Languages and technical / artistic options.
I believe there is an influence in my instrumental
writing that comes from the fact that my interest in electronics began because
of the sonorities which I like to get in relation to instrumental music even.
For example, what we call “webs”, those textures that are a little undefined,
like in Ligeti – there are a lot of people who say that his orchestral thinking
is influenced by electronic music. I agree and in a sense it has also happened
to me. On the other hand – that is, electronic music influencing instrumental
writing - I’m not sure that happens as often. Electronic music is freer from
traditional musical theory, including from the tempered system that still
governs instrumental music. Another question has to do with the harmonic
language of my pieces, which, I believe, has changed over time. When I wrote my
first pieces, when I was still a student and still learning. They were not
pieces with which I identified completely. I must confess that I found some of
them a little artificial. Now I don’t have so much trouble finding my own
orientation. And perhaps that has to do with my relationship with electronic
music, although I never thought of it in those terms – it may have something to
do with a certain freedom of thought or a different approach to sound. Lately I
have been more interested and given more importance to simplicity. It has a
little to do with minimalism. That is, as I was saying a moment ago, there was
an initial process in which I got in touch with various 20th century
techniques. But one of the characteristics of contemporary music, at least
until the 1960s, was the fact that it was completely atonal music, extremely
irregular in terms of rhythm which, at least as far as serial music is
concerned, seemed to cut completely with the past and create a new world. It
is, somehow, fascinating and also quite attractive, but quite honestly I don’t
feel I can identify with that trend.
Of course, there’s a lot of music I quite like and
even the attitude we have to music now is only possible because that kind of
music went so far, perhaps because the intention was to create something
completely different and radically dissociated from tradition. And I recognise
that this is a very important factor, in particular for minimalism and for the
new “simplism”, these being not neo-Classical but post-modern movements. That
is to say, from what was achieved by modernism, each person should be able to
take what is of particular interest to him. Presently, one of the composers I
most admire is Arvo Pärt. I quite like that simplicity, that does not really
sound to me like a return to the past. For example, dissonance is part of this
music, although it is a diatonic dissonance, not so complex as the dissonance
in the music by Stockhausen or Pierre Boulez. But, for me it is a much more
human music, meaning more accessible and more expressive. Even on a rhythmic
level, I think that total and systematic irregularity leads nowhere. Of course,
with electronic music it is a different matter, because it has no rhythm. There
are people who say that electronic music is not music at all and I agree, up to
a point. Perhaps it is more like a sonic landscape rather than actual music, at
least in the traditional sense.
World
Symphony
I think that the piece we have already mentioned, 2001:World
Symphony, is a little
different from the others and it was very important for me to write it,
although there is at least one movement that is still a little tied to
so-called “serialism” although purposefully, in that case, a movement that has
to do with Europe. That symphony is, so to speak, a kind of voyage through
various continents where I tell, in my way, the history of civilisation, or
rather, how I see it, starting even from the pre-civilisation period, that I
identify as Oceania
(very subjectively, of course) and it is almost exclusively electronic, a
little vaguer musically or almost a landscape, perhaps …
Africa comes next; subjectively I identify it with the war
period in which man, still in an animal-like, in a savage state, can only solve
his problems through violence. Right at the beginning, there is an important
part for two percussions … two drums … drumming … almost everybody relates this
to Africa, and already a link is created there. In terms of language, I draw on
my cultural references, but I did not study anything in particular. It’s more
about my impressions of that culture and what it means to me. It is a piece
with a very strong rhythm, really powerful, where it is not just percussion but
where all the instruments come in. Perhaps it relates to the really basic
musicality that exists in all of us.
Then comes Asia that is more civilised but still a little primitive,
still very connected to mysticism, religion and a peace that is not enduring –
contrasting with Africa that I associate more with war – because it is not
based on real evolution but on mysticism, perhaps a little fanciful (this is,
of course, an allegory that I make). Here there is the sound of the sitar that
I use to convey a sensation of peace with a very long sound. There is also a
melody on the oboe that evokes Arab music. I invented a scale and from there I
improvised a melody, together with some percussion sounds, which somehow
suggest ethnic music and that kind of reference. I think that everything is more
or less integrated with the rest of the language. There is a harmonic language
that almost covers the whole piece and that I would classify as post-modern
(although this is very vague), because it has some modernist elements.
Europe is really the more modernist tempo, so to speak. It is almost serial. For
me, it has to do with the excessive rationalisation that characterised Europe
in the 20th century – in particular in the Socialist and Nazi systems in which
society was more important than the individual, on whom these ultra-rational
regimes ideals were imposed, with the results that we all know.
Finally, there comes the last movement which
represents America and which I identify with the more advanced stage of
civilisation – the new continent – where there is a greater mix.
I lived in the United States for a time and that
really influenced my present opinion. Naturally, once again, it is a subjective
opinion and one cannot be sectarian. There are probably places in Europe where,
at least in theory, things happen like in America but, in the university I went
to, for example, the number of foreign students was amazing and it was a very
diversified set of people who co-existed peacefully and where everybody made an
effort to pronounce everyone’s name as it is pronounced in their country.
Therefore, for me this piece stands for some hope and the same goes for music.
The musical language in this last movement (America) is a mixture. It has parts that are
quite traditional, moments that present a very regular rhythm, but at the same
time there are also some more modern aspects, so nothing is rejected except
what is clearly negative.