SCHANDE was composed in response to events in Dresden on 9 November 2020, the 82nd anniversary of the infamous November Pogroms (also known as 'Kristallnacht') in Nazi Germany. A commemorative event had been cancelled by the authorities on account of the coronavirus pandemic. However, these same authorities allowed a demonstration by the far right group Pegida. The word 'Schande' means ‘shame’.

Nathan Watts, cello
Recorded by Will Overcash for Tempus Konnex

SCHANDE (solo cello, 2020)

aus: Drei Klavierstücke

Piano: Ermis Theodorakis

Mario Cosimo, Klavierstück Nr. 2

Michael Finnissy - O, schöner Mai performed 17 jun 2025

Michael Finnissy: Banumbirr

Richard Glover: Logical Harmonies

“Abiya” is a portmanteau word coined by the early kabbalist Isaac of Acre from the initial letters of the Hebrew names for the four worlds (emanation, creation, formation and making), which, in Kabbala, constitute the entirety of creation.  At the start of my piece, the hierarchical organisation of the four worlds is mirrored by a texture in which the same material (groups of widespread chords) is stated on four levels.  Each level gradually moves away from the opening texture, the outer ones in in a straightforward goal-oriented fashion, while the inner parts develop in a more freely associative, tangential way.

At four points there is an attempt to paper over the cracks created as a result of the disengagement of the four levels of activity in the form of a type of musical red herring.  The discourse is made to act as accompaniment to a florid type of music, different form anything heard thus far.  This music is both “non-pianistic” and anachronistic, evoking a distorted memory of monodic vocal music from the time of Monteverdi.

In the fifth and final section all four strands are drawn together again.  Each now consists of a melodic line complete with its own accompaniment – a distant echo of the sound of the huge iron-keyed gamelan of Tenganan in the east of Bali. This music, too, is subjected to variative procedures.  The four highly complex lines which result for these are both too strenuous for the material to bear and extremely tricky for the performer to articulate, and the work finally disintegrates into silence.

Abiya was written in 1995 and commissioned by Ian Pace (who gave the first performance on 28th March 1997 at Conway Hall, London) with funds made available by the Holst foundation.  It is dedicated with gratitude and affection to Ian Pace and Henrietta Brougham.   

The work has the distinction of being mentioned in Blair Babylon’s 2015 romantic novel “Every Breath You Take”.


Abiya

when the panting STARTS (2002-4, Solo piano)

Written on the occasion of Ian Pace's 50th birthday.
Performed by the dedicatee at City University, London on 20 May 2018

Whiptail (2017, solo piano)

Nico Couck, fretless electric guitar
Ensemble Interface, conducted by Maurice Donnet-Monnay
Transit Festival Leuven, 19 October 2019

Michael Finnissy - O, schöner Mai performed 17 jun 2025

PJimenez