Richard Dyer's report of Michael Finnissy's recital in Boston — part of Stephen Drury's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP, or Sick Puppy) at NEC — makes me wish I'd made the trip up north. Finnissy is a recent discovery for me; I picked his choral disc Maldon as one of my favorites of last year, and I've been taking in his monumental piano cycle History of Photography in Sound, whose movements include "My Parents' Generation Thought War Meant Something" and "Seventeen Immortal Homosexual Poets." The music completely defies categorization, ranging from unadorned folkish tonality to monstrous polyrhythmic dissonance. Some mad conviction or conspiratorial world-view (or simply superb technique) holds the disparate pieces together. It would be something to hear the cycle in NYC. Ditto Alvin Curran's similarly vast and all-consuming Inner Cities. Sick Puppy continues this week with more Finnissy, a rendition of In C, and a climactic marathon.
