‘I always want to try different things’

Transcript

[Music]

Thank you. Well, good morning Sir James. It's very nice to see you and thank you for joining us on this interview.

I am Roger Williams and I'm the Convener of the Programme Committee for Haddo Arts, and I'd like to introduce you to Damien Bates who is our Convener of Marketing at Haddo Arts.

The first thing to say is thank you very much indeed for agreeing to this interview but thank you even more for writing a marvellous piece for us to celebrate our 10th anniversary of Haddo Arts.

Haddo is spelled by the way h-a-d-d-o and you can find further details of Haddo Arts on the webpage. which is haddoarts.com

So James, just a word in background detail. Some years ago we had the Maxwell Quartet come to do a concert for us and we were so impressed we wanted to invite them back. We are also conscious of the fact that Alistair Beatson is one of the outstanding young pianists on the professional circuit, often appearing at the Wigmore Hall, and we thought it would be a marvellous idea to join these two together to do the Cesar from piano quintet.

So with that in mind, that's how we came to invite you to come and write this piece for us, so thank you very much for this and we look forward very much to hearing more about this and also to hearing the work which would have performed at Haddo on 14 October.

So the first thing I'd like to ask you concerns the title of the piece, James. You've given us a title 'We Are Collective', which is (shall I venture to say) an unusual title for a piece of music and perhaps you might like to tell us the significance of that title and how you came to think of it.

Yes, well I enjoyed writing this piece very very much and I remember when I sent the score to you Roger that you come back to me and you said more or less the same thing -- that it looked as if I enjoyed writing this piece, and I did very much.

I mean I do write a lot of very serious music, a lot of music that has a kind of theological root and dimension, and this isn't like that at all.

I do sometimes like to pick up a kind of sideways direction in my work and I must have been in a good mood when I wrote it because I can feel it and see it in the music.

So basically the piece, it's a one movement piano quintet lasting about 10 minutes or there about, and it grew out of initially from a sketch I had made, which was a kind of part song using five four voices on our piano.

Originally the material had text associated with it but nothing came of this; it didn't come to fruition and the idea seemed to sort of dissolve a bit. But then I came back to it because I liked a lot of the musical ideas, simply that the melodies and the rhythms and the concepts and so on.

And I began to imagine how it might be reworked in a way using purely instrumental sound and I had to take a very different kind of approach of course to the four string instruments in particular when there was no text involved and I wanted to make it although it's still got a kind of singing quality that kicked comes from its vocal roots, it's now transformed into quite a virtuosic piece for string quartet and piano. In fact, the piano part is probably the most virtuosic of the five parts so there's evidence that some of the original vocal material is still there. It survives but in a new instrumental garb.

The title was one of the lines of the original song and the text was rather strange originally -- little bits and pieces from all over the place that I concoct and put together and it evokes a kind of strict chant I suppose or a kind of quasi-political slogan being chanted -- you know the type, when people get together and shout in the streets and so on.

I suppose that's quite a serious scenario but I've always found that these scenarios quite chronicle and strange way I suppose I shouldn't really, that kind of shouting and rhythmic unison. It can't help but have a kind of comic dimension and I suppose that's been the main generator of the character of the music.

In fact, the original five notes of the chant of 'We are Collective' can be heard in the middle of this new quintet to the notes B flat, C, B flat, D flat and E flat. I don't know if I don't have perfect pitch but if this was a kind of B flat minor it would be 'we are collective'. So the audience might kind of catch on to that rhythmic and melodic shape.

And then later, you hear various rhythmic and transposed versions, so the title is perhaps a play on the idea of the togetherness involved in ensemble playing but as well as there's a kind of scepticism I suppose about collective rather than individual and personal thoughts, and that's just our subjective thing and my part.

Thank you very much indeed. Now Damien, I think you would like to ask some questions, just following off from that Sir James.

I'm intrigued by the process of pulling the music out. I'm not technical in any way. I used to be a journalist for my sin so I always look at it in very simple terms!

Does this come to you clearly effectively, or does it rattle around in your head for some time and need nurturing?

And as a secondary question to that, do you (and forgive me again, this is a very basic question) but do you have to lock yourself away at the expense of everything else that's going on around you or can you look at it in phases, so that you can work on it bit by bit?

Well, the compositional process is really quite different with every piece, and the material does live with me for sometimes a long long while, sometimes years. Something can be germinating away in the background and then comes to the fore, and there are some pieces I do think about for a long while and suppose this is a case in point.

The idea was there probably even before Roger asked me about the piece and I began to think of redirecting some of that energy into the new sound world, which was the string quintet.

As far as the the working day is concerned, I do have the day to play with as it were. What I do, I've got a quiet place in the countryside now, where I work and although I do lots of other things, basically I've tried to clear as much space both physical and mental for me in order to settle to work and I really need that silence. I need that peace and quiet in order for the the ideas to get going.

Fabulous.

Ok, James, back to the actual work. As you draw attention to a little motif which comes in the middle of the piece, is there anything which you would like to say to listeners coming to it for the first time which would help guide them through the structure of the piece at all?

Yes. Well, the very first thing that happens is what I've described in my programme note as a kind of fanfare on the strings, a kind of declamatory statement in octaves and unisons and so on. And then it's followed quickly by a very energetic and boisterous passage for solo piano, marked in Italian matalato eseko that means in a hammering style and dry.

And I indicated earlier that the piano part is very virtuosic but it also has this character about it, right from the authors that were in that. There's an aggressive boisterousness about the the way that it needs to be played, perhaps that comes from the title itself and the implications of the title, and the piano seems to be the other thing that makes it quite boisterous in that it seems to be playing in two different keys at the same time. So, there's a kind of counterpoint all the while and there are allusions to old Scottish songs and so on, and dancehall music songs and both in the piano part and in the string writing.

So after this boisterous passage, all five instruments come together in quite declamatory style at various points but there is some quieter music along the way as well and particularly there's a passage which have marked legaco in this a Mysterio also in Italian smoothly and mysteriously, where that kind of boisterous character is dissolved into something else.

Then there's another part marks in English queasy, which is self-explanatory, but the street market feel returns, before the music then heads off into what may feel like music fall fantasy territory and that 'we are collective' theme eventually asserts itself along with wisps and illusions of half-forgotten old Scottish songs and the music ends with passing jazzy and blues references, so that's a kind of street map as to how the music develops.

Thank you. I'm sure that we'll all find that very very helpful as we approach it. Damien, would you like to ask your other questions now?

Well, I think I'll abandon some of the others but just to reflect on what you were talking about there in terms of the Scottishness. That's clearly quite important to you -- is Scotland a great place for creating works of art of this nature? Is it a creative place still, do you think? Does it have that energy about it that allows you to feed off it or is your isolation and focus on your own piece an important part as well?

Well, I think both are important to me. The isolation has become more and more important to me but living and working in Scotland has always been a delight. I've always felt a lot of support here from my fellow musicians and the various musical organisations exist, and many of them are committed to the living composer.

Certainly as a younger composer I've always felt encouraged by the likes of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in particular but also the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera and the various chamber groups and choirs of course. A capella nova have always been great friends and colleagues, and it's a good place for composers to work. Design continuing interest in what we're about and what we might be able to add to the culture. And over the years composers in Scotland have allowed the Scottish dimension to enter into their work and I've mentioned that I have forgotten old Scottish songs and so on.

It's done in a very deliberate way in this piece but one lives with Scottish traditional music. One grows up with it in these parts and it gets under the skin in a creative way sometimes so that the Scottish dimension becomes quite subliminal, especially with me. I played a lot of Scottish and Irish traditional music when I was younger and sometimes it felt as if I was deliberately trying to allow that music into my my own work, my compositional work and I did it so so so many times and so so often that it almost became second nature. It's not the only characteristic in my music but it is there and it's, as I say, got under the skin of what I do and it's become subsumed into my musical character that it happens almost without me thinking about it anymore.

Fabulous! James, can you tell us a little bit about writing for strings and for piano because they both produce their sounds in quite different ways and I wondered if you had seen any tension between writing these two sort of sound sources at all?

Hmm, yes I've always been aware of the tension in pitting string instruments against a piano. I've written a number of works, a couple of cello sonatas, a violence and that, and some little pieces for violin and piano, and it's always the the major thought in my mind -- how do I make these two very different sound sources cohere and form a unity? And it's particularly the case when you've got an ensemble of string instruments working against the piano or with the piano. One has to take that into account and sometimes one has to make them oppositional so that they work in opposition and that kind of dialogue between two sonic opposites can be made to work in a compositional fashion.

I mean, right at the beginning of the score, as I've said, it's the strings who start off. The piano does not play with them. And then when the strings finish their opening statement, the piano has its opening statement. It's almost as if the two groups as well the two sound sources are presenting two different characters -- two different subjects perhaps.

But eventually you've got to make them work together. You've got to make them come together and composers have always had to be careful about that. The piano is a very powerful instrument and it can dominate and overpower instruments and and voices that it works with, so the player has to be careful but you can make it work. You can make the two sound sources come together and I've always been interested in the potential for mixing colours. It's two different palettes isn't it, where the piano sound and the string ensemble sound and they can be made to merge in the way that you merge colours, especially in the quieter sections. There are moments like that throughout this piece.

That's great, James. Thank you. Could I just ask another question while it's fresh in my mind? Thinking about what you've just said, I'm reminded so much of your writing for voices, of which you've done a lot. And I've been fortunate enough to to conduct some of your pieces and I'm just wondering if there's any link between the way you write the voices and the way you write the strings?

Well, I think musicians and instrumentalists are quite thankful when they can make their instruments sing, and there are many string players, especially chalice for example, imagine that they are singing when they're playing a a given line and I can understand that those analogies are powerful and important. I've written a couple of pieces and I've just remembered a piece that I wrote for you, Roger, which mixes a choir with the string quartet.

I've done that in bigger ways like with The Seven Last Words, which is a combination of two different groups-- a choir and a string orchestra -- and then much later I did it again with my stab at Mata, which again was a choir and string orchestra and again it could be the coming together of opposites but there's something about those two worlds, which in their own separate ways are quite monochrome. They have a single colour: the single colour of the voices together. And then another single colour of string instruments together, and making them come together again enhances the combined palette in quite a limited way but in potentially beautiful ways. The sound of voices and strings together can be rich, sonorous, colourful ... but it can also be quite dramatic too and I've certainly tried to explore all those possibilities in the music I've written for voices and strings.

Thank you very much, Damian.

I have ... well I have one really impertinent question but Sir James just to say thank you for your time and also thank you for your work. I'm very much looking forward to hearing it in October. As I say, I'm not an expert in this field at all and my impertinent question (if I may) is when you're in composing mode are you a delight to be with because you're full of joy and composition? Or can you be a nightmare to be around because you are so focused and can need attention to make it all work?

Oh, that's an interesting question! Maybe I'm not the person to ask! A wonderful children.

But I think actually when the work is going well and the music is quite ... when it's flowing well, I am a joy to be with because I'm enjoying life and I think that communicates when I come out of the study and enter into conversation and so on.

It's when the music isn't going well that that might be a problem, because then ... I mean, I love composing and I don't like it being blocked in any way and it does affect I think every artist; every composer is the same, that they are better company and better mood when the work is flowing smoothly.

Thank you, James. I'd just like to come back to the actual work itself. From what you've said, it sounds as though after quite a period of gestation of this original vocal work, as though in fact when you got around writing the quintet you read it quite quickly -- and I was just wondering if generally you're a composer who works quickly or agonizes over a lot of detail? You know the sort of composer I mean.

I'm just wondering if there's any pattern to your work? Do you write quickly or do you tend to write slowly?

I think I write quickly. There's something about the adrenaline getting going when you've got a deadline, and the deadline may be a long way away but let's pray in one's mind sometimes years in advance, because I always feel that although I do write a lot, I always want to better myself. I always want to better the last work, so there is pressure on me. I always want to rise above what has been done already and try different things. And that's why I really enjoy the opportunity of moving sideways into our work which is up lighter and and has a smile on its face, even a sardonic smile. It's different from the sacred music I write for example, or the very abstract ones.

I've written a number of symphonies. I've mentioned the sonatas that I've written, the two cello sonatas, a violin sonata, piano sonata. These are quite abstract works and numbers. We know that music can be a very abstract form at its most fundamental level. Music communicates its power and its feeling and its emotion just using its own stuff, which is great. It's something that communicates beyond the visual and the verbal, and that's the power of music.

But we know it does lots of other things as well. It can paint pictures; it can tell stories; it can collaborate with the written words in song and opera and so on. So all these things make the compositional process a delight but quite a diverse thing. Every piece is different for me.

Thank you very much, James.