Hommage à Brian Ferneyhough

Mahnkopf wrote the work to honour the 70th birthday of his former composition teacher Brian Ferneyhough. The composer explains the idea of honouring the great representative of New Complexity with a tuba work as follows: ‘The idea was not to honour Ferneyhough with what is most typical of him, such as a string quartet, but with the rare exception of the possibility of a musical slapstick. I treat the tuba with foot whips and percussion instruments as well as the performer's voice in a non-classical way. The work consists of 70 smaller to larger bars or mini-sections, each relating to a year of Ferneyhough's life and, since 1965, usually a work.’