Photo: Cândido Lima by Ângela Lopes
Interview to Cândido Lima realised by Pedro Boléo and Jakub Szczypa
Pedro Boléo: In the interview given to the MIC.PT in 2013, with regard to the composition “Músicas de Villaiana” (2009), you said that it was a kind of flashback from your childhood. Could you reveal some aspects of this childhood and describe the beginnings of your interest inmusic?
Cândido Lima: This work, “Músicas de Villaiana” (Music of Villaiana), has the subtitle “Coros Oceânicos” (Oceanic Choirs). It was commissioned by the Municipality of Viana do Castelo, and more specifically by its president – doctor Defensor Moura. It's important for me to emphasise this name, as I think that it was bold and audacious to make a commissions of this kind. To his councillor for culture I said: “My music isn't exactly for the general audience of Viana”. They responded: “It doesn't matter. Write what in your understanding is the best”. This story would be much longer, if I was to divagate on the way the work was commissioned. My impression is that it has probably been the first time in the world that a work was commissioned publicly, with the audience's applause in a village of Viana do Castelo, the place of my origin.
I wanted this work to evoke, so to speak, the whole environment of the Viana do Castelo region, where I socialised – despite being from the village – with my family. My father was a sailor, during decades in the captaincy of the Viana harbour, where he exercised different functions. I made my fourth grade in Viana do Castelo and my prize for the success at the final exam was a tour on the Lima river, on the boat called “motora”. My father had some influence in order to be able to achieve this use of boats. I wanted to evoke all this universe – not only the musical, but also the physical and social one. The universe of the sailors, the world of the fishermen... all this fantastic life, which any city and any region, evidently has, but this one's mine...
If you want a story about “Villaiana”, I have a lot of written texts. What's interesting, and I take this opportunity to emphasise it, the work was composed in 2008-09 with the collaboration of a very special person – the composer and my partner Ângela Lopes. Therefore, the whole region, including the “Foral” which is an administrative document from 1258, has been contemplated in this work lasting around 60 minutes...
Pedro Boléo: It's a multimedia work...
Cândido Lima: Yes, indeed. There are diverse protagonists here, some of them unprecedented, as I assume – a choir, voices, electronics, a classical narrator and a “street narrator”, a rapper. The second part of the work – “Vagas e tempestades – Coros oceânicos – Memórias de tragédias” (Waves and Storms – Oceanic Choirs – Memories of Tragedies) – is based on the poem “Ode Marítima” (Maritime Ode) by Fernando Pessoa, which I adapted, eliminating the metaphorical side and leaving only the fascinating vocabulary of the popular world, the world of the fishermen. Try to imagine a rapper saying the “Maritime Ode” by Fernando Pessoa, and then with the classical narrator... It was indeed one of the most fascinating moments. Then there was this particular moment, which actually didn't work that well, since some preparation was needed. It's the possibility for the audience to intervene in the work with the use of mobile phones. Since we live surrounded by technology the work also points a lot at it, yet with traditional means. Both in the music written for the orchestra and the electronics, there's a lot from the time of the Ars Nova and Ars Antiqua... for example the organum. It's all there.
I've contemplated imaginary and real music from the Viana region. I've even made a research on the medieval troubadours and I've found a reference by Adam de la Halle to the Minho and the North of Portugal! To Martim Codax! I took into consideration Viana's imaginary history – how would they sing? How would they spell the Latin or Portuguese? How would a Portuguese... yes there's the Galician-Portuguese... etc., etc...
Jakub Szczypa: And all these ingredients are combined with the sounds from your youth, with the sonic memories from the past...
Cândido Lima: Yes! For example in the last part – “Coro de romarias. Memórias de crepúsculo” (Pilgrimage Choirs. Memories of Twilight) – I evoke the mountains. By the way, I made some recordings in the Serra de Arga, a mountain range not exactly in Viana, but in the same district. And the “Foral” text by the monarch Dom Afonso III also mentions, precisely, the Serra de Arga. I insisted on making a journey by taxi – in order for us to be safe in the mountain range – with the composer Ângela Lopes. There we made video footage and other marvellous things with sounds and images. And in this part I use the electronics, playing with the sinusoidal waves in the choir's appropriate pitches. So, I made two choirs work together. By the way, there are various choirs within what I call as “choirs” (there are six of them), expressed in real voices as well as in various types of technology and orchestra. In this section – which is the final section preparing the reading of the “Foral” text – I used some instruments... difficult to imagine what they really are. They're instruments, for example, from the pilgrimages (“romarias” in Portuguese) – flutes and cucu shakers made of clay, fifes, ferrinhos... sounds completely appropriated by the musique concrète, yet here with the function of evoking the memories form my childhood.
Your question makes all the sense as my childhood is there in these objects and simple instruments, with which any child likes to play. I myself took an accordion and I played two chords on it, as if I were one of those accordionists from the Serra de Arga, or the Agonia Festivities in Viana. I only played two chords, exactly as they do it in the refrains (lengalengas) based simply on the G and C chords! In the work's third part I used this recording... so there's an accordion imitating, or better, evoking some of the great protagonists of the Agonia Festivities. Yet, I combined it with, for example, the sounds of the Indigenous Brazilians, making reference to the great “Brazilian” from Viana – the Caramuru. He's an important figure in the history of Brazil and he originates form Viana do Castelo. He had a gigantic statue – somewhat out of context – at the Praça da República (Republic Square) in Viana.
Jakub Szczypa: I'm also curious – how did the audience react to the possibility of being able to intervene in the work with the use of mobile phones?
Cândido Lima: There were some people who used it. The work is secured with the sound of mobile phones transformed and edited in studio. So there's sound during these two minutes. Therefore, if the audience didn't react at all there would be no problem. The work continues its own development. I know that there were people who used their mobile phones... I included this possibility in the work to encourage a dialogue with the exterior – with families, with friends. To create a sonic chaos, which I also recorded, for example, outside the Girassol Café in Viana. This is also a particularly fascinating moment. Me and Ângela, we left a recorder in the café to register everything. One could hear the noise of the anonymous public, the noise of television, of the coffee machines... At a certain moment – we were that lucky — a Zés Pereiras percussion group was passing by. There's a fade-in, a crescendo, a distant appearance of the Zés Pereiras on the nearby street. When one listens to it, it seems like a studio work! But it's not. It's the work of the real world, registered by a small recorder! One can also hear the fade-out, the gradual disappearing of the Zés Pereiras. This is one of the most exciting moments of the work, because it seems like an artifice, a collage, a studio edit, and it's not. It's indeed a scene from the real life, from the Agonia Festivities.
Pedro Boléo: Could you tell us some stories about the public's reaction towards this composition, “Músicas de Villaiana”?
Cândido Lima: It was surprising, because some days before, facing the difficulties, facing the doubts, facing the scepticism, which these projects trigger at schools, among the youth etc... by the way there's an episode, which perhaps I shouldn't tell, yet I find it at least significant... not to use other terms...
Before the event, at the Republic Square (Praça da República) in Viana do Castelo I saw one of the concert posters, on which somebody wrote: “Go home and learn how to compose!” They even drew a moustache and a pair of little corns like mephistopheles', on my face. For me it meant that there was a conflict between the professors, the youth and a world, which was completely strange to them. Because in fact it's a kind of cataclysm, or then on the contrary... something heavenly... the mixture of sonic, dramatic and visual experiences is so strong. They confronted a completely different world. And this in fact generated conflicts, which I imagined. More or less one week before, the director said: “It won't have any audience”. Everybody was totally dominated by the panic towards something, which wasn't well defined.
The work in itself isn't complex, as it was also conceived for the youth. I composed it not for a professional orchestra, but for the youth, therefore it's absolutely accessible. The complexity lies in the mental plan of the codes, which generally the professors have and nourish. This work is something different... it uses other codes, which they don't know. This is what happened.
Pedro Boléo: Since you mention it... not always has your music been received, so to speak, straightforwardly. Already many years ago – perhaps nowadays this question is less strong –, but...
Cândido Lima: It has always been like this! But there are misconceptions because in 1979... in seventy nine – was it that long ago...
Pedro Boléo: 40 years ago...
Cândido Lima: …thus you're making allusions to my age! It's better to say “08” which is August and not the number... it's better to have it to other way round, isn't it? I'm eight years old with the “0” on my left side. As I usually say, I'm in my “fitness” age. Luckily I'm in good health, both mental and physical. Therefore, this number doesn't match me! Although chronologically and biologically it's the right one! However, in real terms it's completely different. Therefore... it's better to keep to the “08” which is August... the month of my anniversary. (Since coming back alive from the African war, the age has become irrelevant to me...)
Pedro Boléo: The question of the reception of your music also has to do with the fact that you're actually the first Portuguese composer who simultaneously used, for example, electronics and orchestra. How did you end up working with the electronics, which has become so important to you...
Cândido Lima: It makes part of an inner restlessness, as Xenakis and other composers used to say. I have a natural inner restlessness.
My education was extremely conservative, not only form the political, but also from the religious and social point of view. The measures, with which my education has been informed are extremely conventional, I can even say reactionary... and gradually my inner world has been changing, yet in a calm way. Peacefully.
At the age of 22 my brother – who was a sailor and fusilier and who went to Cape Verde and Guinea – gave me a recorder, which I've kept until today. I used it in 1972-73 in the work “Death of a Salesman” (Morte de um Caixeiro Viajante), for the theatre piece by Arthur Miller, with João Guedes – a great friend and a great actor – and the Plebeus Avintenses theatre group. If you asked me: “Where does this come from?” Well, from my readings! At that time I could still say: “Ah, I'm still studying counterpoint, or teaching counterpoint or harmony”. The truth is that the need to survive obliged me to have parallel lives. What is more, it was a time when I was projecting my musical life and I was obliged to join the army in Guinea. Thus the story behind the work premiered by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble at the Música Viva 2019 Festival...
Jakub Szczypa: …the work's title is “Ode ao Tejo” (Ode to Tagus)... could you reveal us the story behind it?
Cândido Lima: Of course! But before that I would like to continue to answer the previous question... what I wanted to say is this... I made a series for television entitled “Sons e Mitos” (Sounds and Myths) and it was highly praised by millions of people and by the critics. And it was truly contemporary music – Kagel, Schnebel, Xenakis, Ligeti, Cage... all the illustrious representatives of the 20th century. Then, I was never insulted by anybody. Rather on the contrary.
I made various things during the years – either on television or on the radio and I've always been applauded by the public, including the official entities! Therefore, when one claims that my work or the music by my colleagues was being rejected... it's actually not quite true...
There's a story, which I've already told a couple of times, but I find it most amusing, since a friend of mine – Pedro Amaral an excellent composer and musician – was jealous of what happened to me. It was on the occasion of the premiere of the work “A-MÈR-ES” (1978-79) at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It's a piece for orchestra and electronics, which, by the way, was commissioned to me by the Gulbenkian after Xenakis' recommendation. After the premiere of the work two listeners wished me death and 30 years later Pedro Amaral was jealous of my luck to experience a confrontation of this kind! It's a situation most probably recalling the environment of the insults towards Beethoven or Stravinsky, Schönberg or Messiaen...
Jakub Szczypa: …it was in 1979?
Cândido Lima: In 1979, exactly. During the interval two listeners from the Gulbenkian Auditorium wished me death, in different ways, but yes... according to them I should have been dead!
Thirty year after its composition, the work was revived by Miguel Azguime and Pedro Amaral for the Música Viva 2009 Festival. They digitalised and updated it, so to speak. At that time the audience was divided between cheers and jeers. But before there'd been that strong reaction of the two listeners at the Gulbenkian.
Coming back to “Músicas de Villaiana”... if the work had been, let's say, an object of reaction, conflict and rejection by the audience, during the second performance night the Sá de Miranda Theatre in Viana would have been empty. Yet it was full, just as during the first night. This means that the word was spread and thus and unimaginable thing happened!
I have other experiences of this kind. For example... the premiere of “Oceanos” (1978-79) at the Rivoli Theatre in Porto, in 1979. The theatre, which had the capacity of more than 1000 people, was full! And “Oceanos” was an unusual, unprecedented and exotic work. I also used the computer here... at that time I used to say that I was a kind of Martian. But there it is, again the audiences proved to be different than the people with power – politicians, academics or culturally oriented non-academics. There are great misconceptions and I've said and written a lot on this subject. And my composer-colleagues can say the same thing. There are in fact limit situations with nobody in the concert hall, or with the concert hall packed with millions of listeners!
Somebody wishing me death... this has never affected me. There's another fundamental problem, which has to do with the freedom of creation. I've always needed to conciliate my reality as teacher, pedagogue, for example, and my individual reality as composer. When it comes to the latter, to composing, here I've never been conditioned. As for my being a teacher, here I had to compromise... But whenever possible I tried to influence and challenge the young generations and probably I've managed to do something in this sense...
Jakub Szczypa: There's an aspect which's certainly also important in your case. You've described some limit situations... in my opinion every art written with the capital “A” enjoys limit situations. There can be either a crowd at a concert or the concert hall may be empty, yet this absence is also significant... it's a reaction towards the Art, a reaction towards your work...
Cândido Lima: Without any doubt! It's obvious that I won't say: “I'm not concerned a lot with the audience's reaction”. But I won't fail to say that being applauded is infinite happiness. If one isn't applauded... what can one do!? If a work isn't well done, poorly worked or rehearsed – this is deplorable and I've already experienced this kind of situations. But luckily I've also had moments when the work was transmitted with all dignity and truth, when it comes to the music text. I have absolutely memorable experiences of this kind, above all from the last decades. Therefore, I'm not worried if the people like or don't like my work, however... I have to admit that everybody loves to be loved! More than hated! Some people say: “Ah, as long as they speak about me...” No! I like to be spoken of positively! It bothers me when they speak ill of me!
Pedro Boléo: While speaking about the work “A-MÈR-ES” you mentioned Iannis Xenakis, composer who has been very important to you... and for your career. Could you tell us more about this proximity?
Cândido Lima: Before going to Paris I was anonymous, so to speak. There has always been an enormous difference between the macrocephaly, as they say, of Lisbon and the rest of the country. I've also written about it for many years – in press and in my interventions to the ministerial powers. I can't complain, I've always intervened.
I started being esteemed, or more esteemed, when I went to Paris. Before, my works hadn't been performed, because I'd lived first in Braga and then in Porto. And one used to say: “Everything above the Douro river has little importance for the universe of culture, above all the one from Lisbon”. Therefore, there was this reality of mine towards the Portuguese society... my reality as a musician, despite having some past and, above all, an academic position, so to speak. The state of things changed when I went to Paris! When I met Xenakis in 1972, first in Darmstadt in Germany... and then I met him again in 1973 in France at the Festival de La Rochelle.
Pedro Boléo: And in 1973 you organised, here in Portugal, a meeting with the music of Xenakis...
Cândido Lima: Exactly! A “Meeting” with the authorisation of the Gulbenkian Foundation (the future designation of the “Gulbenkian Meetings” probably comes from here!). What happened was that in 1973 I went to France for the Festival de La Rochelle and one day I found myself side by side with Xenakis! I asked him if, taking advantage of his visit to Lisbon, he couldn't go to the North of Portugal – first I thought of Braga since I was the president of the Musical Youth there. We collaborated with Porto, with dame Ofélia Diogo Costa, who was president of the Musical Youth in Porto, and indirectly with dr. João de Freitas Branco, who was president of the Musical Youth in Lisbon.
So I asked Xenakis: “Wouldn't you go to the North of Portugal, since you're also going to Lisbon” (it was approximately in May / June). And he said: “It's possible, as long as the Gulbenkian Foundation gives its authorisation”. I replied: “But we – the Musical Youth – ... we don't have any money.” So he gave me the money – “100 dollars?” He asked: “Is it enough?” “Yes, I think so” – I replied. After the Festival I came back to Portugal to make the necessary arrangements.
At a certain moment dr. Madalena Perdigão from the Gulbenkian, with whom I have an unsalable debt... and also with the Gulbenkian Foundation, this stands as a fundamental declaration... so Madalena Perdigão called me and asked me, from the height of her multiple authority, if I knew who Xenakis was! (I must have touched a “god”...). So I replied: “Yes, of course I know”. Meanwhile, I spoke to Ofélia Diogo Costa and she said that she would think about organising the meeting. She didn't know who Xenakis was, so she needed to make sure if it was really important for him to go North. After two or three days she told me that it was possible. This shows that the idea about me in Portugal was that there'd been light years of difference, in comparison to a gigantic figure from the 20th century. But it's not true. I had already been together with Xenakis, on absolutely normal terms, on the occasion of a rehearsal.
What happened then was exceptional, because the meeting took place at the Trindade Cinema in Porto and there was and absolutely unforgettable debate between, above all, students from the University of Coimbra who went to Porto in buses.... there were buses from Braga and Coimbra! Later, Xenakis would speak to me many times about this experience!
Pedro Boléo: At that time it wasn't common to experience things of this kind, isn't it?
Cândido Lima: Exactly! It was a good time for this kind of things. The musician who took the students in buses was Mário Mateus, conductor of the Letters Chorale, an extraordinary singer and a central figure in Portuguese music. And this meeting, with the students having a vivid dialogue with Xenakis, put Lisbon in panic – there it wasn't as successful.
Pedro Boléo: At the time, what interested you in Xenakis' music?
Cândido Lima: When I came back from Guinea, I started studying philosophy. I wanted to make a revision in this area, while waiting for the nomination to become professor of Choral Singing at the Sá de Mirada Lyceum, from which I was illegally postponed by another teacher. So I entered the Faculty of Philosophy.
When this matter was resolved, I had already been there one year and a half... so I continued with the so-called “extra-curricular” activities. I abandoned the Choral Singing to teach Free Music, a voluntary course for the youth. And It turned out to be very interesting. At the same time I was at cruising speed at the Faculty of Philosophy. I studied there for five years. At one of the disciplines – Symbolic Logic / Modern Logic – the professor was António Vitorino de Sousa Alves, a Jesuit of whom I keep a great memory. At a certain time he spoke of the Logic in relation with the computer. And this challenged me instantly! “Let me explore what it is!” Meanwhile, other scientific and philosophical disciplines were opening my horizons.
At that time I had two books, which I bought in Porto: “Penser la musique aujourd'hui” by Pierre Boulez and “Musique de l'architecture” by Iannis Xenakis. I lent these two books – above all “Musique de l'architecture” and also “La Musique, discipline scientifique” by Pierre Barbaud – to this professor. And he read them. When giving them back to me, he said: “When it comes to music I don't have the adequate knowledge, but everything is clear to me within the mathematics”. There were those fascinating dialogues between certain professors of certain subjects.
The essence of my answer to your question lies in the following fact – from the little music by Xenakis that I knew at the time, for example “Nuits” from 1967 (I can't recall other titles), I wanted to learn its musical and mathematical secrets. I already felt his work to be unique.
Jakub Szczypa: So you analysed Xenakis' work...
Cândido Lima: I was analysing it to find the answers.
In 1973 I was director of the Music Conservatoire of Braga, of the so-called “Calouste Gulbenkian Pilot School”. And this consumed the time of my life as musician and composer. I got into conflicts, both ideological and musical, so I decided to leave Braga. Then the April 25th came (the Carnation Revolution of 1974) and again I fell into a similar disgrace, which was the direction of the Music Conservatoire in Porto. At the time, to refuse this function was considered antidemocratic, so I needed to endure it during various months. Luckily, I was saved and substituted by the honourable Fernando José Azevedo, who became the conservatoire's president after making an impressive speech. But I continued to make part of the direction.
In order to free myself from these tethers, I asked for a scholarship at the State Secretariat for Culture. I was convinced that it wouldn't have been given to me, since it was 1975, a catastrophic time when it comes to finances, both individual and institutional. But then an interesting coincidence happened. João de Freitas Branco was the State Secretary for Culture and he had an enormous admiration towards Xenakis, mainly because of the mathematics. He wasn't particularly fascinated with his music though. The mathematics constituted a point of interest. Xenakis accepted me to work in his atelier and at the University of Paris I – Sorbonne. And this allowed me to obtain this scholarship! It was a miracle! (If such a thing exists). I was so convinced that I wouldn't get it that I went to Paris already in September... and then I received a phone call informing me of the attribution of the scholarship! I came back to Portugal to prepare things and to leave again to Paris.
Then the story is quite long, until Xenakis' death in 2001. During these years I verified that he actually wasn't a mathematician. He used to say: “I'm not a mathematician, because I don't create theorems!” What most people don't know – even the musicians who are obliged to have this information – is that he didn't always use mathematics! He was trained in mathematics, as an engineer, and also in architecture through the contact with Le Corbusier, however, he was above all a musical genius, a rare musician. And this has been barely known. As his music was strange, completely outside the patterns of serial composition – by Boulez, Stockhausen, Pousseur, etc. –, the audience got used to cataloguing it as “mathematics”. It requires for demystification, although it's difficult, due to the rooted dogmas and fundamentalisms.
Jakub Szczypa: It's difficult because people tend to give labels, to put artists in drawers, either aesthetic or conceptual...
Cândido Lima: Exactly! He was given a label! Musician-Mathematician! And he has an absolutely great and unique work. Even Messiaen said something like this about Xenakis: “Mathematician and engineer – also musician”. And I responded to Messiaen in my affirmation about the work “A-MÈR-ES”: “Musician, also engineer and mathematician”. He wasn't a mathematician, but used mathematical techniques!
Pedro Boléo: Cândido Lima, you have already told us the story of the commission of the work “A-MÈR-ES”, which without any doubt is one of the most important in your catalogue. Could you give us some insights to its musical language?
Cândido Lima: Yes, of course! There's an interesting aspect. Since it's a work which uses music informatics, the computer and a large-scale orchestra, it probably seems extremely abstract. And it actually is, but with some particularities. What's unimaginable is that I included here a song – “São João” for the Beira-Baixa region. Of course it's transfigured, but still it's possible to perceive in some way the environment of the song. I made some research on it, about the possibilities of this melody at a statistical level. Here I had the help of professor Bernard Girard, with whom I had various meetings during three years. They were personal meetings to dispel my doubts on the relation between maths, science, but above all between maths and music. What's interesting is that if one looked at the matrix and the existing papers about it, one can't imagine that it has to do with a simple song of the Beira-Baixa folk. I want to make it clear...
Pedro Boléo: Even though the song isn't directly audible it makes part of the work's construction...
Cândido Lima: It's not audible, obviously. It's fragmented, and worked in another way. Nevertheless, throughout the work one can hear the song as something distant... distant from this whole panoply of instrumental and digital materials, etc. If one's a careful listener, a world form the outside is audible, despite being completely submerged. It's interesting to know that.
Pedro Boléo: Coming back to the work already mentioned during the interview, “Ode ao Tejo” (Ode to Tagus) premiered at the Música Viva 2019 Festival organised by the Miso Music Portugal... could you tell us more about this piece?
Cândido Lima: Yes, with pleasure! This work was commissioned to me by Miguel Azguime, a longtime friend. It evokes an absolutely unique and almost surreal story of a piano's journey from a village of Viana do Castelo to Guinea, during my army years, in 1966.
Pedro Boléo: This is also referred in the works subtitle...
Cândido Lima: The subtitle is – “regresso de um piano de guerra” (return of a piano from war). I insisted on marking it. I went through various titles, yet I stuck to this one, pointing at an infinite pleasure of coming back from Africa to the Tagus. I departed from the Tagus and I came back to it. Therefore, this work is a tribute to this river, to its tragic and marvellous aspects. Tragic as a point of departure to war, and... and bringing exaltation and euphoria when coming back from the war. Safe and sound, me and the ones who could make it.
I thought that it was interesting to approach this subject after an interview conducted by Paulo Guerra from the Antena 2 (Portuguese National Radio). During the years I've lightly alluded to the piano and my interlocutors have always been startled, yet the story has never been developed. I've never developed it. It was an episode, which had its impact at the time, but it was so natural, spontaneous... it happened as an absolute truth an absolute imposition of life, which seemed natural. After all these years, it now seems to me anti-natural to imagine a piano going to a war and above all to a country, province at the time – one of the most severely beaten by the war. Guinea.
So I thought that the piano deserved this musical evocation. In 2007, at the invitation of the Casa da Música for the Remix Ensemble, I composed the work “HÉAMAÓAMAÉH” with the subtitle “sulcos.silêncios” (grooves.silences). It was an evocation of something to which I had also never payed much attention, namely the transatlantic journeys – the journey that I made on the UÍGE [1] ship to and back from Guinea. Time went by and never again did I think of those journeys. But suddenly I came to the conclusion that it was worth marking this experience – these “five days and five nights” as Álvaro Cunhal wrote in his book (what's here actually out of context...). They were five days and five nights on the Atlantic Ocean, going to war and coming back to Portugal, to the metropolis, to Europe. And thus I wrote this work for the Remix.
This time I felt like homaging the upright piano, which travelled from Viana do Castelo to Guinea. And the encouragement was the interview given to Paulo Guerra, because the listeners and the radio technicians were amazed with this episode. The subject would have been closed again, but I said: “The time is now!” There was also another moment, when my brother Luís asked me if wanted to meet the people who had taken care of the piano at that time. Luís is much younger than me and he lives in France. Last year he came to Portugal two times. He has always been particularly generous and attentive to everything I've made during my life. So we went to meet the head of the woodworkers, who took care of the piano's packaging, with the help of my father and of other people, other woodworkers. And who did I also meet? The man who organised the transport, at the age of 96! The former one was 82, and the latter 96! And I had conversations with them. I've never imagined to meet them in person. I felt both perplexed and marvelled! I've met two men who in a certain way saved my life! I should also emphasise that the packaging was magnificent! It was indeed a fine woodwork. It served me during the two years at the Bolama Island and then during the piano's journey home.
Jakub Szczypa: Could you place us in time... it was in?
Cândido Lima: …1966! And the return in 1968. To mark these 50 years, this anniversary, I decided to approach the story of the piano.
My first reaction when the piano came to the officer chamber was to open the packaging. I thought that it had bee completely disjointed. I went to pick it up at Bissau... The piano made a journey from the Minho in the North of Portugal. First it travelled on an oxcart from my house to the train station. In and oxcart! Can you imagine? Then, there were the journeys by train... at the Campanhã station in Porto it had to change to Lisbon, to the Santa Apolónia station. And from there to the Company of Attachés (army)... and then in the ship's compartment, etc., etc. How is it possible that it came to me unscratched!?
After unpacking the piano, the first thing I did was opening the piano fallboard and I played the C Major chord. “This one's right!”. So the chord appears in the recently premiered work “Ode ao Tejo”. I wanted the work's ingredients to contemplate the piano story. Of course the C Major chord isn't audible, but one can recognise it when the piano part is played separately. Obviously, then there's a series of compositional strategies to submerge this chord in another type of language.
Actually, for me this work isn't a chamber music piece for eight instruments, but rather a work for orchestra! I also used an original instrumental set... for example the wind and the chord instrumental parts include the use of percussion with a great sonic impact, a great dramatic impact, so to speak. Thus the work's like a dramatic document. But for me it's rather a document of euphoria, happiness and pleasure. Now, every listener perceives the work according to his or her own sensibility. It's evident.
Jakub Szczypa: Cândido Lima, you've already told us about various works of yours: “A-MÈR-ES”, “Músicas de Villaiana” and “Ode ao Tejo”. A while ago we also had a conversation about giving “labels” to composers, what can be both positive and negative. However, if one gave a label to your music do you think it could be “fusion music”? Do you think it's correct?
Cândido Lima: I've already written a couple of times about this subject. In fact I think... I can't ask all the composers to think in the same way... but in my opinion a work should contain various stories... certain ramifications. Therefore, “fusion music” makes sense!
However, it's not in the sense of musical syncretism like in the case of Charles Ives or Luciano Berio, who made splendid things. What interests me is to create “fusion music” in the manner of various great composers from the past. Without proper analysis one isn't actually aware of the mixtures they did. For example, the traditional music in the great works by Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven or even the earlier ones... “Fusion music” shouldn't result in a patchwork, in a mixture of collages. I want the collages to create organic universes. As if it were a unique work! Thus the story of the popular tune integrated... but then I disintegrate it to make part of a whole...
Jakub Szczypa: ...it's being rooted in the work's structure...
Cândido Lima: Exactly! As an organic and absolutely inseparable body... where the parts are inseparable. So there are various stories creating a fusion, but in an almost chemical sense!
Labels... I'm not against them. Labels help us to organise the diversity of things. The problem is when the label is false... If you give me the label “Cândido”, it's true because I am Cândido. I'm not sure if I'm “candid” in this sense, but perhaps yes! Therefore, I say “no” to labels in the pejorative sense! It's in fact abominable. This concerns Xenakis as “mathematician”. It's an absolutely false label! The reality is that he used elementary mathematical techniques, as Pierre Boulez did... or Schönberg. Not sophisticated, as somebody dominating this area. Therefore labels – yes or no. It depends.
Pedro Boléo: Remaining in the area of your musical language, could you also tell us about your work, which I find particularly interesting: “Gestos – Circus – Círculos” (2000-01)?
Cândido Lima: With pleasure! It's a work commissioned by the Porto 2001 – European Capital of Culture. The commission has resulted form a recommendation by Miguel Azguime, always present in my life as a composer. It was premiered by the Grupo Música Nova (New Music Group) and then it was performed a couple of times by the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble – the performance at the Casa da Música was splendid.
One of the interesting things in this work is that it constitutes a kind of testament... in the good sense! A testament of life and not of death! When I freed myself from the ESMAE – Superior School of Music and Performance Arts in Porto – I wanted to make a mark. The title of the work is “Gestos – Circus – Círculos” (Gestures – Circus – Circles). “Gestures” have to do with the theatre. The work was premiered at the Helena Sá e Costa Theatre, which belongs to the ESMAE. There, during 16 years I experienced dramatic moments, from a theatrical and human point of view... “Circus” – the life of the school is a kind of circus, with everything that's good, bad and perverse in human relations. And then “Circles” concern the music, the circularity of the objects, materials – repetitive music... within the passages.
However, the most interesting thing here is the inclusion of Catarina Chitas' original voice. She was a traditional singer from the Beira-Baixa region. Actually, for me this is one of the most beautiful and well-achieved works of mine. Here one can hear the original voice of this lady, which I took from the recordings made by Michel Giacometti and Fernando Lopes-Graça. It's one of the first research works, the series of “burlap covers”... LPs which were later digitalised. I took the music from there.
Pedro Boléo: It's the “Anthology of Portuguese Music”...
Cândido Lima: Exactly. I used the singer's voice mixed within a completely antagonistic universe of contemporary music. And I'm able to hear everything, from the first until the last second. Even when she's not there, within the structure of the language of micro-intervals, orchestration, rhythm... I can still hear the singer's voice in every instant of the work. And she only appears in four moments – each one lasting around 25 seconds. But she invades completely this works lasting around 10 minutes! For me this is the most fascinating – to introduce a completely distant universe and make it live with my contemporary world.
Pedro Boléo: Your description of the work's title “Gestos – Circus – Círculos” is very interesting. Many of your works have somewhat enigmatic and strange titles. Why is it so significant to you?
Cândido Lima: Even if my titles don't represent exactly what's being heard – this lies in the hands of every listener – I insist on having the pleasure of finding the work's content in the title. Even when it's still not finished, I make a lot of research on the titles. There's the sonic aspect and the poetic one. That's why I have the habit of creating a kind of synthesis, just in one word, and then comes the description or reading. The first invented word holds the mystery and then there's the unveiling...
And I do it in various forms. It's a question of finding something extremely synthetic, but at the same time pleasant to hear and to read. It's a kind of catalyst of attention, to make the listener ask: “What does he want to say with it?”. But, in a way, I also give the reading in the general subtitle.
Jakub Szczypa: Could you give us an example of the more enigmatic title?
Cândido Lima: “Ñcàãncôa”!
Pedro Boléo: A piece for clarinet...
Cândido Lima: …for solo clarinet. I composed this work after seeing on television, in 1995 on the RTP 2 channel, the first public manifestations of the prehistorical engravings at the Côa Valley in Portugal. And I felt like transforming those drawings into music. So if we take the score, take out the notes and see the graphics, it's perfectly possible to place ourselves beside the men living forty thousand years ago.
The title... I wanted to have a word expressing the singing, so to speak, the human voice – “Càã-ti-cô”. At the same time I wanted it to have a sonority of something, which has always influenced me a lot – the Non-European cultures... sonorities like African, Togolese, Guinean, or even Asian and of the Brazilian Indigenous. From the audiovisual memories of my childhood I keep the rivers, the wars, the mountains, the ex-colonies. I have a list of dozens of terms and names, which marked when I was eight years old...
And this has always remained. For example, I composed the work “Sol-oeils” based on around 80 or 90 words for the “sun”. From different cultures and continents. I made my research not only in books, but I also talked to people, above all when I was in Paris. It's a work from 1977. Therefore, I've always been fascinated with the sonorities of the words that I didn't understand, for example: “huitzilopochtli”, which is the “sun” in Aztec; or “inti” in Inca. “Ñcàãncôa” follows this taste towards the sonority of the words. Yet at the same time there's the semantics. It's not only an abstract, physical or acoustic sonority, but there's also sense...
Pedro Boléo: …and meaning...
Cândido Lima: Exactly! It's obvious that “Ñcàãncôa” includes the term “Côa”, making reference to the river and the engravings. And “càã” is the sonic side of “canção” – “cântico” (“song” or “canticle” in Portuguese), which is a phoneme without any semantic sense. There's also the “ñ”... when my father used to teach me, before going to school, the “nh” appeared in the first class manual. I was trying to join the letters and he asked me: “How do you read this?” I didn't know. And he said: “I also don't know!”. And I thought to myself: “Father doesn't know!” Well the “nh” is simply “ñ”... there it is. So “Ñcàãncôa” has also to do with the reminiscences from my childhood (I was six!), and with the “nh” that I was unable to pronounce.
Pedro Boléo: Since we are in the universe of words... I would like ask you about your relation with poetry, which is definitely important in your work. You often work with texts by Portuguese poets, such as for example: Fernando Pessoa or Sebastião da Gama. How do you work with poetry?
Cândido Lima: There are various ways of approaching this subject. It depends on various situations. There are poems that immediately provoke the music, as in the case of the “Canções para a juventude” (Songs for the Youth) from 1967, which I wrote in Guinea. After my military service hours, I was a teacher at the Regentes de Posto School, to which I was invited by its director. I didn't have any music with me. Accidentally, I had a book used at lyceums, but I also needed other things. So I found some poems in the third class manual, which, also accidentally, an African soldier had. I asked him: “What are you reading?” “It's this book” – he answered and showed me. “Can I see it?” – I asked him. Then he lent it to me for a couple of days. When I had the book with me I took the poems and I wrote the melodies, each one of them, in only a couple of minutes!
Pedro Boléo: ...as if the melodies derived directly from the poems...
Cândido Lima: …directly! Apparently I have some melodic talent!
This work was hidden during various years, because I had the “contemporary complex”. A contemporary composer can't show these kind of things, which are too simple, too tonal, too conventional. Yet one thing doesn't have to do anything with the other one. It was functional music. I was a teacher so I had to do things according to the real necessities of the real world.
Jakub Szczypa: According to the needs of that particular moment...
Cândido Lima: …of that moment. So what I did, didn't actually make any sense. These were the extremisms in the music of that time, above all connected with the Vienna School.
Jakub Szczypa: It has actually been quite common among many composers. For example Witold Lutosławski did also write some tonal and light music pieces for the communist regime. It was either functional and entertainment music, or music for children. And he didn't like these pieces, being somewhat ashamed of them...
Cândido Lima: I stopped being ashamed, more or less in 1972 or 73... I made a recording of these songs with Fernando Serafim. Here I want to leave some complimentary words for a friend who influenced me personally, professionally and artistically – Fernando Serafim. I lived at his home in the time of transitions in my life, between 1964 and 66. He's one of the people to whom I owe the most.
Pedro Boléo: And in other cases? You said that the “Canções para a juventude” represent only one form of working with the poetry...
Cândido Lima: Exactly. Most probably Jorge Peixinho would have never approved of a work like this. Now people like Fernando Lopes-Graça and Filipe Pires heard the pieces on the radio and they gave me some compliments. There it is... two completely different worlds. The latter one more conventional, yet more open. And the former, more rigid and much more fundamentalist. I took the work out of the drawer, when somebody asked me if I had music for children. And various professors were very enthusiastic about it, as it probably is one of the most beautiful things that I have. Yet when compared with “Músicas de Villaiana” or “A-MÈR-ES” – of course there are light years of difference. It's a completely different world. The “Canções” I wrote in a couple of days... also the accompanying piano parts – in one stroke on tracing paper. Without corrections. The manuscript is the definitive work. As if I were Mozart transcribing Allegri's “Miserere”, which he supposedly heard at the Sistine Chapel!
I'm telling this to emphasise that the texts of the “Canções” are nostalgic poetry (poesia saudosista) from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. They're so transparent, so simple, so bucolic, so predetermined in terms of poetics and technique, metrics... that I was able to compose the music immediately. Now there are other works... for example “Paúis / Impressões do Crepúsculo” (1967), which I wrote to the text of Fernando Pessoa. I spent months listening to the music inside of me, yet without knowing how to write it. And for me it's one of the most interesting works of the time! For violin, voice and piano. It's a little bit within the line of Pierre Boulez... a world that I hadn't yet been very familiar with. Probably that was the reason, why I took so long to compose it, because Fernando Pessoa's poetry is full of music. All of it is music! Now to make music based on this music? That's difficult. But I think that I managed.
Jakub Szczypa: When it comes to the work “Ode ao Tejo” here the use of poetry is different and unique, as not a separate narrator but rather the musicians, the instrumentalists recite the text...
Cândido Lima: In this case, there are three texts by three authors – Luís Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Diogo Bernardes from the 16th century. The idea is to project the poems on a screen, as they constitute, in a certain way, the work's portico – they talk of the Minho and Neiva rivers, which are from where I come from. The North. And Fernando Pessoa's poem is about the Tagus – “The Tagus in more beautiful than the river that flows through my village...” (“O Tejo é mais belo que o rio que corre pela minha aldeia...”) It's a beautiful text!
So the texts are projected in order for the audience to read them silently, as the work's opening. And then I introduce and disjoint sequentially the poem on the Tagus by Fernando Pessoa. I make the musicians intertwine in their instrumental performance the reading of this poem. Only this one. Thus “instrumental duos” are created – for example the flute and the voice, etc. The results are surprising! On the one hand it's a tribute to Fernando Pessoa, but above all it's a tribute to the Tagus river. And also to the musicians, obviously! There are, of course, many more different forms of treating the texts...
Jakub Szczypa: There's another work of yours, “Momentos – Memórias II” (1985-2014), which, despite not creating a direct connection with a concrete text, makes reference to traditional Portuguese music, to fado and the Portuguese guitar. And without any doubt fado is also text and poetry! Could you tell us something more about this work, which seems to me important not only in your career, but also to Portuguese contemporary music, since not many Portuguese composers decide to work and reinvent the fado and the Portuguese guitar. Your case seems somewhat different...
Cândido Lima: When I'm invited to write something, which is outside of my comfort zone, normally my first reaction is: “I'm capable of doing it, but it doesn't have anything to do with me!” Yet I have a principle – everything is manageable, all the questions are legitimate, everything is possible to transform, as long as there's talent and capacities. So first there's the amazement and then the positive response. Everything's possible! Perhaps here it's not exactly the case... but a little bit yes, I must say.
In this case I was invited by the guitarist Piñeiro Nagy from the Estoril Festival to compose a work for Portuguese and classical guitars. Now I wasn't used to writing for Portuguese guitar, above all a contemporary work. Portuguese guitar was fado and light music. What shall I do with it? So this was my first reaction. Am I capable? I started composing the work! There's a particular moment in these situations and composer's experiences. There are disappointing moments, but also the euphoric ones. When I gave the musicians a part of the score, the first sketches, my reaction was euphoric! Because I managed to make a fusion – there it is, “fusion music” –, something completely different, within the universe of tonal music codes, of the Alberti bass, of the fado techniques and accompaniment.
The work was performed in concert by Pedro Caldeira Cabral and Piñeiro Nagy. It was composed for these two guitars – Portuguese and classical – and twelve string instruments. And then, for some logistic and coordination reasons it wasn't to be presented at the Festival – Álvaro Salazar was supposed to conduct it. However the guitars alone had such a strong presence that I said: “No, the work should be performed even without the strings!” And so the recording with two guitars was made. An exceptional memory.
The work “Momentos – Memórias II” evokes three composers from the past – Bach, Händel and Scarlatti. And of course traditional Portuguese music, since there are the guitars – Portuguese and classical. Here, I also included the music of the Beira-Baixa region. A great part of this music is modal, so it is close to medieval music. It's very different from the music of the Minho, which is mainly tonal. The G and C chords!
Therefore... medieval music, the music of the Beira-Baixa, some music of the Trás-os-Montes as well – they're perfect to fit in another type of intervallic structure.
Jakub Szczypa: When it comes to “Momentos – Memórias II”, after almost 30 years you made a new version with the strings. It was performed in 2014 in Poland by the Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej (New Music Orchestra) conducted by Szymon Bywalec, and the Raposo Duo, two extraordinary musicians who live in Belgium.
Cândido Lima: It's true! Their work was indeed extraordinary. Miguel Raposo on the Portuguese guitar and Philippe Raposo on the classical guitar. And of course the Polish musicians.
In this case I had to reduce the string part to nine instruments. But I did it in one month, because this challenge was so attractive and fascinating. It was worth the effort. And the result is brilliant. In this work I evoke the fado and its poetics as if it were medieval music – the Gregorian chant. I create a psalmodic world for the guitars. The support of the basso continuo, so to speak, of the strings pays tribute to the past. Yet simultaneously I move completely away from the traditional music codes. However they're present, completely transfigured according to the composer's freedom, but with respect to the sources.
There's also another very important element in this work – a fugue by Bach, from the Second Book of the “Well-Tempered Klavier”. It's a pentatonic theme so it's ideal to disintegrate in my own world. In a world, which is a mixture of different music... intervallic structures from various cultures, from Melanesia to Indonesia, to... to African music miniatures, pentatonic and extremely elementary... to the Gregorian chant... to the great medieval traditions. I'm in love with all this... then I join it with Mussorgskys, Debussys, etc... but this is another story.
Pedro Boléo: Cândido Lima, to end our conversation I would like to ask you about the future. For somebody as yourself, with a long career in composition – you've written and heard a lot of music... what are the new paths to follow in musical creation... in the so-called new music? In one of your previous replies you suggested that these paths are infinite, it's always possible to discover new things....
Cândido Lima: I can't answer this question, because I'm not a futurologist, or a prophet, or anything of this kind. It has never worried me. I've always tried to reinvent myself. And everything I was doing and writing or what I was being asked to write, it has always been me. I've been always trying to be myself within a tradition, a gradual education, serious, profound, amusing, recreative... philosophising, dramatising, laughing and ironising with everything... I don't know.
Pedro Boléo: Yet always with the freedom of creation that you speak about...
Cândido Lima: Yes. It's important. The modern age is so rich that it's difficult to make predictions... Once at a colloquium at the Festival de La Rochelle I asked Messiaen if the paths made by the musicians in the 20th century have been the right ones or they could have been different. He used a word... – he was a religious man, and it doesn't seem to me that this word would be for him a way of living... – but he said: “une fatalité!” I can say that what I write is fatal, what happens is fatal... Some time ago a photo of the black hole was taken for the first time. From the universe. The black holes. For the first time. The photo. What is there beyond it? What is the music of the black holes? It's not even worth thinking of it, because it would probably eliminate us completely. It would put us out of the action! When we think of the universe, of its birth, we think of the Big Bang. Big Bang... what was it? Did it happen on something? What was there before? Therefore, if you ask me these things you need to be careful, because I'll throw you millions and millions light years away...
Interview realised on May 24, 2019 at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon.
Transcription, edition, translation and adaptation into English – MIC.PT.
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1 UÍGE was the name of the colonial ship transporting thousands of people and operating between 1954 and 74, but it's also the name of a province in the North of Angola.
