The Mannerist Idea: Connecting Michelangelo, Deleuze and Ferneyhough (Part I)

Abstract

This thesis explores Brian Ferneyhough’s complex sonic structure in terms of a connection between his oeuvre, sixteenth-century works of art and Deleuze’s thought on “force” and “sensation”. The work is in two parts, the first being an investigation into a philosophical understanding of Mannerism, an historical overview, and matters of “force and sensation” in both Mannerist works of Art and Ferneyhough’s compositional and written output. A specific example—the Figura Serpentinata and Ferneyhough’s Second String Quartet—is put under scrutiny in a comparative analysis in terms of Ferneyhough’s particular notion of the Gesture/Figure and an understanding of “force and sensation” in the sixteenth-century Figura Serpentinata. The second part of this work is a Recomposition of thought and praxis by the author, in response to the research undertaken during her candidature in the form of a folio of compositions and notes to the folio.