Brian Ferneyhough is seen by many as the face of the so-called "New Complexity" movement. It is important that one set aside any judgments on this aesthetic style before reading. This collection features a wide range of essays, interviews, analyses, and a nice list of compositions and a discography.

Initially, I wasn't sure what I thought about Ferneyhough. Certainly, as a student of musicology, I was fascinated by his amazingly dense scores - scores that qualify as art in their own right. However, as a musician, I'm not sure that taking the time to actually learn a Ferneyhough work - and learn it well - would be personally worth the effort. That said, reading a selection of these writings helped me understand and appreciate Ferneyhough in a new way. I found the studies of his own works helped me appreciate the musical ideas to a greater extent that was previously possible through my own brief analysis.

After reading a number of the essays this much is clear: Brian Ferneyhough is definitely an intellectual. Whether he is an artist also is up to you. I'm not totally sold on his (perhaps overly) cerebral aesthetics, but I found his writing to be enlightening, not just for his music, but for much late 20th century music. If you're reading this review, you're probably already aware of Ferneyhough's style. If you are fascinated by his originality or difficulty, this will be a rewarding read.

Ferneyhough's writings are on music are some of the most rich and fascinating ever. This collection, which consists of articles, lectures, analysi, and interviews [which are exquisite!] give us insight into the views of a profound living composer -- with wonderful little brain tingles along the way! It's a shame that the book costs so much [check local university libraries], but I encourage people to get it any way they can. I cannot say enough about the integrity of these writings. . .

Contemporary Music Studies, Harwood Academic Publishers have done an admirable job in publishing annual seminal works from a wide spectrum of contemporary musical thought,showing no proclivities. From Eisler, Peter Schat,,Bruno Maderna, Pierre Boulez and neglected Charles Koechlin. Here Ferneyhough brings us right to his writing desk and we learn how he constructs his multi-dimensional musical concoctions. Much of it has been material provided elsewhere,but who reads it or can recall its source,from program notes and seminal interviews with Paul Griffiths, James Boros and Richard Toop, those who have followed Mr. Ferneyhough's career, and were there at the birth. Well documented here are the four string Quartet. And since the quartet is, or has been considered as special creative preserve, Ferneyhough's thought is well focused, giving us, rendering his aesthetic battle-plans for each. Some like the Third Quartet was more lucid and facile,greater surface discourse relatively speaking. There are also grist kinds of analysis, of Webern, token objects on the way toward discovery,but analysis frequently point toward the labyrinth of creativity What you value one place is sought after in another. We also extend into a life beyond just placing musical loci, notes on paper, Walter Benjamin is a great inspiration, and Ferneyhough has followed the intellectual currents of Europe, philosophic, and cultural to be able to place his creations within that discourse. He frequently solicits the visual world of painting for an agenda.Also Musical excerpts abound the pages , and the impeccable draftsmanship is a sensuous pleasure a gaze almost pornographic in its seductiveness.