You can also listen to António Ferreira's interview and music on:
Arte Eletroacústica, March 31, 2012, Antena 2
Questionnaire / Interview
How did music begin for you? Where do you identify your musical roots? Which paths led you to composition?
I never thought of becoming a composer, or better, of dedicating my life, at least a great part of it, to musical practice. Neither composition, interpretation nor even what is known as “playing in a band” were my intentions. In my family, close or distant, nobody was interested in these aspects. My family has other “valences”. So everything suggested that I would follow the career of my progenitor, meaning some kind of engineering. It seemed that music would be just a hobby, perhaps to be appreciated with pleasure, but nothing more than that. So what happened?
Music enters into my history in the same way as it happens with many teenagers: rock bands, concerts and pop music of the moment (the 1970s). The friendship with one of my colleagues from secondary school stimulated my curiosity. He used to play the piano and founded a rock group. In 1977 we were listening to “Trans Europa Express” by Kraftwerk. In retrospective I know now that it was the “strange” sonority of the electronic instrumentation that attracted us. As my friend had some financial means, he bought an analogical synthesizer. For me, the confrontation with the Korg Ms-20 was the beginning of a long learning and a path that has not yet ended.
In 1981, already with some autodidactic musical practice, I did an inter-rail journey through Europe. In a music shop in Amsterdam, while browsing the section of contemporary music I find an intriguing disc: “De Natura Sonorum” by Bernard Parmeginani. The LP’s cover (which I still have) presented a man concentrated on manipulating a tape recorder. And the “normal” instruments? It was not mentioned on the back cover. When, back in Portugal, I listened to this LP it was a shock! I did not understand anything! I felt provoked: was this music? With successive auditions (presently the LP is ruined!) I managed to find a sketch of structure. But this was the moment when I awakened for composition. I wanted to understand, to create, and to be able to compose this way – for the sounds and with the sounds, through listening and for the listening. Thus and according to my parents’ opinion I disgraced myself. I quit the Chemical Engineering course and worked in heavy industry in order to have means to enter the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (in 1986), which harboured the Institute of Sonology (originally from Utrecht). The rest is history: I decided to dedicate myself to sound in all of its aspects: musical, philosophical, historical and acoustic – this last one turned out to be a good professional alternative since I did not want to teach!
Which references do you assume in your compositional practice? Which works from the history of music and the present are most significant for you?
My main “instrument” is the practice of listening. Therefore, my musical references are connected to the moments and experiences, which I find relevant. These experiences come from concerts as well as recordings, either of interpretations or of works existing on tape. And also from some social interaction with persons.
During my stay in the Netherlands, there were various fortuitous events, which I find relevant. The conservatory’s composer in resident was Olivier Messiaen. That afforded me to listen to his complete works and to attend his lectures. It was also the year when the ICMC 1986 (International Computer Music Conference) was realized there. It was an authentic cornucopia of concerts, events and information. I can vividly recall the premiere performances of “Sud”, electroacoustic piece by Jean Claude Risset, presented by the composer, and of the mixed piece “lichtbogen” by Kaija Saariacho, with live electronics controlled by herself. During the time there, I also have a vivid memory of listening to one of the (long) piano pieces by Morton Feldman, “Triadic Memories” and to the series of concerts dedicated to American minimalists.
My listening is eclectic and quite broad. I listen with pleasure to music ranging from Monteverdi to the last electroacoustic pieces. I have a predilection towards baroque singing and towards the delicate piano pieces by Debussy – the “Preludes” are authentic pieces of sound synthesis made with chords and rhythm. Pieces like “Pli selon Pli” by Pierre Boulez attract me because of the sparkling sonority, but it was a piece that I “understood” only when I studied the score. I also admire Ligeti’s micropolyphony and music produced by what has been designated as the spectral school, specially Gérard Grisey and his cycle “Les Espaces Acoustiques”. The electroacoustic field is vast but I should highlight the compositions created in the United Kingdom in the last decades: they “captured” the French acousmatic music and gave it a complexity and clarity, which keeps surprising me. Names? There are plenty: Dennis Smalley, Jonty Harrison, Andrew Lewis, Natasha Barrett, etc. But I also listen to works not related to academia: Ryoji Ikeda, Carl Stone, Tetsu Inoue, Autechre, Oval... in fact it is always the sound in all of its "shapes"!
The opposition between "occupation" and "vocation" ("inspiration") constitutes one of the aspects 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?
In my opinion, dichotomies and oppositions between terms and concepts are useful in order to articulate the written or spoken discourse. In our daily practice they become blurred and tend to disappear. Thus, my path has always been a search for the possibility to join occupation with vocation. There are pragmatic aspects concerning one's personal financial condition, which needs to be taken in account: this is how the society is organized. And, rescuing the word “work”, which tends to have negative connotations, my compositional practice is my real work, giving sense to my life. Others will have other solutions: the world is rich because of it's variety.
The will to compose has always been present: listening is my instrument, which I always try to practice. Yet the concretization of music depends on certain aspects concerning my actual situation. Can I dedicate myself during various months to compose without major interruptions? Or do I need to arrange financing in order to liberate my time? Here enters my other professional, paid, practice as acoustic engineer: it's related to sound, of course, but remains sufficiently distant in conceptual terms in order not to disturb my compositional practice. But this balance is not always easy and practicable. Electroacoustic composition demands enough time and patience – just as every composition, yet with one difference: the “instruments”, gestures and actions need to be constructed from scratch. There is no separation of tasks between performers with their knowledge and composers who transcribe their knowledge in “normalized” instructions of the score. I do not intend to value one way of composing over another. But, in electroacoustic, the modality of listening and the potential possibilities are different. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the circulation between all practices has been enriching the music of the last decades.
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?
This is an old aspect, discussed in the Western thought perhaps since Plato. If music is an “illusion”, then it is a beautiful illusion! More, please! Jokes aside, let me elaborate some reflections.
We have, undoubtedly, the acoustic phenomenon: mechanical vibrations of the matter as described by classical physics and mechanics of liquids. The concept of vibration implies, of course, the existence of something that vibrates. The description and quantification of this vibration, in terms of source characteristics, and modes of propagation constitutes part of the field of acoustics. Vibration propagates through a medium; it's a mechanical action at distance. When encountering a receptor, it induces a vibration on it as a result form the referred action. If this receptor is the human ear we shall have the perception of what is called sound. Thus, through perception the acoustic phenomenon becomes a sonorous one. The physiology of the ear co-evolved with the evolution of the human speech, a very important factor in the social coordination of human beings. The musical phenomenon, so to speak, comes from the phenomenon of sound. In fact and due to the different physical nature of the vibrations, the modality of audition has a perceptual difference in relation to sight: time. Music, such as we commonly define it, emerges from the exploration of time – repetition and iteration of sound events, in different temporal scales. If we have accentuations and recurrences we will be able to obtain rhythm, metrics and musical scales. Composition then enters in the interplay of one's memory and mental schemes, which we abstract from our existence.
The sound phenomenon gives us a lot of information: on the quality of the spaces, on the characteristics of the sound sources, and its positioning in space. With the help of cultural codes, the sound phenomenon also produces the human speech. Now the predisposition to learn the human language is, it seems, innate. The great importance that language has, as well as its primordial aspect, compels us to use similar analogies in order to describe the musical phenomenon. Of course, this one does not “communicate” in the same way as the spoken discourse. It does not even “have to” as for this… we have the spoken discourse. Yet it communicates all that the sound phenomenon communicates but in a temporal organization, which we can perceive as not arbitrary. In other words, it transcends the acoustic and sound phenomenon, connecting us with our shared cultural base. It is a cognitive and emotive reality, different/parallel to speech, but always reality.
Are there any extra-musical sources, which in a significant manner influence your music?
Without pretending to be pedantic, the fact is that my compositional practice has always been about the “capturing” of extra-musical sources (sound phenomenon) and their transformation into elements of composition. This is a narrow interpretation of the question.
In a broader interpretation, I would say that to decide on relevance of this or that sound event, I use my memory and my emotion as felt in the body – what António Damásio called somatic markers. It seems to me that we can only influence and perhaps educate one's somatic markers. To do that I use what I experiment in other fields: what I see, what I read, what I think, what I live. In this way reading literature, prose or poetry, philosophy and science has a significant presence in my life. It can be just for pure pleasure: yet something remains, which I later “use”. Maybe that is accomplished through modification of my somatic markers.
For example, recently I read some theoretical reflections about Architecture. I found interesting the concept of transforming the physical space into a habitable one, through various tectonic actions (actions of construction); as well as the characterization of the place, natural or urban, in terms of our concrete experience of the sky, ground plan, materials, light. Then, there is a very curious concept of the place and how, according to its character, it “asks for” a determined type of architecture. By analogies and metaphors, such concepts eventually can guide me in the evaluation of sound phenomenon, in the making of compositions where sounds “dwell” in it.
How could you characterize your musical language?
It is interesting how in this question we can again observe the use of the human language as an interpretative metaphor. We cannot escape from it… but leaving behind my presumption, my musical production has been concentrated on the electroacoustics. I hesitate to say electroacoustic music: everyone has a more or less defined notion of what music is but here the noun is transformed into an adjective. In fact, electroacoustics pertains to a technique, which deals with transducers (microphones and loudspeakers), amplifiers and various signal processing devices, operated by means of electronics and electricity. All contemporary musical production, whatever, actually ends up being “touched” by electroacoustics. But here I am talking about the conjugation of a technique with the practice of “composing with sounds”, as described by Leigh Landy. The electroacoustic "music" is simultaneously a technique, a practice and a expression of this type of composition.
"Composing with sounds" seems to be a pleonasm. Isn’t all music created from the sound phenomenon? But here one does not have the conceptual element of “note” or “semi-quaver”. Here one starts directly from the sound itself, from the phenomenon. This is in part practicable thanks to the electroacoustic technology. One also needs to retune our mode of listening to sounds. Now, the details of the composing action on the “unrefined” (“raw”) sound phenomenon have to do with the personal history of every composer. In my case and in order to compose from this material, I use metaphors and analogies. I create a “story” without words, in which only the emotions remain. Electroacoustic music, it's an hard practice, which does not forgive: if the composition is not good there is no “crutch” of the acoustic instruments’ sonority to help. A bad electroacoustic composition is bad in a quite obvious way. On the other hand, as a result of the intimate manipulation on the sound phenomenon, one gains a profound depth of “reading” of the musical universe, however you may define it, which I find extraordinary.
In the context of your practice as composer how could define the relations between science (physics, acoustics, mathematic) and music?
In relation to my practice, I cannot say that science itself has any importance. It is true that electroacoustics makes great use of technology, and it's related to the science of acoustics. I have done some research, at a personal level, on spatialization in the Ambisonics format and some unorthodox methods of sound synthesis but that's about it. There has not been much “dialogue”. But I am familiar with scientific tools and their methodology.
There is obviously a lot of literature and research concerning musical acoustics. In Portugal the emphasis has been put on the acoustics of halls, a very important factor, but perhaps a little bit distant from specific compositional aspects. However, music continues to arouse curiosity and there are a lot of approaches from the point of view of cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, linguistics, information science, mathematics, etc. This last one has always been a field of choice in relation to music. For instance, numeric representations (ratios, etc.) permeate common practice music. Thence it is quite logical to apply many methodologies and conceptual tools from mathematics (group theory, probability, graphs, topology, combinatory, etc.) in order to try to unveil hidden structures of musical compositions.
On the other hand there are various works and composers, which in a way or another claim to be inspired by science. A good deal ends up being a kind of sonification of the raw data obtained from various scientific disciplines. For example, in the Netherlands, within the course of digital systems and composition, we realized a sonification (in MIDI) of various functions of distribution of probabilities (Cauchy, Normal, Beta, Exponential, Weibull, etc.). We then listened to the results. Sometimes they were quite surprising and it is my opinion that in composition everything can be useful. But, mostly, the musical results transcend the scientific pretentions of composers. This for me is the case of Iannis Xenakis. I find that his compositions are “better” than his mathematical inspired writings tend to suggest. He was an engineer and architect but sometimes his mathematics is not very rigorous. No matter, his metaphor of "sound clouds or points" is an example of a useful one.
Which of your works constitute turning points in your career as composer?
In 1988, already in Portugal, the João Peste’s Ama Romanta label released my first LP. It contained pieces created during my stay in the Netherlands, all of them with live electronics, some inspired on the interactive, simple improvisation processes of the jazz musician George Lewis – who was one of our mentors. This edition, “Música de Baixa Fidelidade” (“Low Fidelity Music”; title taken from Murray Schaeffer’s classification of soundscapes) was important as it opened the way to various contacts here in Portugal. But our country is what it is and the enthusiasm was somewhat lost. Soon I had to dedicate myself to acoustics in order to make a living. Thus, there was a long hiatus until 2000.
Since then and taking advantage of the affordability of personal computers, I started to compose in a more intensive and dedicated manner. The piece “A Horizontal do Vento” (2001) was important: it served as a “template” for my later pieces. It was finalist in the Bourge's Competition and in the Prix Ton Bruynel – here together with other piece’s including one from Bernard Parmegiani! I felt that a cycle of my life was being completed. The piece from 2009 “Les Barricades Mystérieuses” highlights another turning point: I think that I managed to transcend my old method of juxtaposed sections, turning it into a more fluid and organic organization. Along the way, I had the opportunity to compose “A Nova Música do Rei”, commissioned by the Miso Music Portugal for the electroacoustic theatre for children. It is one of those pieces, whose realization gave me a lot of pleasure. It was a stimulating compositional challenge, in which everything seemed to “surge” naturally. A great experience, which gave much sense to the life I have chosen.
What do you think of the present situation of Portuguese music? How could you define the composer's role nowadays?
The two questions are connected: composers do not live in a social vacuum and the conditions of the context determine, partly, the success of the compositional practice. If we talk about music in terms of culture, the Portuguese one, we will have to take into account two aspects: one local, concerning the music which appears in the Portuguese society; and one more global, concerning the music which emerges from the interaction of composers within a cosmopolitan environment that goes beyond geographical borders. My history is identified with the second aspect but it could have been the other way round (I could have been, who knows, a composer/performer of fado or alternative music or pop…).
Looking at Portuguese history of music ("art" music specifically), it is perhaps possible to see a pattern, which is being repeated nowadays: the availability of private, public or state sponsoring allows excellent composers to appear. These can take advantage of the economic possibilities and the circulation of ideas. The problem is that when we are almost “there” the country suffers some kind of historical disgrace. This creates a problem of continuity – a musical culture cannot be improvised in one day nor is it created by a lawful decree.
So here we are: there are, presently, excellent composers and performers. They pertain, out of necessity, from a cosmopolitan global culture: there is not much Portuguese "strains", whatever that means, in their music. The continuous realization of projects, the existence of commissions, of inter-artistic projects always bumps into the lack of continuity of the country’s socioeconomic project. It was Emmanuel Nunes who claimed that he did not abandon Portugal, but it was Portugal, which abandoned him. And so it is for composers as Tomás Henriques and João Pedro Oliveira: they have left recently. For all of us who stay here the key word is “resistance”. We have to maintain alive the corpus of compositions, which is being enriched continuously. The music, Portuguese or any other, lives only when it is “fed”.
How do you see the future of art music?
But what a portentous question! I don’t know… but I will try to speculate. Concerning form, sonorities, aesthetics it is an unknown: probably, past material and concepts will be recycled and rejuvenated. I believe that it has always been so. In the case of electroacoustics, I am quite pessimistic. Having been recently jury member of the Electroacoustic Composition Competition organized by the Miso Music Portugal only emphasized this impression of the general lack of quality of the pieces.
As I have already said, this practice is difficult: to compose, to present and to listen to. Perhaps it is not music in the common sense of the word but another thing, which we haven’t figured out yet. Instrumental music, even when it is considered to be difficult, is much more accessible – at least this is what people not directly connected to music say to me.
On the other hand, taking a broader view of “art music” one should also mention the special conditions, which it needs. The organizations, which allow it to exist, seem always to live at the edge of financial precipice. From an economist’s point of view, a narrow view I know, the main problem has to do with productivity. This cannot be improved, like other industries: a concert for 15 instruments conceived in the 18th century, needs precisely 15 instruments in the 21st century. From the economic point of view, the process is then classified as inefficient and ruinous.
It is true that technology advances and the increased portability of media expanded the potential public. But the dilemma remains: some form of subsidy or sponsorship (state support or tax incentives) is required to maintain the activity of “art music” (and of other performative activities). It is necessary to maintain the tangible cultural capital (buildings, halls) and to encourage the intangible cultural capital (practice, ideas, values). Expensive? Perhaps, but probably much less than what is being spent in order to maintain afloat agents of certain “financialism”. Now this is truly ruinous.
