Michael Zev Gordon and Michael Finnissy in Conversation

Abstract

In this article, the composers Michael Zev Gordon and Michael Finnissy discuss personal and practical approaches to text-setting in relation to prevailing critical orthodoxies. Michael Zev Gordon considers the text as a midwife to the music with reference to Alan Bennett's play The Habit of Art and Virgil Thomson's study Music with Words, outlines his use of texts in his piece This Night and his collaboration with poet Ruth Padel, Allele, and considers the relationship between words and musical structures. Michael Finnissy explains his attraction to mystical texts, considers the narrative qualities of his works The Undivine Comedy and Therese Raquin, and examines how rhythms of words disrupt musical composition with reference to settings of Homer, Höderlin, and his piece The Transgressive Gospel.