, in contradistinction to the music of the immediate post–World War II serialists, by the frequent reliance of its composers on poetic conceptions, very often implied in the titles of individual works and work-cycles.

The origin of the name "New Complexity" is uncertain; amongst the candidates suggested for having coined it are the composer Nigel Osborne, the Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich, and the British/Australian musicologist Richard Toop, who gave currency to the concept of a movement with his article "Four Facets of the New Complexity" (Toop 1988), an article that nevertheless emphasized the individuality of four composers (Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, James Dillon, and Michael Finnissy), both in terms of their working methods and the sound of their compositions, and which demonstrated they did not constitute a unified "school of thought" (Boros 1994, 92–93).

In the UK, particularly at the instigation of ensembles Suoraan and later Ensemble Exposé (the latter begun by composers Roger Redgate and Richard Barrett), works by "New Complexity" composers were for some time frequently programmed together with then unfashionable non-UK composers including Xenakis and Feldman, but also such diverse figures as Clarence Barlow, Hans-Joachim Hespos and Heinz Holliger.

Although the British influence, via the teaching efforts of Brian Ferneyhough and Michael Finnissy, was decisive in the origins of this movement, initial support came not from British institutions but rather from performers and promoters of new music in continental Europe, particularly at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse between 1982 and 1996, where Ferneyhough was in charge of the composition programme. By 1997, the composers associated with the New Complexity had become an international and geographically disjunct movement, spread across North America, Europe, and Australia, many of them with little connection to the Darmstadt courses, and with considerable divergence amongst themselves in styles and techniques (Fox 2001). This is clearly evidenced by range of nationalities of the composers interested in this aesthetic direction (for example, in the book series New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century (Mahnkopf, Cox, and Schurig 2002–) one finds a strong international focus), the international interest of ensembles in this music, and the impact of teachers such as James Dillon, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, and Brian Ferneyhough in both Germany and the United States.

One example of the international spread of the movement can be found in the bludenzer tage (Bludenz, Austria) during the leadership of the composer Wolfram Schurig from 1995 to 2006. Although numerous other compositional directions were represented as well, this festival was prominent during this decade for its support of composers associated with the New Complexity, in many respects replacing the Darmstadter Ferienkurse in leadership in this compositional direction. The international nature of its programming is clear from the large number of composers invited from North America; these included Ignacio Baca-Lobera (Mexico), Aaron Cassidy (USA), Franklin Cox (USA), Chris Mercer (USA), Steven Takasugi (USA), and Mark Osborn (USA).

There are various performers who have become to varying degrees closely associated with the movement: these include flautists Nancy Ruffer and Lisa Cella, oboists Christopher Redgate and Peter Veale, clarinettists Carl Rosman, Andrew Sparling and Michael Norsworthy, pianists James Clapperton, Nicolas Hodges, Mark Knoop, Marilyn Nonken, Mark Gasser, Ermis Theodorakis, and Ian Pace, the Arditti Quartet, violinists Mieko Kanno and Mark Menzies, cellists Franklin Cox, Arne Deforce and Friedrich Gauwerky, as well as Ensemble Exposé, Thallein Ensemble, Suoraan, Ensemble 21 (USA), Surplus (Germany), Noise (USA), the JACK Quartet, and ELISION Ensemble. The work of Ferneyhough and Dillon in particular has been taken by a wider range of European ensembles, including ensemble recherche, Ensemble Accroche-Note, the Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble SurPlus and Ensemble Contrechamps.

One example of a piece by Brian Ferneyhough may serve to demonstrate certain traits found in some of the music of New Complexity. Like many other works by Ferneyhough and other New Complexity composers, Etudes Transcendantales is famously difficult to perform and is extremely complicated. The pitch vocabulary uses all the resources of the quarter-tone system. Ferneyhough is known for his nested irregular tuplets, which are clearly evident in the example shown. Almost every individual note also has its own unique dynamic and articulation, including extended techniques such as multiphonics on the oboe, glottal stops for the voice, and key-clicking for the flute.

Throughout the nine pieces, the process of composition transitions from a serialist-type systematic approach in the first work (Superscriptio, for solo piccolo) to an intuitive and poetic approach in the final work (Mnemosyne, for bass flute and eight pre-recorded bass flutes).

First measure of movement 1 of Etudes Transcendantales by Brian Ferneyhough, oboe part.

For example, for the oboe part in the first song, the rhythm is almost totally determined by a strict system, with five stages of complexity, each determined by another cycle of numbers:

  1. dividing each measure into a number of notes
  2. subdividing chunks of those notes into another layer
  3. adding dots so that 3 notes fit where 4½ did previously
  4. tie some notes with each other and replace others with rests
  5. replace two consecutive notes with a triplet in which one beat is a rest
(Toop 1991)

One could speak of a second wave in this movement that greatly influenced by the early music of German composer Klaus K. Hübler. Hübler's music focused far less on the creation of elaborate pitch structures than did that of Ferneyhough or Finnissy, instead creating a precisely-notated polyphony of sound-producing actions for each instrument. In Hübler's solo cello piece Opus breve, for example, the cellist performs from a score consisting of three primary layers of action, each notated with independent rhythms: one for the left hand (fingerings) and two for the right hand (string changes and bow changes/dynamics/bow speed), with ancillary indications attached to these primary ones. This results in unstable and constantly mutating timbres and textures, with pitches blurred and a high degree of noise content. Composers such as Wieland Hoban (UK/Germany), Cassidy, and Cox have been strongly influenced by Hübler's music, as evidenced in most of Cassidy's and Hoban's compositions and Cox's solo cello work "Recoil". The impact of this compositional direction has grown through the teaching activities of Aaron Cassidy at Huddersfield University and performances by groups such as the JACK Quartet.

Other notable composers

See also

References

Further reading

A collection of articles on most of the British members of the movement can be found in the issue "Aspects of Complexity in Recent British Music", edited Tom Morgan, Contemporary Music Review 13, no. 1 (1995). The journal Perspectives of New Music also published a two-part "Complexity Forum," edited by James Boros, in volumes 31, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 6–85, and 32, no.1 (Winter 1994): 90–227 which included some contributions by and about composers associated with the New Complexity.