Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: The Song Company  

Both as a composer and teacher I always begin with questions: What is actually being expressed here? ; Why am I/you composing at all? And so when I was asked to write something for the AMC's web magazine resonate about my MODART07 composition it seemed most natural to focus on the series of questions I ask/ed myself in considering and undertaking this project. I also thought it might be interesting for readers who aren't composers to get a sense of what's involved in a project like this, and my ideas for approaching composition generally.

Why participate in this project?

At face value this may seem a 'no-brainer': a workshop, public performance and recording for broadcast of a new work - what's to consider?! For me, this question is the easiest - the chance to work again with the singers comprising The Song Company and its musical director Roland Peelman, all of whom I found generous, skilled and genuinely sympathetic interpreters of new music. Considerations were mainly of a practical nature, such as balancing the time and energy needed to produce work for an unpaid professional development opportunity against teaching and other necessary work, and life more broadly. While I mention these considerations to give an honest summation of my thought process, measured in this case they carried little weight.

Why compose at all?

The purpose of art is to resist the world's uglinessPop artist Billy Joel (a.k.a. 'the Piano Man') once said he felt genuine artists don't ask why they do what they do - those that are meant to be artists will simply do it, and wondering why won't even come up. I've been a fan for some time, but totally disagree. It is precisely when an artist stops asking 'why' that they should stand back and wonder if they are on the wrong path. Of course, constant questioning can run the risk of creative paralysis, but I feel this is preferable to endless producing because one simply can or because it is interesting or feels meaningful.

While there are plenty of reasons to compose, whenever I set out to begin work on a project these days, issues and oft-given artistic justifications - some moral, some aesthetic - pummel around my mind. Below are some of these, along with responses and thoughts by some of the creative artists who have influenced me and help to find enough resolution to continue creative work.

Usefulness of art?

It is easy for a composer or an academician to justify funding for their work by stating that it simply is valuable. But why is this so? There is no obvious function as there is with commercial art, or say dance party or film music. To some, this is its value. In reference to writing, Chinese author Xingjian Gao in 'A Case for Literature' says:

For him art is also a demonstration of our humanness, each engaged 'of their own volition'. Fair enough, but given the immense upheaval and suffering in so much of the world, the majority of society doesn't have their basic needs met. Nor, realistically, the time needed to exercise their volition to engage in any luxury. Given this, the time and effort spent producing cultural product oriented to a cultural elite by nature seems morally difficult to justify.

Interest?

Further to the issue of art's function in society is the limited public interest in art, both nationally and abroad. However, this isn't necessarily a problem - 'Art' has historically been the purview of a social and/or cultural elite. It need not be so (especially with some compulsory music education in schools), but I am simply saying that: for me, minimal interest from outside inhibits my creative urgency. Although it is heartening to read of the plights of the 16th century master miniaturists in Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red and realise that it has never been any different.

Art ennobles

No doubt it can and does. But as Hermann Broch writes: 'the most cruel of men delights himself with a flower'.

Craft

Trying to perfect the craft aspect of composing is increasingly how I approach the creative enterprise. Partly this comes from an awareness of the way painters often work, producing a series of studies for a given major work, or writers who generally make draft after draft after draft until they are satisfied. As [Irish novelist] John Banville, speaking at the 2006 Sydney Writers' Festival, puts it:

Paint what you love

I have found the following, expressed by the character Moniek Prochownik in [Australian novelist] Alex Miller's Prochownik's Dream, particularly moving and inspiring:

I haven't found any answers, but in my continuous exploration of why I choose to compose, these sentiments and ideas by Miller, Gao and Pamuk provide me with enough encouragement for the moment.

What is the piece about?

I am primarily interested in composing abstract musical compositions of a modernist bent...I am primarily interested in composing abstract musical compositions of a modernist bent - my works are not generally 'about' anything. When working with voice, however, one inevitably comes up against this question. Perhaps an answer of sorts will emerge from reflection on my process of engagement with text.

Does the text matter?

I am only too aware of objections raised by composers - Ferneyhough's argument that it is disrespectful and artistically immature to subjugate the semantic integrity of one art form (a poem for instance) to another (the 'setting' of a poem to music); Boulez's notion of a text's 'absence' in music, as if the music is 'set around' a text that may not actually be annunciated; or Schoenberg's reputed assertion that he only read the first few lines of a text and did not subsequently worry about its meaning and just composed.

In response to these notions, I ask: why use a text at all if it will not be clearly heard? If the text is absent, its meaning irrelevant, or it is fragmented beyond recognition, what is the point of using it, or claiming to use it in the first place? So for me, the text does matter, as does its meaning and its audibility.

Text, music and meaning

Having decided to use text and that its meaning will be of significance to the work, I chose several ideas that by good fortune resonated quite strongly. My last work, also for The Song Company, had strong religious themes, and was a setting of short Buddhist texts. Subsequent to this, I read Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene. This made a big impression, as did his Unweaving the Rainbow, in which he suggests poetry would be more meaningful today if inspired by science rather than religion and superstition. He gives as an example the opening lines of William Blake's Auguries of Innocence: 'To see a world in a grain of sand […] and Eternity in an hour', showing how for him this is a good poetic summary of his world view, Blake's own notwithstanding.

I found this notion initially inspiring, but as I considered it more deeply, disingenuous. At the time, I was reading Kenzaburo Oe's novel Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age, which is littered with Blake quotes and ideas. And the following:

But do they? To quote Dawkins (2006): 'If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking can undo it'. Also, I would say, if something is not true.

This line of thinking coalesced with two other ideas. I was also intrigued by the idea of setting the Salve Regina of the rosary, partly because this could function as a preliminary study to a larger work dealing with the 'holy man/woman' - a project I intend to undertake next year. This text tells how we weep and sigh, mourning in this valley of tears while crying to Mary, 'our life, our sweetness and our hope'. It stems from a tradition of bearing suffering to experience spiritual bliss in union (The Imitation of the Christ is another, more extreme example), but it seems to me to be an empty cry, an undergoing of pain in the hope of salvation where there is nothing.

Also, by happy coincidence, while thinking through this I was reading John Carroll's new book The Existential Jesus, which focuses largely on the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus is presented as a man:

The book also made me aware of the link of Jesus's death cry to Psalm 22, which begins with the same words and similarly laments the lack of response by God to his people calling by day and by night. Bleak. And the title of my piece - Senza Speranza - and what my piece is about: No Hope (literally 'without hope'). Questions, Questions. I hope my weaving of the psalm, death cry and 'Salve Regina' in the context of my musical setting will move at least some of the audience to reflect on these themes.

Musical considerations

Of course, there are also technical musical matters of significance to this project - primarily concerning form and distinguishing transitional material and principal musical episodes which I'll not go into now … except to say that they are another answer to the question: 'Why Compose?'.

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