Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.

- Brian Ferneyhough

If nothing is at risk, nothing is established.

- Brian Ferneyhough

Questioning the nature and implications of liminal instances necessarily involves failure, if only in the specifically technical sense of entering sp…

- Brian Ferneyhough

The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depend…

- Brian Ferneyhough

When I speak of "cycles," I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity, if not in the resolving of problems, than at least with respec…

- Brian Ferneyhough

In any case, the fewer boundaries that exist hindering free movement between all forms of articulate human cognition, the better.

- Brian Ferneyhough

I don't like listening to my music, not even new pieces. Generally, they sound pretty much like I expected them to sound, so it's what I wanted, and …

- Brian Ferneyhough

If the work of art is to continue pursuing the vision of both being in and of the world but nevertheless in some fashion being more than just one mor…

- Brian Ferneyhough

When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain…

- Brian Ferneyhough