Banumbirr (morning star) is a creator-spirit in the Yolngu culture of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia which is associated with the planet Venus. In 1982–83 the British composer Michael Finnissy, a composer of so-called New Complexity music, was living in Australia. While there he wrote a substantial group of pieces of which Banumbirr is one, alongside Teangi (‘Flowering Earth’), Warara (‘Red Ochre’), Aijal (‘Sky’), and Marrngu (‘Mythical Possum’).

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Finnissy’s time in Australia was an intensely productive period, even by his prolific standards, and these works emerged from a deep engagement with Australian Aboriginal culture and artistic practice. Alongside his teaching and performance work, Finnissy immersed himself in Aboriginal music, visual art, and literature — experiences that left a lasting imprint on his compositional output. After returning to the UK, Finnissy continued to reflect on this formative period, creating works such as Red Earth, written for the 1988 Proms, that look back on his Australian years from a distance.

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Banumbirr runs continuously without any major structural breaks, with the different sections evolving more than contrasting. Like much of Finnissy’s music, register plays an important role; particularly in the virtuosic opening section, all five instruments play very close to each other, creating a hyperactive overall texture. As the piece goes on, new registral areas are gradually explored, particularly as the flute and violin ascend into the stratosphere while the piano roars in the depths. Finnissy has commented that he is “more interested in line than anything else” and this is certainly demonstrated in Banumbirr, where the different instruments rarely coincide rhythmically and even when they play together—as the piece goes on Finnissy establishes duo pairings between the various instruments—they tend to be in conversation rather than speaking with a single voice.

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David Palmer & Joshua Ballance