Questionaire / Interview
How did music begin for you? Where do you identify your musical roots? Which paths led you to composition?
I was born in a popular music and pop-rock environment. My father played the accordion, harmonica, organ and piano. He belonged to popular and folklore music groups or performed during the traditional evening gatherings of defoliating (corn) or others. Then there were my brothers who adored pop-rock of that time: I got used to listening to the Queen, Supertramp, the Beatles, Dire Straits, and many others. And then came the so called “classical” music, as one of my brothers used to study piano at a music school, which was one of the pioneers in decentralizing musical education in Portugal: the Academia de Música de Santa Maria da Feira. And, since very early, I got used to such terms as: jack, mini-jack, RCA, stereo, mono, amplifier, etc. In that time it was a quite masculine world. I remember entering into shopping centres with my father where one would not meet a single woman! (Those were shops, which sold cables, speakers, amplifiers etc.). Indeed, nothing of this anticipated that one day I would be a composer. It was a late option. I began with piano, and simultaneously I studied economics (!). I decided to dedicate myself to musical arts at the end of the secondary school course. And that is how composition appeared. It was one of my options, the most fortunate, permanent and consistent. Composing is a necessity and pleasure!
Which moments from your musical education you find the most important?
Academic: undoubtedly, studying at the Superior School of Music in Porto (ESMAE), at the Composition Course. And very particularly, Composition lessons with the composer Cândido Lima, but also History of Music lessons with the professor / conductor Álvaro Salazar, Orchestration with Filipe Pires and Electroacoustic Music with the composer Virgílio Melo. It was a fundamental period of learning, which turned out to be crucial for my development as creator. At the same time I also find significant my participation as listener in concerts, lectures and round tables, etc., such as Gulbenkian Contemporary Music Encounters, or the Música Viva Festival (my first electroacoustic work, “Cantique”, was presented in concert by the Loudspeakers Orchestra at the Festival in Lisbon, at the French-Portuguese Institute, and I was still a student of the ESMAE!) Learning is continuous. Leaving school only reinforced my affirmation and autonomy as composer. Today, I learn with the works, which I listen to, analyse and adore! And I learn immensely working together with the performers and listening to their opinion, as well as that of my colleague composers. And in this sense my continuous contact with the composer Cândido Lima and his projects, turned out to be particularly remarkable.
Which references do you assume in your compositional practice? Which works from the history of music and the present are most significant for you?
As for the references, they are quite diverse. Is it possible that one’s work is the fruit of only one influence? They are the authors which I was listening to and analysing; the composers whose music I have been hearing and reflecting; the theories which I have been reading and practising; the discussions in which I have been participating, between composers, theoreticians, philosophers, thinkers, analysts and amateurs. These are all references in the moment of composing. Major references: the modes and scales of Messiaen or Xenakis; the harmony or the harmonic colour of Messiaen or Cândido Lima; the orchestration of classical composers but also 20th century and contemporary such as Mahler, Boulez or Stockhausen. As for the significant works, I mention the ones which were revealing in the moment, independently of the possibility of existing other equally important in the history of classical and contemporary music: the “Quartet for the End of Time” by Olivier Messiaen; “Prometeo” by Luigi Nono; “Jonchaies” by Iannis Xenakis; “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky (directed by Pierre Boulez at the Lisbon Coliseum); “A-MÈR-ES” or “Músicas de Villaiana – Coros Oceânicos” or “Quadros cinéticos” by Cândido Lima; “Pelléas et Mélisande” by Claude Debussy; “Mixtur” by Karlheniz Stockhausen; or still “Madonna of Winter and Spring” by Jonathan Harvey. And as for “more classical” composers – Bach, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann or Wagner…
The opposition between “occupation” and “vocation” (“inspiration”) constitutes one of the questions in defining the artistic approach of a composer. Where, on the scale between the emotive (inspiration and vocation) and the pragmatic (occupation), could you place your way of working and your stance as composer? Could you describe the process subjacent to your compositional practice?
I believe that is not only the “practical” or only the “inspired”. Creation requires both attitudes. What would be of inspiration if there was no practical spirit? Or what would be of practice without imagination? Therefore I consider myself an inspired “artisan”. As composer I know I need to be practical. Even though I feel dedicated to writing, for example for one or other instrument, I know that I should “occupy” new domains. It is through practice and endeavour that I believe to be able to win. As for the emotive, it simply appears. And one’s works can be simply more emotive than the other ones. In some we can be more “devoted” or “inspired” than in others. In my opinion it is not manageable. But the two attitudes are necessary and exist side by side in creation: reason on the one hand, and emotion on the other. And, as for the scale? Preferably in the middle between the one and the other! (or not!). The manageable and unmanageable! The free and not free! The calculated and unpredicted! In my case, there is perhaps a greater tendency towards the manageable, the calculated and the “not” free. Normally I inspire myself in works, lectures, and advice of people close to me, etc. in search for emotion – sounds of a kissange, which I play to the taste of my imagination, or of a rainstick, which I record for an emotional taste, or reading a text. A melodic cell of the piano or a chord, which I simply liked… Then, one should structure the work and here I think that it is, above all, my spirit of artisan, which comes to work. These are various combinations, transformations, new materials which are being generated; one grasps “riddles” or “filters”, thinks of intervals of each harmony, intervals of every melodic line, and controls the emotion! I like to know that everything is “dovetailed” according to my condition as “artisan”. I need to have a rational explication for the whole process, if not I become “preoccupied”. I don’t know if this is the correct manner to approach a musical piece, but this is how I work, although not always in the same way, as everything can happen in a different manner in every new work. Every piece constitutes a challenge!
Some would say that music, due to its nature, is essentially incapable of expressing anything neither emotion, mental attitude, psychological disposition, nor natural phenomenon. If music seems to express something, it is only an illusion and not reality. Could you define, in this context, your aesthetic stance?
Words (text) are not always necessary for me to feel determined emotions or sentiments. In my opinion a sound can be as expressive as a word. Why? Is it a question of habit? Education? Nature? If I listen to, for example, Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, what do I feel? If I hear Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde”, what do I feel? I surely know that emotions can vary according to the individual. But as for the human… It is an endless question, of pure music and programatic music, of formalism in music and its meaning. The semantics of words is one thing, but the “semantics” of sounds is another, close and distant.
Are there any extra-musical sources, which in a significant manner influence your music?
There are some. For example: phrases from texts, which function as inspiration, emotion, colour, environment or an overall feeling to the work. This can be exemplified in my piece “La forêt” for solo recorder.
How do you see your work in the panorama of evolution of western music?
In the western musical panorama I feel unified by the sentiment of contemporaneity, the constant search for innovation, for difference, for the more personal than what has already been done; more than the preoccupation to find myself in any aesthetics, techniques as well as common and current technologies and contributing to the diversity in contemporaneity of languages, aesthetics or options. It is how I see my music in the evolution of occidental music. It is how I imagine myself.
Do you feel particular proximity with any school or aesthetics?
Yes, I have some aesthetic relations – to the composer Cândido Lima, and through him to the Xenakis “school”. These are two composers important to me, who I admire. Yet there are also other tendencies: Debussy and Messiaen for colour and harmony.
How could you characterize your musical language?
What can characterize my musical language are different types of expression, combined in one “speech”. On the one hand we encounter a modal language using modes constructed in the measure of my works; these are, for example, melodic textures or modes in a continuous movement, as in the work “Movimento perpétuo”; on the other hand, there is the integration of scales (great scales) using “riddles” as in the Xenakis’ “theory of sieves”, in “Partita”, “Ressonâncias”, or “Caster Music”, for example. In the majority of my works one also encounters, on the one hand, a musical expression, which is obtained through the use of close intervals (a language based on the “continuum”); on the other hand, there is also certain diagonal quality and discontinuity of intervals, as in the flute lines in “Dual”. My music expresses itself also through a timbric / orchestral treatment combined (in a game of always varied combinations), as in “Duas Cantigas de Amigo” or “A floresta em Dodona”, with harmonies worked out in terms of colour and through lines, which are developed in fixed or motionless cells, as in “Trítonos”, for example; there is also the use of languages with special attention on particular idioms of instruments, in such solo pieces as “Corais - No Mar, à noite...” (piano) ou “La forêt” (recorder), “Mirror 2” (classic guitar), “Peça X” (violin) or in a piece, still without title, for solo tuba. In my electroacoustic and mixed pieces I express myself, above all, through concrete music, through capturing and treatment of pre-existing sounds, as for example, in “Harmonium”, “A Menina dos Olhos de Chuva” or “Granulations – sons do parque”, among others. There are other works based on great densities of masses (the departure point), filtered through different “meshes” transforming the density, the colour and bringing out determined frequencies, like in “Cantique”; or the use of timbres and the combination of pitches originating from outside of Europe – from Africa, such as in “Granulations – sons do parque”. In mixed music my works present an attempt to use a language of proximity between the acoustic instrumental part(s) and the electronics, like in “Fong song”. In this case the proximity is given by the intervals used between the flute (the acoustic instrument) and the electronics, which is the work’s unifying element. In other cases or moments, these apparently not conciliatory worlds and different meanings can superimpose: like the juxtaposing of text with electroacoustic treatment (a kind of recitative treated through electronics), as well as the flute and electronics parts in “Fong song”.
Which techniques do you employ in the process of composing? Are there any musical genres for which you show particular preference?
Juxtaposition, collage, fusion, harmonic or melodic expansions, harmonic or melodic contractions, combining intervals and timbres, transpositions, inversions, retrogrades, diverse mirrors, modulations of harmony, of modes, scales, rhythms and timbres; melodic structures of “antecedent” and “consequent” type, melodic variations, among many others. What one understands through musical genres? Are they categories such as instrumentation, text or function, among others? I like to experiment with all musical genres. From solo and chamber to orchestral music; from acoustic, mixed to pure electroacoustic music; from opera to theatre or film music; music for exhibitions and installations, among others; from secular to religious, form romantic to formal. Indeed, a lot of what I compose is an exterior imposition in this field. In the majority of cases we are not able to choose the instrumentation, the text, the function, or the contextualization of the work, that is, in the case of commissions. Nevertheless, whenever it is possible I make my own options, not to say that in spite of this type of external impositions, the content, the essence of the musical work, the truth of the artistic product is totally free and concerns only the composer. And there are no, and cannot exist, any concessions!
What is your relation with new technologies and how do they influence your way of composing, and also your musical language?
I made my first incursions in the world of technologies, in musical creation, when I entered the Superior Composition Course in the electroacoustic discipline with professor Álvaro Salazar. The first academic musical work is “Cantique” for electronics from 1999. One year later I worked on mixed music in “Canção de Izis” for baritone and electronics. Although I do not have consciousness of a direct influence in my way of composing from these to other works of various genres, actually it seems to me that there are inevitably “communicating vessels”. There is the search, above all in the field of mixed music, to identify the electronic universe with the acoustic world and vice versa. We can always transpose gestures from the electronic / concrete world to the acoustic instrumental universe, and vice versa. In “Canção de Izis” the voice was treated as if concerning an orchestral instrument, as if it was a violoncello or a bassoon, etc. There are no meanings of words because they do not exist, apart from monems and syllables. There is a “transfer” of knowledge from the instrumental to the vocal world. On the other hand, equally, there is a treatment of instrumental voice in a total electroacoustic integration, for this there are “transfers” of knowledge, particular electroacoustic techniques, to the voice and the other way round. The influences are mutual and in both directions: from the electronics to the acoustic world; from the acoustic to the electronic and inside the acoustic universe in itself.
Which of your works constitute turning points in your career as composer?
1) “Dual”. “Dual” is my first work for which I am totally responsible. It is my work of liberation from the academic mean (even though it is not the first work composed after graduating from the Course). It was written within a compromise of the author’s autonomy, and for that it is one of the turning points in my development ad composer. On the other hand, “Dual” was chosen to be recorded and published on CD with Monika Streitová (flute) and Sofia Lourenço (piano), in 2008 by the Phonedition label (a project of the composer Álvaro Salazar), having even given origin to the CD’s name – “Dual”. 2) “A floresta em Dodona”. “A floresta em Dodona” (“The Forest at Dodona”) is a mini-opera or pocket opera, written for the first edition of the National Biennal Competition – Ópera em Criação 2005/2007, with an original libretto by Luísa Costa Gomes. It is important in my career for the opportunity of concretization of a project of rare quality and dimension in Portugal. How many young composers have the chance to compose an opera and to see their work staged with dignity? On the other hand, I consider “A floresta em Dodona” one of my turning point works in terms of orchestral combinations (I have already used the same method of orchestrating / combining timbrically the instruments but in chamber music, in “Duas cantigas de amigo” – in a reduced world of instruments (5)). With “A floresta em Dodona” I could expand the method and conquer new combinations, new timbres, new sonorities, new manners of conceiving orchestration. 3) Despite not being considered as significant in my artistic career, because of the dimensions (though the quality of a piece should not be in proportion to the dimension), there are two works, which through the emotion, meaning or the capacity to “animate”, the oneiric qualities, through the poetry of the projects, I keep as rare in my artistic production. They are: “A Menina dos Olhos de Chuva” (June, 2008) and “7 Peças Fáceis” – “Mimo”, “BEA”, “Corrente”, “Zig”, “Harmonias”, “Espelho meu, espelho meu...”, “Obra aberta" (January, 2012). Work for electroacoustic theatre in the case of the first one (Sound Told Fairy Tales, a project by Miso Music Portugal) and a didactic work for young pianists, in case of the latter one.
What do you think of the present situation of Portuguese music? How could you define the composer’s role nowadays?
I believe I belong to a generation of fortunate composers, when compared with older generations. Some of the opportunities, which I grasped were unthinkable in other times: the Gulbenkian Orchestra Workshops, the competitions Ópera em Criação, the Música Viva Festivals, among others, or various contemporary music groups, which perform works of Portuguese composers of my generation, such as the New Music Group (Grupo de Música Nova), the Oficina Musical, the Performa Ensemble or the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble. On the other hand, there are more and more professionals with competences, with an adequate technical preparation and talented. This effort and increasing interest of musicians, awakens the imagination and the desire to make more and better. I wrote some pieces commissioned by some of my colleague instrumentalists: “Scherzando”, “Mirror 2” (work published by the guitar cycle of Guimarães 2007), or “Fong song”. There are also institutional commissions, although some of them at zero cost (!): “Coor”, “Duas Cantigas de Amigo”, “A Menina dos Olhos de Chuva”, “La Forêt”, “Caster Music”, “Corais – No Mar, à noite…” and “7 Peças Fáceis”. It is true that recently, in the context of economical crisis, there is a decrease of cultural activities and because of that a diminution of commissions for musical works. If there are no concerts, there are no works. At the same time, there are places where Portuguese music, the contemporary, does not reach. Some concert halls, in which the programming is almost exclusively for large public or of foreign musicians, relegate Portuguese composers for subterranean plans. There are also schools, academic means where the ruling conservatism, does not allow changes in what concerns new creation, innovation, difference, novelty and the contemporary. Many times the schools function as air “bubbles”, as an insular musical world – the school is the school and the outside world is the outside world. There is a lack of teaching, approach and practice, with liberty and openness, of different types of music and various periods. One needs to change the mentalities! For me, it is in the “outside world”, where, despite the crisis of cultural values, a kind of breathing exists. In this panorama, the present situation of Portuguese music is certainly not desirable, but perhaps acceptable…
How could you define the role of composers nowadays?
Our role, the role of composer is, above all, forming, instituting, and divulgating, raising awareness, manifesting oneself through difference, intervening (in cultural means, of schools or not, in political means), correcting, modifying, innovating, changing paths, knowing well how to make one’s art, not making concessions, being an example of change, being the one that always moves forward… I do not know if we all make it with the same conviction. I think this is the best definition of the composer’s function!
How could you describe the situation of women composers, nowadays, in Portugal and Europe?
The situation of female composers in Portugal and Europe is different from the situation of male composers in Portugal and Europe? As in many other professions, socially accepted as masculine, I think that yes, the situation of women composers is different form the situation of men composers. Look at the history of music, from classic to contemporary. In my everyday life I do not feel that there is a great difference in treatment according to sex. But in fact I have some episodes as composer, in which this issue appears. I remember that, when I participated in the 1st Gulbenkian Orchestra Workshop for Young Portuguese Composers, with my work “Sequência”, for orchestra, somebody advised me: “Be careful with the orchestra’s musicians”, because I am a woman! But actually nothing happened, and in fact both the conductor and instrumentalists treated me with an inestimable delicacy and respect. Inclusively, there is a beautiful episode. When they gave me back the score materials, from which the orchestra musicians performed the work, one of them came with an inscription in pencil: “la belle”. Still in another episode I felt clearly that being a woman makes a difference. On the contrary to men composers we have to give maximum proofs of our knowledge. Luckily these are only occasional episodes!
What are your present and future projects?
My present and future projects are: the release of a CD by Miso Records with my piece for violin – “Peça X”, composed in 1998, as I was still student of the Superior Composition Course at the ESMAE. It is a work for solo violin, with short duration and which was premiered on May 28th 1999 at the Café – Concerto / ESMAE / Porto. The mentor and performer of this CD project (to be released soon) will be the violinist Suzanna Lidegran. This will be a CD with music for solo violin with contemporary Portuguese composers such as Cândido Lima, Emmanuel Nunes etc.; another project is my participation in the recording of one more CD, this time by the New Music Group (Grupo Música Nova) conducted by the composer Cândido Lima, and which includes 10 of his works, 3 with electronics (“Cenas de Villaiana-músicas do mar e da montanha”, “Nynana – old time” sounds” e “Optic Music – Quadros Cinéticos”). Here, I participate as collaborator in the production / realization of the electronics parts of the works (this is a double, monographic CD project of the composer Cândido Lima, by the New Music Group); the last project is my wish to write a work for a children choir. It is an invitation by the conductor Iryna Horbatyuk who conducts classes of vocal groups in a school of specialized artistic teaching in Vilar do Paraíso – the “Academia de Música”.
Could you highlight one of your more recent works, present the context of its creation and also the particularities of language and used techniques?
Recent work: “7 Peças Fáceis” – “Mimo”, “BEA”, “Corrente”, “Zig”, “Harmonias”, “Espelho meu, espelho meu...”, “Obra aberta", a group of miniatures for piano solo, premiered on April 21st (and 22nd) 2012. It is a work of didactic character commissioned by the 2nd National Piano Competition – City of Gaia – imposed piece. “7 Peças Fáceis”, is a title alluding to the “23 Peças Fáceis” from the Anna Magdalena album. This work is an approximation to the works of Bach, either through its pedagogical character, its technical simplicity, or through the duration of every movement. It is a poetic work. Every miniature has a subtitle: “Mimo”, “BEA”, “Corrente”, “Zig”, “Harmonias”, “Espelho meu, espelho meu...” e “Obra aberta”. “Mimo”, the 1st piece is small and delicate. It is to pamper, cuddle or to caress. Arpeggiated harmonies in echoes; the time and the sound; light and luminous registers; and a delicate final gong. “BEA”, the 2nd piece, in counterpoint to the “2nd species” or two figures for one for two voices, like in Bach, in “Easy Pieces” or “Inventions”. The subtitle is the combination of the three first letters of the melodic line notes (B, E, A flat). “Corrente” is the third piece. Like water, or like a movement from a baroque suite. Pedal note D5 and D6, in counterpoint with a profound register. The nature or the fluidity are here sonorous mirrors of a continuous movement. “Zig”, the 4th piece. The subtitle is the abbreviation of the word “zigzag”. Its composition is diagonal. “Harmonias”, the 5th piece, or the harmonies in fourths. They are articulated or filtrated or combined or ornamented chords. They appear in different registers, as arpeggios or not, and with various suspensions of time. Colour lies in the essence of “Harmonias”. “Espelho meu, espelho meu…”, the 6th piece, the subtitle is an allusion to a tale for children “Snow White” (“A branca de neve”). Simultaneously it is the allusion to the use of the composition technique such as inversion or mirror. A very short work. “Obra aberta”, the 7th piece, as the subtitle indicates, it is a work with an undetermined or open form, in similarity to works by so many other authors, above all from the 1960s, such as Pierre Boulez or Karlheinz Stockhausen, for example. Here the performer is invited to participate actively in the final construction of the artistic object. Constituted by 9 fragments of music, which can be performed in an order chosen by the performer, “Obra aberta” is the last and the longest moment of “7 Peças Fáceis”. It is a homonymous title from a book by Umberto Eco.
How do you see the future of art music?
With optimism. Because I am optimistic by nature. Or because I became an optimist during the years (perhaps more for the second one). We are passing through complicated times, it is certain, but it is not worth complaining of anything. Portugal has talents (where else have I heard it?!). Therefore we should believe in these young generations, which according to our political powers is by far the best prepared!
