A short quote

This is a short quote I found recently. A colleague from the Conservatoire used the first line in a choral piece he wrote, and I was very impressed by the depth of the text. Here it is, it's a fragment of the Song of Myself by Walt Whitman:
 
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

Great Speech

I just wanted to take a moment and share this amazing speech with you. I haven't seen the movie, but this is the final speech delivered by Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator. 

I have listened to it now three consecutive times, and cried on each one.

I would like to hear a real politician say this: to actually admit that what the world needs is love and compassion, that we don't need luxury to be happy, that we don't need to hate our neighbors, that we must love everyone. I would like to hear a politician talk sincerely about despair and human pain, about hopelessness, and about how love and compassion are the only console for this. True love and true compassion.

Here is a quote from the Bible that is amazing for one very particular reason: it speaks about love without mentioning one single time either God, Jesus or any other biblical character of importance. It is very simple and direct, and it summarizes perfectly what the rest of the book is about. It is chapter 13 from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

"If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,

it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,

it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially,

but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love" 

I think it is very relevant to quote from the Bible, to remember how the most influential book in the history of Western civilization, a book that has been quoted over and over to justify countless atrocities towards humanity, is actually about love and compassion. This should remind us of how people with power take our dearest symbols, our greatest and deepest messages, and just distort them, prostitute them, rape them and mutilate them so that they serve their own egoistical ends. 

Sunn O))), Amenra and DakhaBrakha

Yesterday I went to an amazing concert in Paard van Troje, in The Hague (for those of you who live here, it's very close to Grote Markt). The performers were the ones mentioned in the title, plus others. I must confess I left immediately after Sunn O))) finished because I really needed to digest what had just happened.

The night began at 20.00 with a performance of Nicad with the New European Ensemble. They are more on the pop side, but I could tell some influences from My Chemical Romance and music of this style. They had nice arrangements and the orchestration was very well made. It was a bit too nice and perfect for my taste, though, but listenable nonetheless.

Then came DakhaBrakha (link is to a recording of a concert they gave in Roskilde, Denmark), a group from Ukraine. I have never heard anything as amazing as them in this kind of genre, maybe Eivør Pálsdóttir (Faroese singer). I don't know much about Ukrainian folk music, but the group describes itself as "chaos folk," and you can feel lots of harmonies that evoke this traditional style singing, but with a more "modern" (i.e. western) approach. Very interesting, what they do, I especially like the first two songs. I would really like to go to Ukraine and see how it is, I have seen and heard many amazing things coming from this country, I have met many nice people from there, so I would like to know how it is, to feel the air there, to see the people, to hear the language (which I understand is mainly Russian, but anyway).

DakhaBrakha

Because Paard van Troje has two concert halls, the presentations of Amenra and DakhaBrakha were overlapped, so I missed a good half of Amenra's presentation. But what I heard was amazing also. It's a completely different idea, very dark music, lots of "dirty," distorted noises, 4/4 beat, what you would expect from any metal band of this particular genre. On this sense, it was a very "safe" act, there was nothing adventurous about it, most songs were pretty simmilar between them. Despite this, I liked it very much, but mainly because in general I enjoy this music. It seems to me that it comes from the deepest corners of human despair and desolation. A voice shrieking in the dark, "why have You forsaken us?" while the audience moves convulsively, in a kind of trance that leads nowehere but further and further into darkness. Can we help it? Can we avoid being sucked into the blackness? Should we not sing these songs of anguish and wretchedness? The whole place was filled with this massive sound, with this rhythm that drove the audience into a kind of trance, just twitching to the music, moving as we could, following the shirtless figure on stage, with an inverted cross tatooed on his back, not looking at us, but at some unknown point inside himself. He crouched on the floor, screaming. It was horrible and beautiful at the same time. So much pain, so much.

The lead singer of Amenra, with his back to the audience.

Then came Sunn O))) (link is to a concert they gave in Leuven, Belgium)... I don't have words for describing it, it was a huge wall of sound, or more like being submerged in an ocean of vibrations. Most of the sounds were low, dissonant. I felt vibrations on my throat, on my stomach, my legs. After 20 minutes of this, I began loosing it completely. I have never felt something like that, my mind just began going everywhere, I began remembering things from months ago, then I came back to the sound, then I went off again, then I came back. It was almost as a meditation, but much more chaotic and dark. Some people around me were also loosing it. I didn't move at all, but some people began extending their arms, moving, shaking, touching their faces. The singer mostly spoke, saying incomprehensible things that sounded as some kind of ancient prayer said in a cathedral of noise and chaos. The performers were dressed in dark robes, and the stage was full of smoke and coloured lights. It was very impressive. It felt as a further stage into madness, after the controlled despair of Amenra, this was the uncontrolled rage of the forgotten souls. It was terrible, unbearable. At everymoment I thought I was going to faint, to fall into madness. This is what I meant when I said that no work of art should be made that doesn't plunge the spectator into madness. After experiencing a work of art, it should not be easy to go back to the real world, to face the daily routines. This is exactly what happened to me, I could barely drive my bike back. I remember less than half of my route back home (a 20-minute drive under the rain). Sunn O))), at least in my personal opinion, is pure art. They build mountains of sound and just drop them mercilessly on the audience, not caring if they can cope with them or not, because I sincerely doubt the performers themselves can. Simply beautiful.

Light and smoke and figures dressed in dark robes: Sunn O)))

Performance of my piece

On Monday I had the opportunity to attend the premiere of my piece "Another year..." performed at the Korzo Theatre in The Hague. It was an amazing experience, to see my piece finally come to life after so many months of revisions. The musicians were very committed to the music, and it showed. I was very satisfied and, after the concert, several people approached me to say they had also enjoyed it.

I feel very happy that other people liked it, but if no one had liked it, or approached me to congratulate me, I would not have felt disappointed in any way. This piece is one of the few pieces I have made so far with which I am completely satisfied. I did what I wanted to do, exactly as I wanted it, and the sound result reflects almost exactly what I had in my mind (of course, with the added value of the interpretation the musicians gave). This is the most important thing to me. 

Allen Ginsberg, who wrote the haiku

I used as text for my piece.

But then, I also think that the fact that other people liked it is really important (I am assuming that the people that approached me were being honest and not just polite). To me, it means that, in some way, there was a connection between us, that, for one moment, we could communicate without barriers. For me, this is also the most important thing. This is the whole point of making music. I remember a quote from the movie Copying Beethoven, where Beethoven talks to his secretary's fiancé, who is an architect. He says, "you build bridges to connect pieces of land, I build bridges to connect the souls of people," or something along that line. While I don't feel as an almighty God that has the power to make others bow to my will and cry when I tell them to, or smile or sing, I do feel the need to share what I do, because it may reach other people in the same way it reached me and motivate them to be more honest with themselves, in the way I am trying to be as honest as possible to myself. 

I don't know if I succeeded in this or not. I don't expect anything, I just want to be myself and try to motivate others to do the same. We cannot love others if we don't love ourselves first, not in the run-down commercial way of "I buy things for myself, I travel the world, I go to the gym, therefore I love myself," I mean the true way, saying "I love myself as I am, I don't put any conditions on this, I shall be as I am and I don't need anything else to love myself." Only when we attain this level of self-respect can we begin to love the world around us. 

Graffiti by Banksy

Even more thoughts on the vocal piece

I have been thinking more about this vocal piece. There are some issues with writing a piece that involves so "little" amount of work from my part. I feel like I am not actually doing anything, as if I was just relaying the burden of composing to someone else, doing something like what Borges does on his short story, Theme of the Traitor and the Hero (and others, but this is my favorite example): outlining a possible outcome for a creative idea, suggesting a line of thought that could be followed by a more apt pursuer rather than following it myself.

But, then again, am I really not doing anything? Am I really not working hard to arrive to this conclusion? Is it really not the result of hours and days and weeks of thought, and debate, and changes, and more changes, and questioning and more questioning? Furthermore, should I always comply to an ideal of "hard work" as a kind of work that delivers a finished material to be easily consumed by the public? Why can I not allow myself to trust the performers, to allow them to have some more part in the creation of this music? Must I always dictate to the utmost degree of precision what everybody has to do?

John Cage, one of the fathers of Indeterminacy

I feel that, mainly, this is a result of my own insecurities. I fear that, if I am not clear enough with what I say, the result will be a disaster, or that it will not result in what I want. But, another question, should it always result in what I want? On one hand, I could say "yes, that's why I'm writing music in the first place, so that it stays." But another me could say, "but, wait, do you really need to be able to predict what is going to happen, to have control over destiny in some way, to be satisfied with the outcome? Why not have some degree of surprise, of indeterminacy?" 

This post is a kind of self-debate. I feel the need to be able to justify why I am doing this, because it represents a complete detour from my usual way of working (id est writing everything in a fully-notated way).

I don't feel like I am doing this to impress anyone, or to demonstrate anything to anyone. If I was (I have to be really sure I am not), then the whole effort would have proven meaningless, since then the piece would not have any value of its own, it would not be a fruit of my own liking, but rather a vane attempt to imitate someone else in order to gain respect from others. 

The problem I see with this writing is that the great freedom I give to the performers can be interpreted as a permission to do "anything," which is something Christian Wolff mentioned a lot in his lecture. He said that he has the ideal that the musicians will be willing to put all their effort in making the piece sound as good as possible, but that this is, of course, not always the case. In my case, I have two performers that are very open to working with new music and whom I consider also to be very good persons as well. So maybe this problem is not very much of a problem at all. I also has to do with the rehearsals of the piece, and I intend to have many, so that the performers really feel what the idea is about, and can build the music around it. 

I think it might be a problem of facing the fact that I don't want to control this music, although I feel the great urge to do so. I feel that this piece should be free, it should be what the performer wants it to be. The journey from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment has to be a personal one, this is why the piece simply cannot be a through-composed piece, because each performance has to mean a different search, a different path. Each duo has to find its own way. 

I think it might also be that I am afraid of "wasting" my time in writing a piece that will be worthless, and then having to redo it. But is time really wasted? Who am I to declare if I wasted my time or not, as if I owned it? Would I have learned nothing? I don't think so now.

Maybe there is nothing to worry about, then. Maybe I just need to write the music and see what happens. Maybe I just need to stop being so frightful about jumping into these unknown waters. I am not a believer of the "try everything at least once in your life" philosophy, but I do believe you can apply it to certain things in life. For example, this. I wouldn't like to let go the opportunity of exploring into the terrain of indeterminate music, of musical experimentation. That's why I decided to study composition in the first place.

So, I go to write now. 

More thoughts on the vocal piece and time

On Thursday, I had another composition lesson and my teacher (this is another teacher, I think I forgot to mention that at the Royal Conservatoire, bachelor students work with two teachers) commented a lot on my way of notating the piece. 

In order to have a greater sense of rhythmic freedom in the piece (i.e. in order to avoid a sense of "pulse"), I decided to notate it as a succession of time lapses with some pitches and dynamics inside. So, for instance, you would get a "bar" that lasts for 1'10" where the pianist has to play a low C, then some pizz on the strings, then a chord, another low C, another low C and then another chord or something like that. So the distribution of the sound events is free to be determined by the performer. At the same time, I divided the piece into very precise time lapses, dividing the 7 minutes that we have as maximum (420 seconds) into sections using a 5:3:1 proportion, and then subdividing these sections using the same proportions. 

What my teacher pointed out was the contradiction between wanting a pulse-free sound and dividing the time so precisely. He concluded that, in performance, it would not sound very different from a fully notated score, and he showed me the score of Berio's Concerto for 2 pianos, which begins with a time-lapse, "free," notation and continues, once the orchestra enters, with fully notated rhythms. The difference between the two sections is barely noticeable, if at all. 

Terry Riley

What he suggested was to look at the examples of some American composers, who worked with "programs" instead of fully notating their scores. Christian Wolff came back to mind, with his pieces that are mainly sets of suggestions that can result in performances that vary greatly between each other. I was interested in this idea, but I feel that this kind of notation can very much result in music that does not have any drammatic element, which is fine, but it's not what I wanted to do with this piece. Then he also mentioned Terry Riley's piece in C, where he gives a number of melodic patterns to be played in order, but with a free amount of repetitions, free dynamics and free tempo. I think that this can be more suitable for what I want to do, because it gives me the chance of writing melodic lines and harmonies that can convey the atmosphere I wanted for this piece, while at the same time making the piece less "stable," by also giving the performers much more freedom of interpretation.

I leave you with a quote by Jorge Luis Borges (my favorite writer of all), from his essay A New Refutation of Time:

Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

Also, here is a recording of Terry Riley's in C.

P.D.: I apologize for my carelessness. Terry Riley's piece does have a very definite pulse and tempo. What I meant (but was obviously very unclear about) was that the concept utilized in this piece (id est the free repetition of patterns, which can be extended or reduced as well) is a very useful idea for me to use in a different way in my piece. 

Tristan und Isolde

I just finished watching the second act of Tristan und Isolde, by Richard Wagner. I intended to watch the whole opera tonight but one of my housemates is really tired and the house, as one would expect, is not completely soundproof. I don't think he would be very pleased trying to fall asleep with a soprano screaming on the room next to his (I was watching the opera on the TV we have in the living room, and even with the volume close to the minimum, the music was still sounding really loudly).

The music is amazing, I was really impressed at how Wagner builds up the tension continually throughout the whole development of the opera. When Act I finished, I was left with a feeling of "I need to know what will happen next" even though we must admit that not much actually happens in the opera, since it is mainly composed by dialogues between the characters. They don't do anything, just talk between them, but the psychological drama(together with the unresolved musical tensions that dominate the harmonies in the orchestra) keeps you on the edge of your seat at least until the end of Act II (I haven't watched Act III, so we'll see how well everything comes to an end).

Waltraud Meier, who sings Isolde in the version I'm watching. 

I love the intensity of all her gestures, like in this photo.

The story is really simple, as well. Isolde, a member of the Irish nobility (I am assuming the princess of Ireland at the time, although I didn't understand that entirely) is being taken by Tristan to Cornwall to marry King Marke, his uncle. She remembers that Tristan (using a very clever alias, "Tantris") came to her not long ago, wounded and weak, asking her for refuge and help. Se cured him and later he came back, proud and strong, demanding to take her as King Marke's future wife. For her, this is a disgrace, since the King of Cornwall pays tribute to the King of Ireland, apparently. Also, because Tristan killed her future husband (whose name I forgot but I was something like Mordol, Moldor, Mordor - no, that's Lord of the Rings...) and sent her back his head, almost as a joke. So we can farily say that, at the beginning of the opera, Isolde pretty much hates Tristan and wants to kill him both to avenge her dead fiancé and to avoid the disgrace of marrying the King of Cornwall. At the end of the act, after one hour of talking about dishonour, revenge, death, blood, and the like, she tries to kill him by offering him a drink, which is supposed to be a deadly poison. She drinks too (thinking, I suppose, that thus she will commit suicide), not knowing that her maid didn't pour the poison in the cup, but a love potion. Isolde and Tristan fall in love. The rest of the opera is both of them dealing with the fact that they are in love, loving each other and suffering because they are not supposed to be in love, since Isolde is the King's wife and Tristan is supposed to be one of the King's most loyal knights. Of course, the King finds out about this affair and everything just collapses. I still don't know how it all will end, though, I hope I have time soon to finish watching it.

Isolde is healing "Tantris," in what looks like a movie

version. Unfortunately, I don't know much about it.

One of the things that surprised me the most was the intensity of the text. I knew beforehand Wagner's musical habilities, I really enjoy most of his music and I think he was a great composer. I also knew he wrote the libretti for his operas himself, which I find quite impressive, but I didn't expect it be as impressive as it was at least in this particular opera. The love duet at the beginning of Act II (which I could say lasts easily 30 minutes, although I'm not sure) is really dense and poetic. I think the two most important themes that I at least can recover from it are the idea of the "night" in a very St. John of the Cross way, but more linked to romantic love, and the concept of "Liebestod," the death in love. Night is portrayed, not as a fearful environment, as one would find in a horror film, but as a place of solace and comfort. A soothing atmosphere of silence and rest where the lovers enjoy each other, maybe both in the physical and in the spiritual way. Tristan and Isolde also see their love as a way of death. Death of the self, of the "me," and the birth of the "us." Isolde stresses the fact that now they are bound by the word "und" ("and"), they are no longer two separate entities, they are one.

Tristan and Yseult (1887) by Jean Delville

I also sensed a little bit of what I discussed at the end of my previous post, the fear of death. Isolde at some point seems frightful of the idea that the love between them might end, with the death of one of them (most likely Tristan, since he is a knight), but Tristan responds that, through death, their love can become immortal, but then Isolde knows that, for this to happen, she should die as well. At the end of Act II, she eagerly accepts to follow Tristan "to the dark land from which [his] mother sent [him]."

I leave you with one of my favorite fragments of this opera, the "Liebestod" aria. I believe this is taken from Act III, since I still haven't seen it in the version I'm watching, but it's one of the most famous parts. This version is by Jessye Norman (one of the most impressive sopranos I've ever heard), the video doesn't say which conductor or orchestra, I apologize for that.

P.S.: I just read a quote from Clara Schumann on Wikipedia, where she declared that this opera was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life." This was too amazing to leave out.

Lesson with the vocal piece and some other random thoughts

Yesterday I showed my teacher the vocal project for the first time. He was really interested in it and made lots of comments. I am very happy that I already have a text, he liked it very much too, and that the music is flowing much more than it usually does with me. The comments he made I can summarize on the following notes.

• Write more of the piece and then come back to the first sections and correct them. The idea is that it is better to correct the beginning of the piece, which as of now is less than satisfactory, when I have a clearer idea of what happens later. 
• Do not relay so much on the pedal of the piano. My initial idea was to keep the pedal of the piano throughout the whole piece, which gave it a more murky and dark sound, but my teacher pointed out that this can become a really cheap ad cheesy "horror movie" effect, and that a better solution might be to think about using combinations of sustained and short notes, to give more life to the music.
• Use notes outside the tonality to give more interesting colours to the music. The musical ideas I have for the song are all mainly in C minor, although in a less conventional way than writing a Vienese-style Lied. Nevertheless, my teacher still suggested that it would be more interesting to add "outside" notes to the harmonies, following the layout of the overtone series. In other words, to take advantage of the fact that, when having a C on the bass, I could, for example, add a B natural on a higher octave, without the risk of it interfering with the functional characteristic of the C, but adding a more interesting colour to the chord that is formed.
• Make the piano part follow the voice part. In what I have written up to now, the voice mainly comments on what the piano does harmonically, my teacher suggested that it could also be interesting to try and do the opposite, making the piano do harmonies commenting on what the voice does melodically.

It was a really interesting and intense lesson, I have lots to think about and to write as well. I agreed with mostly everything that my teacher suggested. The piece will be quite long, I plan to use all the 7 minutes we were given as a maximum for it. 

Right now I am listening to the 11th Symphony by Shostakovich. I have some mixed feelings about it, beacuse I enjoy it very much. It's really beautiful music, very emotional and appealing, with a strong message and a clear voice. But, on the other hand, I cannot help but feeling that Shostakovich repeats himself so much in his symphonies. There's always these passages with low, long notes on the bass and sad melodies on some wind instrument, or this big orchestral hits with long melodies by the strings in double octaves. Also, I have the impression that, as he got older, he was less and less adventurous with his musical material. You hear, Symphony 1, 4 or 5 and then to 10 and 11 and mostly the same things happen, as if he was forced to write them and didn't have much material to work with, so he decided to recycle. Maybe I am being too harsh with him, and it may sound as if I don't like his music. Nothing could be more false, for me, Shostakovich has been one of my great influences, mainly in terms of expression and how to deal with melodic material to make it sound unique. But I have the impression that he betrays himself in some way. 

Here is a link with an excellent version of this symphony, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Thomas Søndergård at the BBC Proms 2013.

Siberia, this is what I imagine with the beginning of the Symphony.

I also feel this with Penderecki: that, as he got older, he became "softer" in the sense that he went back to more "tonal" ideas and less adventurous orchestrations, for this you can compare his Symphony No. 7 with any of his earlier pieces like Utrenja or Polymorphia. Maybe this is something that happens to all of us, as we get older, we begin to look back to things that give us more safety, maybe because we fear to look into our future, and so we look back to the past for some comfort. I don't deny that this might also happen to me, I am still 20, so I am very young and I have no idea what it is to have lived for so long, and have more and more the certainty that my death is near. Again, maybe I am being too harsh on them, maybe all this is a lie, but, first of all, I don't condemn them for doing wat they do, both of them are masters in their own way, and second, I think it's a good thing to think about. 

What would I do when I know I must be facing the last years of my life? Would I also become afraid and look back into earlier, probably happier or more fulfilling times? Or will I plunge, face forward, into this new, final era of my life and see what is there for me? I always thought being old must be one of the most amazing things in life. To be able to look back to your life, and see all that you have done, all the things that have happened to the world around you and inside you, to see the new generations building their own world, having their own ideas, changing the ideas that your generation had. I think it must be wonderful, but at the same time terribly sad. Sad at the thought of having to leave this world, with no certainty of another world after this one, with maybe an increasing fear of the void, of the possibility that there is nothing else, and that we just extinguish, like candles, leaving no trace but the memories and the things we have done and the people we have loved. 

I think much of what we do is guided by our fear of death. The burden of our consciousness is that we are always aware that life is an ephemeral phenomenon, and that we have absolutely no clue of what happens later. We fear anything that would pose a threat to our lives. We fear that which we don't understand because we fear it will harm us and cause us pain. I think this is the reason why we have wars, why we have money, why we have religions, why we develop policies against groups of people, why there are countries, why we build walls, why we accumulate goods, why some starve while I can write comfortably in my computer after having had lunchm why we hate Mondays and birthdays, why we consume drugs, porn, Facebook, newspapers, alcohol. All of this is because we cannot avoid the horror of the void, of the fact that this life is not eternal, that it will end some day and after that there will be nothing of us left, because we know, deep inside ourselves, that there is no ultimate purpose in this world and that anything and everything we do is meaningless for the Universe. 

Our planet

Maybe I have too much of a Lovecraftian vision of the Universe, but I think this should not be a dauting idea. I think that, although all our experiences would be meaningless in the universal scale, they are not meaningless to us. We live, we die, we dream, we love, we hate, we create and destroy in this small spec of dust. What we do here affects us, we are destined, whether we want it or not, to live in this planet with each other and with all the other creatures that also inhabit it. I think that this Lovecraftian universal scale, more than overwhelm us and make us become suicidal, should make us see that we cannot pretend to be the masters of the Universe, the guardians of the Sole Absolute Truth, because we are not, we are just an infinitessimal dot in space. I think this should make us realize the meaninglessness of our urge to gather money and power, to destroy our enemies, to hate each other, because in the end, we are the only thing we have, I think the only thing that would make us worthy in the face of some cosmic oblivion, would be our sense of unity and the thought of looking at someone else in the eyes, some unkown news vendor on the street, and feeling that this person is also a part of me, that he is my brother and she is my sister, that we are all one.

Christian Wolff and V for Vendetta

Today has been quite an interesting day. Among other things, I finally talked to the bass-bariton I mentioned yesterday, the guy who's going to sing my piece. He's a really nice person and he was very willing to work on this, which is great. Now I have two musicians that re very interested in the piece... I need to write something that's up to the task! I am already full of ideas, which is good, for a change, other pieces have not come out this way. I hope these ideas are good ones, though.

Also today, all the students of composition were invited to attend the rehearsals of some pieces by Christian Wolff that will be performed tomorrow and on Friday at the Conservatoire. Mr. Wolff himself was there and some of the composition students actually performed on the pieces. The pieces rehearsed were Pulse, another one which I don't remember the title, and Changing the System. After that I stayed with other musicians to rehearse Excercises 1, 8 and 15, which we will rehearse tomorrow with public as well. 

Christian Wolff 

(of course, I do not own the rights to this image)

The general idea behind the music of Christian Wolff is how musicians intercat with each other during the performance of a piece, and how a piece of music is actually not finished when the composer finishes writing it, but when it is performed. For Wolff, the performer has a very important role in the process of composition of the piece. Most of his scores haver very few indications (on Edges the only indications are the articulations, and even they are not completely accurate, nor is the performer forced to play all of them), and the performer has to decide, both individually and together with the ensemble and following the (few) parameters stated on the score, how to interpret what is written. Every interpretation of the piece is different, even by the same performers. 

When we were rehearsing the Excercises (where the performer is only given the pitches to be played, but not the tempo, rhythm, articulations, etc., and the only indication given is that unison among all the performers should be the ideal, but is not compulsory) a very funny thing happened. We would all begin more or less playing together (you should not previously agree on a starting tempo either), and suddenly one of us would want to go faster, or slower, or louder, etc, and either the rest of us would follow, or not, and when we didn't, the person that started this change would have to return to what the rest was doing. So this musical dialogue between us took place, where people proposed things that either were accepted or rejected, and this process enriched the music greatly. When we tried to play the pieces again, different things happened. It was beautiful.

After the rehearsal, I went to a friend's house and watched V for Vendetta. He had never seen it, but it was my 10th time watching it, I think. It's one of my favorite films. But now, after having this experience with Christian Wolff's music, I thought I could relate even more closely to his ideas. I recognize in his music, the urge to make people come together and build something together, to make people realize that they can be agents of change in this world of injustice. Performing his music, you can decide what to do, what to play, what not to play, you don't have a tyrant composer giving you all the parameters and hitting you with a wooden ruler every time you play a false note, or do a pianissimo instead of a mezzo piano. He gives you the freedom to participate in this creation, he gives you ideas, not laws, he proposes what you could do, but does not force you to do it. What he does, though, is gently ask you to commit yourself to make the piece come to life in the best possible way, which I think should be the aim of any person leading a nation. Not set laws and punishments, xenophobic slogans and containment policies, but rather seek to create an environment of justice, of understanding, of acceptance, of love and compassion between people. 

A crowd dressed with the Guy Fawkes mask,

the symbol of V, the main character in the film.

All the best you you! 

Vocal project

Well, yes, I know that I am already writing a vocal piece (the one for the competition in Chile, for soprano, clarinet, violin, cello and piano), but there is this other project going on at the Royal Conservatoire that is organized by the composition department together with the vocal department. All the first years are required to write a piece for solo voice and one instrument. The piece does not have to be very long, the teachers said maybe 7 minutes maximum in duration. 

I am planning to write a piece for bass-baritone (if I ever talk to him, because I haven't been able to find the right moment to approach him) and piano (who already agreed to perform). I want to do something that uses tonal chords in such a way that they are not perceived as such, mainly by extending them or by adding sonorities to them. I think it can be a very nice piece to perform, and this bass-baritone has a really nice voice, at least when he speaks, very deep and warm. I think it can work for a very dark, ambiental piece, where strange sounds appear and disappear and everything is very vague. 

With this I also have a sort of dilemma, because I don't know whether to use text or not. I would really like to use some text, because I think it adds much meaning to a piece, even if it is very short. But on the other hand I think it can become too concrete, too on-your-face. I partly think to solve this by using a text that is not in one of the typical European languages like English, Spanish, German, French, Latin, Italian, etc. 

I found this beautiful quotation from the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, one of the many sacred texts in the Hindu tradition. The quotation was also used for the music on the final scene in Matrix: Revolutions (the Matrix series being some of my favorite movies), when Neo has his epic fight with Mr. Smith (my favorite character in the series). 

First in IAST:

oṁ asato mā sad gamaya

tamaso mā jyotir gamaya

mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya

oṁ śānti śānti śāntiḥ – bṛhadāraṇyaka upaniṣad 1.3.28

Then in devanagari:

ॐ असतोमा सद्गमय ।

तमसोमा ज्योतिर्गमय ।

मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय ।।

ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः ।। – बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद् 1.3.28.

And lastly a translation to English:

Lead Us From the Unreal To the Real,

Lead Us From Darkness To Light,

Lead Us From Death To Immortality,

Let There Be Peace Peace Peace. – Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28.

(The source of all this is Wikipedia, of course)

A screenshot from the final battle in Matrix: Revolutions

I think it is a really beautiful text, and I like very much what it says. I have to think more if this is an appropriate text for the kind of piece I want to write... Now that I think of it, the whole piece could be a very slow transition by the piano from the lowest register to the highest, while the bass-baritone sings this prayer as a sort of mantra, symbolizing the process of becoming enlightened, of going from Death to Immortality... hmm hmmm many things to think about.

I leave you all with what I am listening at the moment... 

Orlandi di Lasso - Missa pro defunctis

Some piano music

(Artwork by Banksy)

Some friends of mine on Facebook have been posting this video, and I thought I might share it here.

An artist in Santiago de Chile placed pianos around the city (I'm supposing mainly downtown) so that people could play them. Apart from one that was destroyed (no one knows by whom), the pianos are still there and people play them.

The video is of a homeless man, covered with his 101 dalmatians blanket, playing some tunes on the piano. 

It shocked me not because he was a homeless man and he was playing the piano, but at how no one (included myself) would have expected that a homeless man knew how to play the piano. What shocked me wa the comments, saying "oh this is amazing!" as if it was an orangutan dancing ballet or an elephant performing the Haydn trumpet conerto. I think we tend to see homeless people as something less than human, as less worthy in some way of living in the same world as we do. I remember that I went with my school on some days to give "breakfast" to the homeless at 7.00 am, I did it maybe 3 or 4 times, I don't remember, but I thought it was so humiliating for them. I must recognize I don't know if they appreciated the sandwiches we gave them, maybe they did, but it was the fact that most of them were sleeping at that hour, and we had to wake them up, in the cold morning, to give them tea or coffee and sandwiches. I don't know, I've always felt that we treat these people as though they are less human, chasing them away from our doors, waking them up to give them sandwiches, throwing our leftovers at them. 

I think this video is very important because it can help more people see the homeless as human beings. This man was not always homeless, he has a story behind him, he suffers, he loves, he feels cold, he feels hot, he dreams at night, there is nothing different between him and us, he is part of us. 

He does not have a house, you say? But, do we have one ourselves? Do we actually own anything? Music teaches us this: we do not own anything. How can you own a G minor chord? It doesn't exist, neither does the Rachmaninov 2nd piano concerto, beutiful as it is, exist. Only while you listen to it it exists. 

I just think we tend to marginalize that which we do not understand. We cannot imagine why someone would not have a house, we shudder to think how it might be to sleep under a bridge: the thought of it is terrifying, so we push them away from our sight, we sweep them under the carpet, where no one will see them. We do this with everything that scares us, everything that we don't understand. Art is an example, emotions are an example, God is an example. We try to simplify them, to make them measurable, we mutilate them so that they fit our rigid strucutres and, when they don't, we just discard them, we throw them sandwiches from the window of our cars. 

Ars poetica

The artist is the Prophet.

The artist goes into the world beyond this world.

The artist is not a creator, but a discoverer.

The artist is not a lonely ranger, sitting at the top of the mountain, talking alone to some God. 

The artist is the voice that screams in the desert.

The artist is felt deep inside, the anguish, the pain, the desire, the yearning.

The artist finds order in chaos.

The artist exists.

No work of art should be made that does not contain the last drop of blood.

No work of art should be made that does not plunge the spectator into madness.

No work of art should be made.

The artist shall die some day, but not while there is so much pain in the world.

The artist is not the Messiah, nor does s/he herald him.

The artist just cannot cope with the visions.

The artist lies within you.

We do not listen to the artist.

We do not want to listen to the artist.

We were always told not to listen to the artist.

The artist is dangerous.

The artist is not quantifiable.

The artist is unpredictable.

The artist is honest.

The artist does not pretend to be someone else.

We were told that what we do is wrong.

We were told to fill in the lines.

No work of art should be made that follows the lines.

No work of art should be made in the dark corridors of this great old cathedral.

No work of art should be made without the screams of the thousands of souls in the deep corners of the world.

The artist will hold you on your last moments.

The artist will not tell you what you want to listen.

The artist will be unpleasant.

The artist should be unpleasant.

But, in the end, you will know the truth.

In the end, you will realize.

There is nothing more important than this.

Painting by Käthe Kollwitz

Rehearsal of my music

Today we had the first rehearsal of a piece of mine that will be performed on December 9th at the Korzo Theater here in The Hague. 4 friends of mine are performing in it. It's for singer (in this case a tenor), double bass, timpani, temple blocks and tam tam. I was really really pleased with how the rehearsal went. I began conducting them during the first readings of it, and then they went off by themselves and I could just enjoy listening to it. They were all really good and also they liked the piece and it showed, so I was really excited. I almost cried at some point, but I managed to hold myself... didn't want to lose my dignity.

The text is from my favorite poet of all, Allen Ginsberg. I hope I'm not breaking some copyright law by using his text. To be fair, the entrance to the concert is free, I'm not making ANY money from this piece and I clearly state that the text is his (at least in the score, up to now, if there is any program to the concert, I intend to make it clear there also). The poem is a small haiku:

another year

has past - the world

is no different

I like very much the slow tempo it has, also it conveys so much with so few words (as a good haiku should). I won't go into what I think it means because I don't want to kill it. But in my piece I wanted to use this sense of pauses it gives, and also use a very slow tempo. I chose to use two melodic instruments and percussion because it also gives this sensation of emptiness, especially the temple blocks for me are very important, I imagine a huge stone temple and some monk aloe in the center playing them to invoke some mysterious god, while rain falls outside. 

This image reflects somehow the idea I wanted for my piece, although I must confess I didn't imagine a Gothic cathedral, it's more the mood and the idea of a huge empty space. Artwork by inetgrafx, link here, of course I do not own the art work and this person has very interesting stuff, you should check it out if you liked this. 

I would like to end today's post with a quote from a book I'm reading now. It's called "Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate" by Terry Eagleton. A friend recommended it to me, and I thank him very much for that since it has given me a very different insight on this topìc which I find so interesting. 

In claiming the world as our own, we find that we have ended up possessing a lump of dead matter. In asserting our free spirits, we have reduced our own bodies to pieces of mechanism.

Nos dha! Dobranoc! Bonne nuit! Buenas noches! (It's already 0.30 as I post this... so now to bed!)

Copland, Poulenc and Mendelssohn in The Hague

On Friday night I went with some friends to the Dr. Anton Philipszaal to watch the Residentie Orkest perform Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland, the Concerto for Two Pianos by Francis Poulenc and the Scottish Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn. It was a nice concert, the repertoire was in general on the agreeable side and the orchestra was decent. I must only complain a bit of the acoustics of the hall. It was the first time I ever sat on the right-hand side balcony and I could barely hear a thing, I thought the pianists played very softly in the concerto, but it was more a problem of the hall. It is a real pity.

A rather epic depiction of Copland composing

I have never been a great fan of Copland, not because I dislike him personally, it's just that I have never been able to relate to his music. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of a clearly American style of composing, which I think is really important, because it means that finally the so-called New World began having its own views of the European cultural legacy. For this I respect him very much and it is also an inspiration to me, since I am also a citizen of the lands beyond the Atlantic (I was born in Venezuela) and I still think we have a long way to go in speaking with our own voice, in recognizing the value of our own culture.

Peace to all! 

Some old music today

Well, today I haven't done much... but I decided I will post some of my old music so that any hypothetical reader of this blog can see what other things I have done in the past.

Here is a MIDI version of the first movement of my Piano Sonata. I wrote it this winter (Northern winter, that is during December - January) in Poland, while I studied in Łódź (you pronounce it like "woodge") with Prof. Zygmunt Krauze. I consider this piece to be one of the few things that I've written that actually reflects what I wanted to do. It is exactly as it should be.

This is Łódź, a view from ul. Pomorska to the church I could always see from my room.

Here you can listen to the longest piece I've written up to now. It was a commission from the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado, USA. The piece was performed by the American String Quartet... yes I cannot believe that either, but as Justin Bieber said, never say never. I really like this piece also, although you can tell is a little bit more immature (it certainly is more tonal anyway).

Feel free to listen to the other tracks in my SoundCloud.

And now so that you don't get any more bored, I just wanted to share some poetry. It's one of the Holy Sonnets by John Donne. It appears also as an aria at the end of act I of Doctor Atomic, by John Adams, one of my 2 favorite operas (the other one is Turandot). You can see the performance here.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

(I apologize since I copied the poem from another website and I didn't realize it still had the white background and was barely readable...)

Had lesson today...

I had a really nice lesson today. I arrived with 3 doodle-things to my teacher's house and we spent I think more time than what was initially planned discussing them. I must say it was MUCH more than I expected, but it was amazing since I got very interesting insights on how to deal with musical material. I will make a sort of list with them in any order to be more organized.

• Inner silence: It is very important to hear yourself, to be attentive of the ideas that come into your mind. Listen to them carefully and then try as hard as you can to write them as precisely as possible. It doesn't matter if this process takes months and thousands of sketches, the aim should always be to write what you imagined and develop it.
• Intuition v/s systems: I relate very much to this. There has to be a balance between inspiration and work, not all the ideas come naturally, and in general inspiration is not constant, it comes and goes. Personally, I always think that it is best to begin with an intuitive musical idea and then systematically develop it (systematically not necessarily meaning to develop it according to mathematical formulas but to work with it in a more methodical way than just sitting down and writing whatever comes to mind).
• Analyzing other composers' works, especially the ones you like most: When you see how others before you dealt with the same problems you are dealing with now, you can always get ideas. For example, now with my vocal piece my teacher recommended that I should listen to some Romantic lieder and chamber music, as well as analyzing some Messiaen, for this could make me realize how other composers dealt with ideas of rhythm, accompaniment, instrumentation, harmony, melody, etc.
• Combining scales to obtain more interesting harmonic material: This is already more specific, but the idea comes from the fact that I wanted to use an octatonic scale for the harmonies in the first part of my piece, which ended up being really dull and boring. My teacher suggested to superimpose or combine it with different scales, similar to what Messiaen did in some of his works, to give more interest to the harmonies.
• Simple structures: Well, this is actually not something we discussed today with my teacher, it's rather something Magnus Lindberg said in a masterclass I attended (as audience) here in The Hague at the Dr. Anton Philipszaal. He said something along the lines of: crazy music should have a very simple form. His music in general has really simple form, which I think is a really positive aspect of it, since it is much easier for the composer to manage very complex harmonic, melodic and rhythmic ideas (among others) and it is easier for the audience to process the music. Everybody wins. I quite liked his pieces, especially Seht die Sonne, of which he showed us some fragments.

So, I'm really happy because I believe I have more ideas now, and much more to think about, which is always great. I leave you today with some Messiaen, I listened to this piece 2 times in a row just now, I'm getting a little bit obsessed by Messiaen:

Vingt regards - X. Regard de l'Esprit de Joie - Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Lots of questions

There's a composition competition taking place in Santiago de Chile, my city. The requirements are that it has to be a piece between 8 and 12 minutes long for soprano, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Basically, Pierrot Lunaire without flute or Quatuor pour la fin du temps with added soprano.
I decided to participate, since I think it is possible for me to write a piece for this ensemble, and also because I've always wanted to participate in some competition in my city.
I chose the following text, which is in Mapudungun, one of the native languages of Chile, which I unfortunately don't speak but find extremely beautiful. The poet is Leonel Lienlaf. A translation follows the original text, I apologize if it's not so poetic, but I tried to get more the meaning than the poetry, also I'm translating from a translation (from Spanish to English), not from the original.

Ka Feipituan

Ka feipituan ñi mongelen,
ñi ülkantumeken
kachill kiñe trayen.

Ramtuafin ti antü
chew küpaimi?
rupale tripantu
ka feipituan.

Alepue mapu küpan pian
amulen, amulen
alüpu puan
doy ayeple wanglen.

I will repeat

I will repeat that I am alive
that I am singing
close to a spring
spring of blood.

I will ask the sun
where does it come from
and if the years go by
I will repeat the same thing.

I come from the lands of Alepue, I will say
I move forward, I move forward
I want to go very far
beyond the threshold of the stars.

I've been trying to write music to it for already two weeks, but nothing good has come out yet. I have lots of questions to think about.

The text is fairly long, how to maintain interest with such a long text during such a long period of time (10 minutes)?
How to structure the piece?
Would repetition be of any help here?
How to create tension without making the soprano scream or having a Chopin-like passage in the piano?
What chords to use? How to obtain the chords without having to resort to tonal stuff? (No, I don't want this piece to be tonal in the XIX century sense of the word).

I have many more questions, but these are the more basic ones, which I could summarize in "how do I write this piece?".
I have been listening to a lot of Messiaen and like very much how he works with very simple structures that organize very complex material. I relate very much to the ideas of order and simplicity that I perceive in his work. I think I can go more into that...

Yeah, there's a lot of confusion going on, I hope I can get things clearer and clearer with this. For now, I leave you with some real Mapuche music.

Grupo Araucanía - Wenceslao Coilla

Initial thoughts

I begin writing this blog already near the end of 2013, already two weeks into my third month at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. It is the first time I ever study composition at an institution, aiming to obtain a title in this career.

My previous experience in composition was just writing what I liked, whenever I wanted, without having to justify myself in front of a teacher. This was good, for a time. Then I realized that I was becoming more and more self-centered and more and more naive musically at the same time. This led me to want to become more strict with myself and to meet other people that were interested in the things I was interested in, namely everything related to music. Thus, I ended up first in Poland and then here in the Netherlands, where I've met many talented people that know so much more about everything than I do, which has made me learn a lot of things and also want to continue exploring and learning new things.

This was kind of a short post that seems kind of silly, but I just felt I needed to introduce myself briefly before beginning to post more abstract things, which will come soon. I expect to post at least once a week.

Peace to all!