LCMF 2026
Hot with Excess
6 December
The History of Photography in Sound
180 Box at 180 Studios
BOOK TICKETS
First release: £15/£25/ £65/£115
Second release: £18/£28/£80/£130
On the door: £22/£32
Doors: 12.30pm
Music starts: 1pm
Michael FinnissyFirst release: £15/£25/ £65/£115
Second release: £18/£28/£80/£130
On the door: £22/£32
Doors: 12.30pm
Music starts: 1pm
The History of Photography in Sound (2000)
Performer
Ian Pace
A rare chance to hear one of the great masterpieces of the 21st century: the gargantuan solo piano work The History of Photography in Sound (2000) by Michael Finnissy. Vertiginously dense, startlingly volatile, a vast ever-flickering bonfire of memories and music lasting five and a half hours.
Listen to pianist Ian Pace – who premiered the work in 2001 and recorded it in 2014 – set fire to the Western canon and much more besides: Bach and ragtime, North American spirituals and Berlioz, Alkan, Sullivan, Debussy, Offenbach, the experimental short by filmmaker Peter Kubelka Unsere Afrikareise.
The History of Photography in Sound is as honest an understanding of history and memory as you’re going to get. As writer Philip Clark put when reviewing the release of the recording, ‘Events forgotten, muddled, misremembered, dredged up suddenly, for better and/or worse, as events impinge upon our consciousness... Music buckling under the weight of association, sounds swirling everywhere. Finnissy keeps his cultural aperture forever wide-angled, ideas and sounds papped ferociously.’