Thinking about composition

STARTING OUT

I was nine years old when I was given a little plastic recorder at school, and that led to playing the piano and trumpet. I knew immediately that I wanted to pursue a life in music and the desire to create my own music came immediately too. I felt an instinct to write my own tunes, and I still have a little piano piece I wrote when I was 10 years old. It is in A minor. My grandfather was a coal miner but loved music. He had played the euphonium in local colliery bands and had sung in the local church choir. He got me my first cornet and took me to my first band practices. He was my first and most important encourager.

I didn’t know what being a composer would mean back then but it was my main focus from this early age. My grandfather and my mother talked about music a lot and were able to introduce me to the most important composers from the past, and our house had a lot of piano music which my mother had played when she was younger – Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn I remember the most. I tried to grapple with all this as soon as I was able. My grandfather also had a lot of his old choir music which intrigued me too – mostly pietistic 19th and early 20th century motets for the church. However, just being exposed to this had a big impact on me.

I developed an early love of Wagner and the Strauss operas – a strange fascination for a young lad, I suppose! But this led on to the discovery that there were still composers alive at that time and pursuing their imaginative visions within this classical tradition. I remember being very interested that there were great figures at work not too far from me – in particular Benjamin Britten who lived a few hundred miles down the road in England. These were all early and vital influences on the way I was thinking about music and how I could pursue my love of writing.

POP CULTURE, THE AVANT-GARDE: EARLY THOUGHTS

For some time as a teenager I seemed immune to the impact of popular culture. But that changed when I was about 14 and discovered certain rock bands who were experimenting with formats and sounds – anything from Led Zeppelin to Gentle Giant. I was thinking about this recently- I hardly noticed the lyrics of pop music at the time – it was only the instrumental sounds and constructions which drew my blinkered attention. In retrospect this is a strange prism through which to view the popular music of the 1970s, which was as much a literary or poetic phenomenon as a sonic one. It’s only recently that I’ve started noticing the words in pop songs! And that means it’s only recently that I have finally realised the fuller and more exact significance of this music.

Nevertheless, the sounds of rock music did hold my fascination for some time as a youngster, although my most enthusiastic focus was always on what we might describe as “art music.” My early interest in Britten eventually expanded in my undergraduate years to an obsession with the avant-garde figures of the time, and I hungrily absorbed as much of these composers as I could – Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio etc. And the influence of this seeped into my own undergraduate music. In 1980 I attended the Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik in Darmstadt and had a lesson with Brian Ferneyhough, and attended classes given by Wolfgang Rihm and Gerard Grisey.

In the long run I don’t think this music made any major lasting impact on me, and I was more drawn to composers who wanted to make some kind of engagement with tradition, or folk culture or some aspects of popular culture like jazz, or to rethink matters of harmony, melody and form. Those composers were Lutoslawski, Berio, Andriessen and others. In fact various British composers a little older than me had travelled to Poland in the 1970s to study, attracted by the likes of Lutoslawski, Penderecki and others. Perhaps they saw something more humane and communicative in the tonal reconsiderations at work in these Polish composers. Composers like Nigel Osborne and my own teacher John Casken were studying in a Poland in the 1970s.

APPROACH TO COMPOSING/STYLE

My compositional approach to each work is different depending on whether there is text involved. If I am setting words these will have a major bearing on the construction of the music, its mood and its development. I look deeply into each poem to find musical clues that could be central in shaping wider issues in the music, as well as the actual forefront meaning in the words themselves.

But when there are no words, such as in a recent violin concerto which I have composed for Nicola Benedetti, or in a string quintet I wrote last year for the Brentanos in the US, then I have to ponder purely abstract considerations. I have returned gradually to a more instinctive and natural approach – I consider line and melodic (or monodic) character and mood. Over the years I think I have been influenced by my interest in folk music and chant, and these are shaping factors in the nature of the said line or melody. In the violin concerto (my second) I could feel the subliminal infusion of these things – I used to play and sing in a folk band when I was younger and the Celtic/Gaelic character of Scottish and Irish traditional music has got under my skin, so much so that I hardly think about it any more – it is a subconscious presence in my compositional makeup. Similarly, my involvement with liturgy over the years brought me under the spell of Gregorian chant and plainsong, which I regard as a kind of perfect melodic phenomenon – a timeless form of monody and unique in its flexibility and sense of irregular flow.

Sometimes an extra-musical idea can become a specific shaping factor in the music itself. For example, when I was composing the aforementioned string quintet I was reading a lot of philosophy, and in particular the writings of John Henry Newman and Dietrich von Hildebrand. There is a profound religious dimension to their writing, of course, and an abiding priority of the importance of “the heart” and the necessity for us to draw on this mysterious interiority in our human interactions, cultural, political, spiritual and personal. So my quintet is entitled ‘Heart Speaks To Heart’ and is shaped by that most personal of interaction, that of one person to another. And so the music progresses as a series of duets between different combinations. The duos form intimate partnerships and the other three players provide gentle and unobtrusive punctuations and commentaries. Obviously there are quite a range of duet coupling possibilities so the texture of the music is ever-changing, like a kaleidoscope.

Within these wider and general shaping plans I still feel that the techniques I had learned and developed over the years are still present, but in a more subconscious and subliminal sense. Yes, I think about pitch and how to organise it, and various techniques and approaches kick in – based on a natural sense of mode, and sometimes the organisation of chromatic order, even dodecaphonic order. But I stress that these considerations arise very naturally and without too much conscious deliberation. The other major parameter in my mind is structure: how best to shape the specific abstract ideas into a coherent form which can stand up to the fullness and multiplicity of its ingredients. Therefore, sometimes I plan a likely scaffolding in advance so that all the different elements are underpinned by a strong backbone. Some other times though this will be impossible and I have to allow the music to emerge organically, note by note, bar by bar, theme by theme.

I try not to position myself stylistically. Too much self-analysis can be damaging! Nevertheless, I am aware of what is said and written about my music, and it depends on who is speaking and writing. Some will feel that the music is challenging and modernistic, as it may not chime with a conservative and limited experience of musical contexts. Others, coming with a sympathy for the old avant-garde will feel that my music is old fashioned and traditionalist. Both views may have some purchase, but I tend to avoid thinking like this. I am a living composer who values new aural vistas while valuing the important place of traditions, musical and otherwise.

THE CHOIR

Every commission is different, and I try to mould each piece to the performers who have requested it. Sometimes those performers will be world class professionals and other times the performers may be a local amateur group or young people. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work for me. I have been fortunate to write for great choirs like the BBC Singers, The Sixteen or the choir of Westminster Abbey. But writing choral music for amateurs has always been important for me. My Strathclyde Motets were specifically geared towards the good non-professional, student or church choir. There is a huge choral world out there and a composer can make him or herself useful by creating a body of serious work for this essential part of our musical ecology. That requires the composer to be aware of the differing levels and ranges of technical ability across the board.

One of the great surprises in my creative life has been the reemergence of the choir as a significant component in the considerations of the modern composer. In the UK there have always been various strong choral traditions whether ecclesial or secular. But ever since the 1980s there has been a phenomenal development of good professional choirs, growing out of the early music revival phenomenon. And so here we have brilliant choirs like The Sixteen, Tenebrae, the Kings Singers, Polyphony, The Tallis Scholars and ever younger groups where technical abilities are becoming ever stronger. These groups are also interested in new music and they present the work of modern composers in mixed programmes combined with music from the pre-Baroque. This in turn has had a huge beneficial effect on young choristers coming up and on the wider choral world generally. This has become a very important part of my world as a composer and I value the relationships I have built with choral directors and many different choirs, professional and volunteer, in the UK and all over the world.

MUSIC, SILENCE, RELIGION

I know there is probably a generational divide between people like me and young composers, but I advise many of them to seek silence in their lives. This may be difficult for many, and may be achieved in different ways and in different places, but I believe there is benefit in it for composers, regardless of what they feel about religion and the interior life. Silence calls us from its depth, deep calling on deep, like a monstrous ocean. It is imperative that we obey its command. It's as simple as that. Because when all the lessons are over, when you've completed your last counterpoint exercise, when you've learned all you can about how to orchestrate, when you've done modernism, postmodernism, minimalism, neo-complexity and musica negativa until you can't think straight, there is only one other place to go. It is perfectly understandable if one chooses to get off the boat now. But for those who have to continue, how should we travel into this unexplored domain?

I’ve come to realise that it is this ongoing encounter with silence that is the necessary state for a composer. Both eyes and ears turn to this empty place in an apparent and paradoxical search for sounds. Sounds which germinate in a place empty of sound. Sounds which are quickened into existence in a state of sonic vacuum – an apparent absence which brings forth presence.

There is obviously a religious dimension to this but I’m keen to speak of it in ways that people and composers of very different world views and understandings can adapt to their own creative searches. For some, gazing at and listening for beauty is a matter of belief, but the search for the numinous for the composer can take many forms—a deep, attentive looking and listening —can be integrated into our lives as a spiritual practice, or perhaps simply as an imaginative discipline and search for the inner imagination, a search for the interior life.

The analogy with gazing at icons might be helpful. The composer John Tavener told me that in the Orthodox tradition icons are a form of prayer. He said to me “Jesus is the image (icon) of the invisible God” When you look at an icon, it is meant to make you aware that you are in the presence of The Divine. Icons, then, are not just art with a religious theme. Instead, they are sacred art because they bring the viewer into the presence of the holy.

When one fixes one’s undivided attention on these images over a substantial period, the images may come to life and enter into animated dialogue with the practitioner, or so the thinking goes. Painters and creators of icons say that the image being gazed at seems to look at you, coming nearer and nearer, even into your soul. Notice how prominent the eyes are in icons. The understanding is that heaven is looking back at you.

It is said that they are designed to be doors between this world and another world. And my suggestion is that the musical analogy of this, which does not necessarily involve or need a specific image, brings the composer to an ambiguous hybrid place where his or her world comes into contact or communion with another state where the mysterious silent encounter sparks sonic life and compositional possibilities and the new music that we, as composers are always seeking, from deep in our creative imaginations and if you like, from deep within our souls.

It is music that emerges when the silent composer descends into a deeper silence, an objective other place or state to which he or she adheres and of which he or she has become an extension.

Music is a universal language

Letter #3

Dear Friends,

Music is a universal language. The style which has enraptured me since my childhood, classical music has always had an international dimension, and has taken me around the world in the decades since. But even in those early boyhood encounters I became aware of music and musicians from many different lands and eras. Apart from the beauty and excitement of the music itself, the art form became an early gateway for me to languages, history, geography, philosophy, theology and much more. 

There were clearly a lot of Germans to grapple with (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms) – and some French (Debussy, Ravel) – Italians (Vivaldi, Verdi) and lots of Russians too (Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich). But where did my own country figure in all of this? It’s generally thought that Britain was a bit behind the mainland European curve in the early stages of the classical evolution, but we caught up fast, what with the arrival of Handel in London in 1712. But in due course the young music student learns of a rich hinterland of earlier music in England and Scotland embracing Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Henry Purcell and many others. And pre-Reformation Scotland threw up a genuine composing genius in Robert Carver (c.1485-c.1570). 

It’s strange that a culture so proud of its own history and character and fond of trumpeting its own Scottish exceptionalism is strangely mute about our great 16th century composer. But modern Scotland is equally coy about its early literary heroes too - John Barbour, Robert Henryson and William Dunbar. It’s as if patriotic modern Scotland is embarrassed or bewildered by its Catholic beginnings. Is this why we have never truly celebrated Carver, one of Europe’s greatest  composers of the period, who just happened to be Scottish?

Influenced by composers in continental Europe, it is thought that he might even have travelled to Rome and the Netherlands in the learning of his craft. Highly ornate in style, decorative and polyphonically dense, it resembles most closely the rich, glorious music of England’s Eton Choirbook. Carver has a special place in my heart. Scotland’s greatest composer, he proffers a fond memory of our Catholic roots and a signal of musical depth and complexity that can inspire composers like me today.

But it’s the twentieth century that has most impact on the living British composer today – an era which saw an incredible flowering and opening up in art music on these islands: an astonishing proliferation of music with a healthy breadth of reference, of which the likes of Vaughan Williams, Holst and Benjamin Britten were all important figures.

There is profundity, sophistication and beauty in the work of these 20th century English composers. When I am invited to conduct abroad I am keen to include some of this music in my programmes. In Germany, France, Italy and even in the US there is still some lack of engagement with the likes of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. I enjoy taking this music to audiences who are relatively inexperienced in the British tradition, knowing that something unique may be communicated in these unexpected encounters. Conducting Vaughan Williams 4th Symphony at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria, or his Fantasia on a Theme on Thomas Tallis in Germany and Belgium were some of the highlights of my life as a conductor. The musicians and their audiences were surprised and beguiled by music they had heard about, but which had remained hazy, unexplored territory until these performances.

The British composer can seem an odd beast to our mainland European counterparts. First of all they think we only write “pastoral” music, and they don’t just mean Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi. They even detect this musical and aesthetic “defect” in the likes of Harrison Birtwistle. I suppose I do too, but I don’t think it’s defective — there is a profound melancholic sigh in much British musical modernism that can indeed be traced back some generations. But there is something else that we Brits do that many mainland European composers can’t get their heads around — we write serious music for amateurs in our communities as well as for the great professionals. From Vaughan Williams and Holst to Britten, Tippett and Maxwell Davies, we have valued the role of the non-specialist in the nation’s musical life. This has led many of our composers to write significant works for amateur choirs, local bands, workers’ collectives and children. Some of the mainland European composers think this is beneath them (they’ve told me so!) and this may explain their dismissive attitude to us as musical dilettantes.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Local amateur music-making is the jewel in the British crown and is a vital core of the musical ecology of these islands. This can be seen in the composer-led festivals that have sprung up here over the decades. Aldeburgh was established by Benjamin Britten in 1948, and community music-making, including new operas for local children to perform, was an essential ingredient in its blossoming success. Peter Maxwell Davies created the St Magnus Festival in Orkney in 1977 and a similar pattern emerged there too. I remember attending some of the early festivals as an undergraduate, trekking up to Kirkwall with a two-man tent and hardly any money. In church and village halls there would be performances by some of the world’s great musicians, but Max was keen from the start that the local people would have both ownership and input into the proceedings. A Festival Chorus was formed from the people on the islands, and it performed alongside visiting orchestras. Max wrote new works all the time, and some of these were for local performers, including his children’s opera Cinderella, the première of which I attended in 1980.

As the years went by and my own creative life developed I sometimes asked myself if I would ever start a similar festival myself and where it might be. One of the most important lectures I ever heard as a student was from the ethnomusicologist Peter Cooke of Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies. He asked us that when we returned home for the holidays, we should make a note of all the places in our town or village where music was made. This was a revelation for me as I began to think of the various different functions music had in the lives of ordinary people, in ordinary places. In my home town of Cumnock in Ayrshire the main industry was coal-mining, and the brass and silver band tradition was strong there. My grandfather instigated me into that tradition, and there are many other musicians from similar backgrounds who have contributed to musical life in this country, in the orchestras and in education, such as John Wallace. (He is the son of a miner in Fife who went on to be principal trumpet in the Philharmonia Orchestra and London Sinfonietta, and later Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.)

So there was a social and communitarian dimension to music-making and it was also closely tied to ritual. Some of those rituals were religious, but not all — music filled the dance halls and working men’s clubs where courtship rituals were played out and local folk and pop bands entertained. Singing societies worked hard all year round, preparing amateur operatic works and standard oratorio performances (Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Handel, Stainer, etc.) All these early memories fed my decision to establish my own festival in my old home town. The Cumnock Tryst launched in 2014 with our first concert, given by one of the world’s greatest choirs, The Sixteen conducted by Harry Christophers in the church where my grandfather and I had aided the liturgy, two generations apart. Local girl Nicola Benedetti is our Patron and brought her trio to the festival in 2016 in performances of Brahms and Ravel Piano Trios which I have never heard surpassed. The Kings Singers have been, and in 2017 we were joined by the choir of Westminster Cathedral, Scottish Ensemble and star Scottish soloists Colin Currie, percussion, and Sean Shibe, guitar.

The brass theme continues year on year. At the 2017 festival the local Dalmellington Band was conducted by Martyn Brabbins, who was a band trombonist before his stellar conducting career took him around the world and most recently to the directorship of English National Opera. Like St Magnus we have also established a Festival Chorus, who are conducted by Eamonn Dougan, (one of the most gifted choral trainers in the land) covering Mozart, Fauré and Vaughan Williams so far. For the 2018 festival I composed a new work specially for the Chorus and Dalmellington Band to mark the centenary of the Armistice of WW1, All the Hills and Vales Along. The performance in the Old Church of Cumnock included the Edinburgh Quartet and star tenor soloist Ian Bostridge. I work with local kids and students, getting them to create their own music for which we give a platform. Some of them have special needs, and work with Drake Music Scotland, proving that disability is no barrier to either a love for or involvement in music. It seems a mad thing to embark on in my middle age, but I love it. 

So far we have raised the right funds, but like all working in the arts we proceed with hopes and prayers. All the great musicians I speak to about Cumnock have said yes to me so far, which is monumentally exciting. The Festival Chorus love what we ask them to do and our audience of locals and visitors grows each year. It’s different from the day job and gets me out of the house! Hopefully these happy musical days will return to us soon.

There is something in these musical snapshots which says something about Britain, where we wear our national identity so lightly that we barely notice it, barely celebrate it but just get on with it. It’s our natural everyday musical culture that marks who we are, rather than all the manufactured faux-controversies around the Last Night of the Proms, for example. With depressing inevitability every September out come the various tribal culture warriors of various stripes to cause a row about Land of Hope and Glory, as if this was all the Proms were about. Musicians get really annoyed about this - the political and media class, as well as the usual trouble makers (north and south of the border), give the impression of being entirely ignorant that the Proms festival runs from mid-July to mid-September and consists of dozens of concerts with orchestras, ensembles and soloists from all around the world. And it’s regarded universally as one of the best classical music festivals on the planet. But instead there is this grim fixation with a bit of ironic and not-too-serious patriotism in the festival’s final concert.

The true nature of musical activity in these islands, one based in communities, teeming with the variety and diversity which marks modern Britain, is a far better focus in the celebration of our cultural life: because music is indeed a universal language. It brings people together rather than forcing them apart. It unites people from different backgrounds, classes, demographics, nations, races and religions. It allows musicians to communicate the essence of their local heritages and traditions to other people from all over the world. It brings about a sharing of our common humanity, and the British composer from Robert Carver to our present crop have contributed to this growth in understanding and common good. When their music begins to sound one can almost hear our divisions melt away. What divides us seems to lessen in relevance and ferocity. The vocation for filling our world, our land, with music becomes the one pressing priority for musicians and composers all over these islands that we share.

Celebrating the Eric Liddell Centre

Letter #2

Dear Friends,

The Eric Liddell Centre is a care charity and community hub committed to changing the perceptions of living with dementia, disabilities and mental health issues, and it is one of the jewels in the Scottish charity crown. Last year I was honoured and proud to be invited to take part in the celebratory event to mark their 40th Anniversary.

The CEO of the Eric Liddell Centre is my brother John. As you may know, we both grew up in Cumnock and were very involved in musical activities of one sort or another growing up. For me this has led to a life of composing music and for John music has also featured strongly in much that he has done over the years. 

It’s fascinating to see that music has a special place in the life of the Eric Liddell Centre and that its gifts and joys can be shared by so many who are served by it. Discursive music, which is complicated and requires focus and concentrated skill (like learning to play an instrument for example or singing) can take a lifetime’s commitment, both for listeners and performers, as well as composers, of course. But it is a lifetime that is full of rewards, artistically, emotionally, socially and intellectually.

Active engagement with music brings benefits throughout people’s lives.  Even very young children’s perceptual development is enhanced by musical engagement, affecting language development, improving literacy and rhythmic co-ordination, and fine motor coordination is improved by learning to play an instrument.  Participation in music also seems to improve spatial reasoning, one aspect of general intelligence which is related to some of the skills required in mathematics. While general attainment is clearly affected by literacy and numeracy skills, involvement in music appears to improve self-esteem, self-efficacy and aspirations – all important factors in improving young people’s commitment to studying and perseverance in other subjects.  

And this attainment, this participation, these delights and endeavours can continue through life, and enhance the experiences of many. This ideal has been at the heart of The Cumnock Tryst since it’s inception in 2014 and it’s clearly a major part of what happens under John’s leadership at the Eric Liddell Centre too. Sharing in musical engagement enables individuals to enjoy music in company where quality time is experienced together by friends, family and carers.

There is a community-building factor in the making of music together which can embrace many different kinds of people, creating meaningful social experiences. The very participatory aspect of music-making creates an empathetic awareness of those others taking part and can build relationships from scratch that can last a lifetime. For example, I met Lynne in the school choir in Cumnock when we were teenagers and we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary earlier this year!

And music is, or should be, for all. Everyone can sing along, everyone can enjoy a good tune, a pop song, a folk song and on occasions, a concerto or a symphony. Researchers and musicologists have drawn attention to the deep resonance that music can have for people, plugging into their identities, their experiences, their memories and even their sense of the infinite and the sacred. For individuals living with dementia, for example, it allows them in a unique and mysterious way to stay connected to a sense of who they are, their precious place in this life and the people and places that are precious to them in their own worlds. The memory of songs especially is linked to a person’s identity – linking to an individual’s personal and cultural identity, personal history and life events.

And we all know instinctively that music has this power to alleviate anxiety, agitation, depression even. It brings order to our thoughts and feelings. Our moods can be changed by music. It can alter the way we see the world, the way we see our relationships, the way our emotions can be directed. Music can transform lives.

Health professionals have come to acclaim its non-pharmacological dimensions in helping manage and contain symptoms of dementia. Pharmacological interventions are not appropriate for everyone in all instances, and music-based interventions can provide a safe alternative in many instances.

The great scourge of our time, social isolation, especially for the elderly can be challenged by music making. Although it can be a very personal, interior experience in essence, music is also essentially a social phenomenon. Musicians, professional and amateur, come together to share the love of the art form: an art form which can enliven, stimulate and energise participant and audience alike. It offers a powerful challenge to apathy, encouraging interest and attention in activities happening round about us, bringing individuals out of themselves. It builds confidence and self-esteem, and an active musical participation can help to maintain skills, providing a sense of achievement for many.

There’s a connection between music and the retention of speech and language skills, even although it is, at a fundamental level, a highly inventive creative means of non-verbal expression. And for people living with dementia the memories I mentioned earlier – the vital recall of memories can be triggered and supported by music, allowing for an appreciation of, and engagement with music which remains intact, even as cognitive functions fade.

As a composer I have always been keen to encourage creativity in others, young and old, and music offers ever new ways of opening up innovative, unusual or unfamiliar modes of self-expression.  Composers lives revolve around new music – music yet to be heard, music that is hiding in the brain, in the heart, in the soul ready to be discovered. An encounter with unexpected beauty can also change lives. It’s what keeps lovers of new music going, and we want to share the delight of the unfamiliar with as many people as possible. Those living with dementia can be stimulated with new and unexplored experiences in music too.

 For the wider family members and carers of people with dementia, they can sometimes be delightfully surprised by the way that music can affect their loved ones in beneficial and benign ways. They can experience the people they are caring for in different ways and perspectives, seeing them beyond the prism of their dementia – seeing a bigger and more joyful picture. The ripple effects of music being part of care, the positive impacts of engaging in musical interactions can be felt and experienced and shared with family and carers. And music therefore can transform a care environment, having a positive effect on residents, visitors and staff. I have seen this up close in the work The Cumnock Tryst does with Drake Music Scotland for example who, in their work with adults and children with special needs, continually proves that disability need not be a barrier to involvement in, or appreciation of, music.

 And so, in the year that the Eric Liddell Centre turns 40, I want to celebrate music and all it does for us and helps us to do, and to celebrate those early days of music-making in Cumnock that have had a lasting impact on what John and I do and how we see the world. Here’s to making sure that many others are afforded the same opportunities we were.

Best wishes,

James MacMillan