In focus

Carlos Marecos

Questionnaire / Interview

Part I - roots and education

How did music begin for you? Where do you identify your musical roots? Which paths led you to composition?

I don’t remember precisely the moment when in my childhood I became interested in music. My family didn’t have any connections with the musical environment and what I remember was trying to use different musical toys, which, somewhat by chance, were appearing among my other toys.
Then I remember following, with some curiosity, the musical interests of my brother, eight years older than me, mainly in 1970s rock music.
After April 25, 1974, at the age of 10 and 11, together with my brother we started to play the guitar, both in a completely autodidactic manner, in order to follow the intervention songs of that period. In that time I made my first attempts to write something in this genre, some songs, which I can hardly remember today, if not only their primary rhythmical side in the service of the political genre.
Soon after this period I became interested in playing music by Sérgio Godinho, Zeca Afonso, Fausto, among others. I realized that I wasn’t always able to understand and reproduce every kind of music, which I was then discovering, so I ended up trying to improve my musical knowledge, at the beginning still in a autodidactic manner, but after that in different schools, unofficial at that time, as for example the Juventude Musical Portuguesa and the Instituto Victorino Matono.

Which moments from your music education you find the most important?

I started studying the solfeggio and classic guitar with Rogério Gouveia at the Instituto Matono. It was one of the first important moments in my education as musician. I remember that I experienced his lessons quite intensely, and that there was a great involvement with the instrumental practice. It all happened in spite of the presence of four or even five pupils during a one-hour lesson.

It is after this phase that, following the advice of Rogério Gouveia, I decided to proceed with my musical studies in a more official way – I entered the Academia de Amadores de Música. Even though I continued to study the guitar, it is there that I begun to truly discover composition. I studied Analysis and Compositional Techniques with Eduardo Vaz Palma and with Eurico Carrapatoso.
It is also then that composition started becoming a necessity. At that time I was composing for different formations in the area of pop/rock, in a style difficult to characterize and already with a certain level of experimenting, what progressively got me closer to classical and experimental music.
And it was as Eurico Carrapatoso’s pupil at the Academia that I went through another important phase of my education, a time when, also because of the energy emanating from Carrapatoso and the knowledge which he shared and transmitted, I developed definitively my taste for composition and I decided to follow the studies in this area.

Another moment, undoubtedly important, was at the Lisbon Superior School of Music, where I studied composition with Christopher Bochmann and António Pinho Vargas. Despite entering the school already at a relatively mature age, it was fascinating for me to be dedicated to music, research and creation almost 24 hours per day, and being tutored by excellent professors; it was for me a novelty and a great privilege.
I should also refer a more recent period when I realized a doctorate at the Aveiro University, tutored by João Pedro Oliveira and Christopher Bochmann. It was a phase when perhaps for the first time I looked back in more detail at my own music from the last 15 years. I could question myself as composer, observing my contribution, until then, to the musical creation, at the same time researching intensely the music of other composers, as well as reinforcing and enriching my own convictions.

Part II - influences and aesthetics

Which references do you assume in your compositional practice? Which works from the history of music and the present are most significant for you?

It is always difficult to talk about my references, above all, with regard to my compositional practice. There are innumerable composers who I admire for their works, their texts or their opinions, yet they cannot be seen as clear references in my compositional practice. I also don’t have the aspiration to be part of any particular current. I think that one of the riches of the present is the diversity and I like to see myself in its centre.
Sometimes I also find references in the music of the past, above all in some musical gestures. Nevertheless the influence of these references is always reflected in my music through the filter of the present and my personal language. Curiously my major references when I was writing my opera were Monteverdi and Purcell. The counterpoint of Frei Manuel Cardoso is something, which has always excited me, and also, obviously, Bach’s entire work, as well as the surprising, vigorous and sometimes lyrical gestures in the music of Beethoven.
I have a profound admiration for Stravinsky and Messiaen, for the way in which each of them thought about rhythm, as well as for Stravisky’s infinite imagination and Messiaen’s reflections on rhythm, timbre, colour and harmony; it is very common, but I cannot fail to mention that the “Rite” is a significant work for me. Ligeti is also an obvious reference because of the way, in which he came to innovate the texture, in his music of the 1960s and 70s, and because of his capacity to evolve and show new solutions, in his later works. One should also mention Berio for his passion for vocal music and for the intelligent and emotive manner in his writing, even when he used to follow the rules of serialism. Kurtág’s lyricism is something, which has interested me and influenced my music, particularly such pieces like “Quasi una fantasia” and the cycle of epigrammatic songs, “Messages of the Late Miss R. V. Troussova”. Lutosławski, for his writing based on intervallic patterns and for his control of harmonic movement from manipulation on timbre instead of functional, is one of the composers of the 20th century who I assume as one of my closest references from a technical point of view. Grisey and Murail are also important technical references, since their creation of textural layers inspired in the physical nature of sound is also something very important to me.
From the point of view of technical or even philosophical idiosyncrasies Jonathan Harvey is one of the composers with whom I can find many coincidences with my own convictions. Nevertheless I cannot say that he influenced me as I only started to get to know and to study his music more profoundly six years ago, when João Pedro Oliveira advised me to do so. Harvey’s conviction that music would be richer and more attractive if the intervallic and spectral thought didn’t fail to go together is something in what I also believe. In this context, works such as “Madonna of Winter and Spring”, “Death of Light/Light of Death” or “Body Mandala” among the most recent references have been the most remarkable to me.
I would also like to mention my masters in composition. All of them have marked me profoundly, although each one in a different manner. Eurico Carrapatoso for his lyricism and his energy in awakening the creative impulse, António Pinho Vargas for encouraging the habits of reflecting on the materials, listening and the result, and finally Christopher Bochmann for the creation of habits of structuring and above all for the intervallic thought.

Some would say that due to its nature music is essentially incapable of expressing anything neither emotion, mental attitude, psychological disposition, nor any 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?

I really cannot tell if music is capable of expressing unequivocally any sentiment or psychological disposition. What I feel is that it is an artistic manifestation, which is only concretized when performed, when there is communication between the composer and the listener via the performers or, at least, between the composer and the performers. Music is to be experienced, to be felt at the moment of a concert. It is a form of communication capable to provoke emotions and to trigger feelings in whoever is listening to it, even though they differ from one listener to another or in the composer. I think that what is interesting in music, as in other artistic manifestations, is that it enables different readings to whoever experiences it. Here I find its richness.

If feeling is an idea, a conscious judgement about an emotion, it is obvious that music can trigger feelings. Perhaps for this reason it is not so important for us to ask if music expresses sentiments just like words do, but rather to what extent music is capable to provoke them.
Obviously I am not interested in music that triggers slushy sentiments or other common feelings. Yet if it wouldn’t provoke any emotion or sentiment it could be a sign that it didn’t touch the listener and that he didn’t think about the music at all.
I think that it is interesting that music is capable of making the listener think, of asking him and raising new questions and, in this sense, of provoking emotions and triggering sentiments.
In fact, I have a particular interest in playing with the emotional side of music. I have already made some experiences inspired in the knowledge of the interference that the basic emotions have in the human voice timbre, either sung or spoken. These alterations are obviously subtle, but observable on the spectrogram. Now the application of this concept in instrumental writing doesn’t reproduce the reality. It is in fact a metaphor inspired in the reality, just as instrumental synthesis proposed by Grisey or Murail is. Yet any artistic manifestation is richer and more sophisticated when it is expressed through metaphors. Their use is perhaps not aimed at getting more easily to the listener, but to allow a richer communication with him.
For me it is essential that an emotion is involved in the “triangle” – composer, performer and listener. In concert an emotional and artistic experience is not always achievable, but when one manages to do it the moment becomes “magical”.

PART III - language and compositional practice

How do you characterize your musical language?

I think that my musical language can be characterized through the existence of a stratified texture cohabited by different structures in the context of pitches. Thus, in a general way, a determined gesture or musical figure can appear in a first plan, based on a regular pattern of musical intervals. It can project its structure in the register. From different patterns one can characterize the colour of the lines and the harmony.
On the other hand, in a background, there are always one or more layers, which remain in relation with the physical nature of sound and with the behaviour of its components through time. They can be seen as spectral structures. These structures reflect the concepts of resonance and reverberation, together with the construction or manipulation of the timbre itself, of the lines or harmonies of the main gestures, giving a contribution to the textural whole, which can go far beyond any orchestral dimension.

I relate the two types of structure with the phenomenon of auditory perception. While working with intervallic structures, I am sure that it is possible, through listening, to focus ourselves on the diverse intervallic relations from the unity of halftone, letting us speculate in a coherent form and, at the same time, perceive these relations both from a more quantitative point of view (from the quantity of halftones) as well as qualitative (from the acoustic proportions of every interval involved). I am also convinced that the ear is capable of focusing itself on the qualitative perception of harmonicity or inharmonicity of spectral structures.

In my way of thinking, the intervallic structures are a kind of “mode”, of musical architecture. They interact and are subjected to the action of the mean, which is given by the spectral structures connected with natural phenomena.
For me intellectual speculation is essential in composition. I think it should not be disconnected from what is natural. Thus it becomes necessary to make this speculation audible and compatible with the mean, hence my necessity to construct a context which would receive, conduct or illuminate the musical architecture through the inclusion of spectral layers in the texture.
The integration of the structures in the mean is, thus, indispensable for the acoustic balance of the whole, for the construction of the timbre itself, the orchestration, the introduction of the texture of extreme factors, such as light, shadow, colour, warmth, mist and transparency. It is also crucial for the efficiency of the perception, contributing, in this way, to a connection of the cerebral and intellectual side with the perceptive and sensorial aspect and, as a result, to a true musical satisfaction.

Which techniques do you employ in the composition process?

Complementing the previous answer, from the technical point of view I can say that the referred intervallic structures are based on the unity of halftone and have the equal temperament as a reference and not imperative. Therefore, the halftones, but above all the resulting intervals of the different combinations of halftone (perfect fifths, fourths, thirds, etc.) can and should be sufficiently flexible to be subjected to acoustic relations, always when possible in search for pure intervals. With fixed tuning instruments one can also use other tuning systems. The fact that one looks for pure intervals doesn’t eliminate the perception of the structural intervals. They can arise integrated in edified structures from different combinations of halftone, yet adjusted with acoustic criteria.
In the context of the spectral structures the equal temperament is not referential, and therefore the whole range of frequencies is available, far beyond from what the tempered scale offers. In this context the microtones can arise from the spectral criteria, in search for intervals connected with the natural proportions or even related to the inharmonic spectra, always in a perspective of structural, and not ornamental elements.

In general I want determined criteria to influence the choice of the pitches. The patterns, constituting my intervallic structures, are also applied to durations, always when the musical time, in which I express myself, justifies it.
Therefore, on various occasions I use regular numeric patterns to control the durations from a determined unity. Normally, in order to obtain different durations I multiply this unity instead of just dividing it.
In many cases I want the sensation of a regular pulse to arise from diverse rhythmic layers and never in a context of an explicit meter. I believe in this implicit use of pulsation, functioning as a subtle revelation of periodicity, which can be seen as the rhythmic equivalent of harmonicity, from the harmonic point of view.

On the other hand, in some situations I also want my music to have rhythmic relations, which would escape the sensation of a regular implicit pulsation, resorting to a concept, which I designated as “space rhythm”. It doesn’t necessarily make reference to a dilated and slow tempo, but yes to a rhythm, which escapes the attraction of regular pulsation, seeking to escape a vertical compromise between the lines. This concept of mine doesn’t arise in the sense of fluctuations of movement, but rather in a rhythm that seeks to escape the gravitational attraction of a regular pulse, avoiding the control of a basic pulse. Although one would use cells with some vigour or impetus, the space rhythm should be achieved, above all, through the absence of vertical compromise and without the use of a rhythmic stress resulting form the schizophrenic superposition of different unities of any pulse.

In the context of your practice as composer how could you define the relations between science (physics, acoustics, mathematics, etc.) and music?

Without any doubt in my case, and as exposed in the above description concerning my musical language, there is an important relation between music, mathematics and acoustics. However one shouldn’t forget that we are in the field of artistic creation and not of any exact science. The way I speculate in my abstract intervallic structures, to some extent, with numbers and proportions, at the intervallic level of the microstructure and in the durations, as well as at the macro level of the formal structure, establishes a clear relation with mathematics.

The whole work, via instrumental writing, is inspired in the nature of the sound phenomenon and in the awareness of the acoustic phenomena, which join intimately the spectral structures with scientific knowledge on any sound spectrum, of its timbre, both in its harmonic and inharmonic side, as well as in the noise. Consequently, this knowledge on the internal structure of sounds opens the door to all the elements that can be configured as structural in the composition.
Grisey and Radulescu speak of the concept of “sound ecology” as a new science for the disposition of the musicians. They believe that it is possible to take all the material for the composition from the physical nature of the sound itself, from its detailed study and comprehension of the phenomena and natural laws, taking nature as a model or metaphor for composition.
The interaction between intervallic and spectral structures from the perspective, which personally I am interested in exploring, also arises in a close relation to the idea of “musical ecology”.
Nevertheless my concept of “musical ecology” is developed from a less naturalistic perspective than in the case of other composers, since the material for composition is not exclusively taken from nature, but results from the interaction with a more abstract plan – the intervallic architecture, with a natural one – the spectral side.
It is precisely in the confrontation and in the relation between what is intellectual and what is natural, between the creation and the mean, where I find the whole interest of musical composition as artistic manifestation.

Do you have any preferred musical genres / styles?

Without wanting to explicit preference for any musical genre or style, undoubtedly I have a great passion for writing for voice, both for choir, and above all for solo voices, either in an operatic context, or in chamber music. The use of electronics together with instrumental ensembles also has been gaining some pertinence in my works during the recent years, since the use of this technology can be an obvious advantage in the creation of spectral layers, in the context to which I have already referred.
The orchestra is without any doubt the formation, which can spread in the best way the possibilities of my musical thought, since the procedures, which I use in composition can only be explored in its whole abundance, with relatively extended formations.

Which of your works constitute turning points in your career?

Without any doubt, one of the works that constitutes a turning point in my career is “Música para 21 clarinetes” (“Music for 21 Clarinets”) from 2000 as it is here that for the first time I use the layering of intervallic structures with special moments of illumination and acoustic celebration, even though at that time the concept of spectral structure wasn’t completely assumed.
Obviously the preference for determined intervals, namely for the perfect fifth has already been recurrent in my intervallic structures. The extended exploration of the instrumental timbre has also become a recurrent practice as it happens in “5 miniaturas para violoncello solo” (“5 Miniatures for Solo Cello”) from 2000, or in “Alma c” (1998).

Then I would like to highlight “Ligamos os motores damos aos remos” (2003) for chamber orchestra and “Caminho ao céu” (2003), for two sopranos and chamber orchestra, since they are pieces where both at the level of the pitch structures, and at the level of rhythmic and textural context as well as at other levels not covered by this interview, my principles were being consolidated.
Particularly “Caminho ao céu”, for its adopted epigrammatic formal structure, for its madrigal vocal style and for the simplicity in the inclusion of some materials of Portuguese traditional music, is a work whose performance revealed a sound result, which thrilled and surprised me far beyond from what I have predicted upon its writing.

Finally I would like to mention such works as “Inês – 7 miniaturas sobre A Castro” (2006) for soprano and orchestra, “Terra” (2009) for string orchestra and “Ode a Gaia – Deusa da Terra” (2009) for soprano, mixed choir and electronics, where the conscious use of the interaction between the intervallic and spectral structures was consciously applied.

The experience acquired with the use of the recurrent processes, as described above, has led me to a point in my writing that today, in 2013, I can say that there is a tendency towards the application of the same concepts, but in a much freer and less exact form. I believe that this can be a more internal and natural assumption of the techniques and processes used by me until today; processes that today I feel, are more open to receive new ideas in the future.