Brian Ferneyhough’s Second String Quartet And His Structural Concept

Brian Ferneyhough is regarded as the Representatives of New Complexity. This thesis is mainly focused on Ferneyhough’s the Second String Quartet, and analyzed the inner structure and the interaction of music parameters, observing the concept of his composition.Chapter1is mainly about the background, including the origin and development of the New Complexity, concept of Ferneyhough’s composition and the review of the literatures.Chapter2lists the states of the texture, the counterpoint between different parts and the transformations of the silent periods. Then the Second String Quartet is divided into five sections according to the presentation and development of its different periods.In Chapter3, the music materials are divided into silent materials and vocalized materials. The silent materials begin with the rests and reveal the development from junior to senior. The vocalized materials, in which the kernel is rhythm frame, is comprised of the main and secondary materials,Base on the serial materials which is given by composer, Chapter4observes the serial materials and proposes a serial material system. Combined with the example of this work, this chapter presents the multi-direction and crossing way of serial material presentation.Finally chapter5analyses the tempo and expression signals separately, and divides into different section according to the development. It is observed that the dividing of the tempo and expression is central symmetry.The analysis methods used in this thesis include quantizing the music parameters, statistical, listing and graphing. Through comparing and summarizing, the conclusions are obtained as follows:In the aspect of the musical structural, the whole structure, in which the rhythm parameters are dominant, is created by the music parameters interacting with each other. In terms of the core in philosophy, the essence of the complex spectrum and logical relationship is the expression of the dialectical thinking.