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CCA Composer of the Month – FEBRUARY 2014
YOUR FEATURED COMPOSITION OF THE MONTH:
Napoli ´92!
[EDITOR´S NOTE: The RECORDING is available by clicking here and the SCORE is available by clicking here.]
INSTRUMENTAL AND/OR VOCAL RESOURCES USED:
Piano Solo
FIRST PERFORMANCE DETAILS – IF RELEVANT:
Unperformed as yet
PERFORMERS ON YOUR RECORDING – IF RELEVANT:
Well, Finale does its best with a Garritan Steinway!
OF THE WORK(S) YOU HAVE SELECTED FOR THE COMPOSER OF THE MONTH FEATURE, WHAT WAS THE SOURCE/INSPIRATION/COMMISSION WHICH SET THIS PIECE OR THESE PIECES IN MOTION?
I wrote this piece for myself (not that I am a virtuoso pianist: I mean I wrote it for pleasure without any commission or hope of performance). Its opening (written in 1992) was the first ever sketch in my own personal voice, using the harmonic language that I call Neo-tonal (see below and in the feature on my biography page). I knew I had invented the beginning of an exuberant, virtuoso piano piece requiring every resource of construction, harmony, melody, rhythm, texture, articulation, colour and form available. It took another 21 years, many other works and two fallow periods, to develop the Neo-tonal language sufficiently to turn sketch into piece. In early 2013 technique could finally do justice to creativity. Napoli ´92 was finished - to my surprise - in a few days. As a kind of archetypal “first and last” of my musical formation therefore, it makes sense to offer it for composer of the month.
WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD PROGRAMME NOTE FOR THIS WORK (OR THESE WORKS) WHICH EXPLAINS THE STRUCTURE, USE OF MELODY AND HARMONY AND ANY TECHNICAL POINTS RELATED TO THE PERFORMERS?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The description which follows is taken from Philip Joy’s works’ page on Napoli ’92! although, if you are interested, he has written a detailed analysis which is accessible by clicking here.]
This piece evokes the bustle of Naples experienced during a visit in 1992, when the first bars were composed - although it has taken until latterly for the composer to develop the Neotonal style sufficiently to realize the whole piece. Amongst the bustling sounds the careful listener will even hear a snatch of Italian opera: as very early one morning my wife and I heard a street cleaner below our apartment, brushing in the dazzling sunlight, whistling Verdi!
WHEN DID YOU FIRST START COMPOSING AND WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST PIECE?
When I was 10 and I first had a piece of blank manuscript paper put in my hands it begged to be filled and from then on I wrote prolifically; but it was not until I was 36 that I found my own personal voice. The first completed and professionally performed neo-tonal piece was ´Discourse´ for Harp Trio of 2003, so I suppose that was my Opus 1!
WHO WAS IT THAT FIRST ENCOURAGED YOU TO DEVELOP YOUR INTEREST IN COMPOSING AND HOW DID THEY HELP?
As a 7-year-old boy in Leeds, my father arranged Christmas carols for the family: hence I gained the childish notion of putting pen to paper. Studying with Director of Music and Organist Anthony Cooke at Leeds Grammar School, I learned the rule of stepwise motion; as a chorister I acquired the idea that music could glorify God. From age 13-18 I wrote prolific pastiches, from Baroque to Bartok, reflecting every new musical style I encountered, many of which were performed at LGS. An adjudicator of a national composition prize suggested I “try to develop a personal style.” This was to haunt me: but you can´t make a thing like that happen. At Oxford, Robert Sherlaw Johnson gave me excellent orchestration/instrumentation lessons which well supplemented Walter Piston, but he was most disparaging [sic] about my compositions! This helped me to realize that I was still writing pastiche, just more advanced pastiche! Paul Patterson at the RAM taught two invaluable lessons: that even non-standard harmonies must have progression - and that material must be developed. But he too constantly berated the overly ´academic´ nature of the atonal music I was then writing.
Ironically, therefore, it was when the opportunities of formal composition lessons ceased (aged 22) that I became dissatisfied with pastiche. Additionally, I had just become a Christian, and my pastiche didn´t seem to glorify God. I entered a fallow period. In my first job as a Prep School Director of Music I wrote some Elgarian works for my choir. This time, however, I set out deliberately to write pastiche. It was at this time that I happened upon the neo-tonal triad as a potentially exclusive harmonic principle. Later, whilst training to be a Baptist Minister my theology tutor challenged me whether beauty was not simply in the ´eye of the beholder´, but perhaps must reflect its unchanging Source? I wondered whether ignoring the basic physics of created sound was the problem: perhaps the neo-tonal triad I had discovered would be the remedy. A quote from Sir John Tavener provided the final piece of the jigsaw: “....when God created the world, he created everything, so music is something that already exists. You just have to be very still and hear it.” (2000) So I listened. And I heard sounds, and I filtered out everything that was pastiche, only writing down what I wanted and what I liked! The result was ´Discourse´ for Harp Trio. Through many influences I had finally discovered my own voice.
WHO DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST INSPIRATIONS IN TERMS OF THE MAJOR COMPOSERS AND WHICH OF THEIR WORKS HAS INFLUENCED YOU THE MOST AND WHY?
As a boy I was most struck by the dramatic and lyrical soundworld of André Previn (“Every Good Boy Deserves Favour”), Britten (“Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge”) and Shostakovich (Piano Trio, Symphonies etc.). As a young man I loved all the great Romantic composers I studied: particularly Liszt, Brahms and Wagner, with their motivic coherence and illustrative palettes. Among the avant-garde I adored Lutoslawski (particularly “Les Espaces du Sommeil”) and Ligeti´s ´cloud´ music (e.g. “Lontano”). Without Debussy and the Minimalists I do not know whether I would have permitted myself to eschew the avant-garde, embracing consonance and repetition. Without Stravinsky I do not know whether I could have rid myself of the ´tyranny of the barline´. Without the philosophy of Milton Babbitt I do not think I could have become so violently opposed to composers ignoring the listener!!! In recent years I have become a devotee of Elgar´s entire corpus, and I suppose my greatest aspiration would be to write expansive neo-tonal Christian choral works, echoing “The Apostles” and “The Kingdom”.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE TO SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER HEARD YOUR MUSIC BEFORE?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Philip Joy describes ‘Neo-tonal’ music in greater detail as a feature on his biography page which, if you are interested, is accessible by clicking here.]
My music is broadly ´New Consonant Music´, but I prefer to call it ´Neo-Tonal´. This ´neo-tonal´ style is based, harmonically, on a triad further up the harmonic series than the common triad i.e. G-Bb-C. See Appendix I, “Neo-tonal Harmony” on my page. There I discuss the neo-tonal paradigm using C for easy understanding, though Napoli is a tone higher using D.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS ORIGINAL IN YOUR MUSIC
That is really not for me to decide. I suppose the many years I required to ´bat-off´ other people´s styles must have rubbed off. My hope is that neo-tonal harmony has given rise to a young and fresh soundworld, but there is no reason why any composer could not adopt it and still write music in their own personal style. I want my music to convey hope, rather than despair, in a post-Holocaust, post-Hiroshima, post-9/11 world; if some have described my music as ´pretty´ then they have become victims of some kind of learned ugliness.
HOW DO YOU WORK? WHAT METHODS OF CREATIVITY AND WORK ETHIC DO YOU HAVE? DO YOU SOLELY USE MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY OR DO PAPER AND PENCIL STILL FORM A PART OF YOUR PROCESS?
I was brought up in the era of pencil and paper/checking your work at the piano. Nowadays, I work pretty exclusively with a laptop. Using the ´Pooh Bear´ method of composition and being an M.E. sufferer are mutually exclusive! I cannot “replay” my music in my head (like Pooh with his ´hums´), to the point where I ask “what comes next?” without it tiring me considerably. A laptop provides the replay without the fatigue, thus leaving the brain fresh for what remains unwritten. I made the transition to laptop in the middle of a string orchestra piece and I was overjoyed to find that it sounded as I intended. I use Finale, and always use simple entry: I don´t write fast! I tend to compose an audio version, and then turn a copy into a desktop published version, which often looks quite different. Various tools like transposition are useful as well as cutting and pasting and the invaluable score and parts tools, but I am wary of being laptop-driven. I have had enough years of writing what looks good, only to discover it was bin-worthy. So I don´t permit myself serendipitous moments with technology. Finale can kid you into writing stuff that is too hard for amateurs, even for professionals, however, and that´s a lesson I´ve been slow to learn. Know your performer! But then my music tends to be virtuosic by nature of the exuberant flow. I´m just glad I began in the era of pencil and paper and found my personal style whilst still practising the ´old, old religion´!
WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?
Nothing. I´m in another fallow period!
To finish, who or what is your favourite:
Genre of Music?
European ´classical´ from Renaissance to the present day
Instrumentalist?
Violinist: David Oistrakh; Cellist: Mstislav Rostropovich; Pianist: Alfred Brendel
Singer?
Dame Janet Baker; Marian Anderson; Joan Sutherland; Luciano Pavarotti...
Chamber Ensemble?
The Amadeus Quartet, the Beaux-Arts Trio
Orchestra?
Hallé Orchestra, under Mark Elder
Concert Venue?
Royal Festival Hall; Wigmore Hall; Bayreuth Festspielhaus
Piece of Music*
Elgar´s First Symphony and his The Apostles
*by another composer