4 questions with 3 answers

I was asked some questions for use in the publicity for the upcoming release of the recording of Binn an tSíorsholais by the Jancek Philharmonic under Jiri Petrdlik on the Navona label on 24th March 2023. Here they are, with my answers.

1. Orchestral music is a long-celebrated and complex genre with history and traditions spanning centuries. When was the first time that you can remember an orchestra, ensemble or piece, make an impression upon you? How did that performance affect your artistic journey?

The earliest orchestral pieces that I can remember listening to as a child are two: Schubert’s 8th Symphony, the so-called “Unfinished", and the suite from Peer Gynt, by Grieg. I can’t tell which was the first chronologically to make an impression. The Schubert’s mysterious opening captivated me, and how the music after that initial mystery was gradually revealed in gradually increasing waves, right up to that point when the clouds part and sunlight shines in with the melody of the second idea (which incidentally was one of the first tunes I was able to successfully whistle). The acceleration in the last movement of the Grieg was, of course, the thing that hooked me in that piece - it’s a kind of a cheap trick, but children love tricks, and I was no exception. The Schubert probably had a greater impact on my artistic journey, as you put it. In particular, I was aware of the music in the first movement having some sort of internal dynamic which drove it forward. The nine-year-old me didn’t understand it, but later I realised that the direction of the drive was always from darkness to light, and that’s something that I still find myself thinking about a lot when I compose.

2. Completing a piece for orchestra is a big accomplishment, and so is having it recorded and released. Can you recall the emotions you felt when hearing this work performed for the first time?

The first performance of this piece back in 2005 was a big disappointment - the orchestra had been under tremendous pressure - it was in the context of a music festival - with limited rehearsal time and a busy recording and performing schedule, and I think that as a result of this (I refuse to believe they would have done it on purpose) one of the clarinetists mistakenly played their entire part on an A instrument instead of a B flat instrument, so that the part, right through, sounded a semitone lower than it should have . All my carefully chosen tone-clusters became distorted, and the spatial effects of some sections disappeared entirely. 

When I heard what was happening to the performance as the music passed me by, my dismay was huge. I initially thought that I had made a mistake with the transposition of the player’s part, but given that I actually AM a clarinet player, I knew that that was unlikely. I know my transpositions. When I checked the part afterwards, my work was correct, so it had been the player using the wrong instrument. 

The piece should have been broadcast on the radio, but I vetoed it. I lived with the memory, and the useless recording, of that performance until 2022.  Then, when we were recording with the Janacek Philharmonic, hearing the orchestra playing the piece and in particular the central sparkling antiphonal sections after such a long period - seventeen years! - brought a tear to my eye and gave me a lump in my throat. It was truly a moment of catharsis for me. 

3. Constraints can be an important part of creativity.  Do you find the format itself to be a primary driver for your expression?  When writing for orchestra, do you actively think about the lengthy tradition behind you, or do you approach it completely fresh? Or a combination of both?

I honestly don’t think about it! If I did I wouldn’t write at all. 

4. A composer’s particular background as an instrumentalist (or not!) can dramatically impact the way they conceive of their work. How did (or did not) your instrumental background inform the way you wrote this piece? How do you go about the process of trying to get your compositional mind into the fingers and hands of the players during the writing process?

This is a huge issue. First of all, I’m not a pianist, so I don’t write at the piano. I’m a wind player, so I think in breaths, and phrases which are articulated through breaths, and then contrapuntally, in lines of notes and sounds, rather than harmonically, in clumps of notes and sounds. Perhaps my harmonic progressions tend as a result to be breath-like, with a sort of in- out/tension-release cadence to them, which I then decorate (or perhaps try to hide!) with filigree linear work.

You can probably also tell that I’m a wind-player by looking at any score of mine. Some composers, when you sit down with their scores, you can tell what instruments they can play, because of the way they write for the others, the ones they don’t play. I try to be familiar to some degree with the physicality of all the instruments that I’m writing for: you have to marry the sound in your head, the sound that you want to hear, to the way which that sound can be realised physically by the players in the ensemble. Knowing, imagining physically, what the players have to do to get that sound will inform your choices, without a doubt. 

There is a lot of very interesting, but difficult, music being written using extended instrumental techniques, and you can tell which composers have thought it through, and which ones haven’t - you can differentiate between the composers on the one hand who have learned, in theory, what the instruments can, in theory, do, but have not yet learned the context in which these techniques can be implemented, and the composers on the other hand who have given careful thought to the context in which they place these difficult technical demands on players, and so are creating new exciting pieces which can be repeatedly performed.