Guest
Brian Ferneyhough - La Terre est un Homme, for orchestra (1976-79) BBC Symphony Orchestra Conductor - Martyn Brabbins A few particular works in the contemporary classical canon are known more by their reputation than by the actuality of performance or recording. Until the present decade, Brian Ferneyhough’s La Terre est un Homme would have sat high on any list of such cult works. The first performance was given in Glasgow by the Scottish National Orchestra and Elgar Howarth as part of the 1979 Musica Nova festival. There was a second performance a few weeks later in the Royal Festival Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, in his first concert as Principal Conductor of the LSO (boldly paired with Brahms’s Piano Concerto 1, Zimerman, and Tchaikovsky 4!). It is hard at this distance to separate fact from legend but it is said that the players (every one of whom has their own separate part in the score) openly revolted against what was seen as the absurd over-complexity
