New Complexity

New Complexity is a tendency in contemporary classical composition, named in the 1980s, whose scores demand extreme precision and difficulty from performers. Associated chiefly with British composers — *Brian Ferneyhough*, *Michael Finnissy*, *James Dillon*, *Richard Barrett* and *Chris Dench* — it layers independently conceived rhythmic, harmonic and gestural strata, using nested tuplets, rapid parametric change and dense notation to push notation and technique to their limits. The music's surface is restless and virtuosic, its structures deliberately resistant to summary; specialist ensembles such as *ELISION* and the *Arditti Quartet* made its performance practical.