Article from ‘The Psychologist’, vol. 28, no. 2, February 2015
(image source: BBC)
In its simplest form Synaesthesia is best described as a “union of the senses” whereby two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and automatically joined together. Some synaesthetes experience colour when they hear sounds or read words. Others experience tastes, smells, shapes or touches in almost any combination. I have ‘grapheme synaesthesia’ which means I experience colour when I think of letters, words, numbers, the musical keys, chords, the notes on the piano keyboard and music in general.
In this interesting article from The Psychologist, Jack Dutton meets people with the condition and the researchers who study them to reveal the very surprising world of synaethesia, including its impact on memory and how it may even be taught.
Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?
The intention to become a musician came very early. As a small boy I was mainly concerned with percussion. When I was sixteen composing started to fascinate me, especially after hearing a concert with Stravinsky’s .The Rite of Spring’.
Making music continues to captivate me. It is so elusive.
Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
I believe my travels. Africa taught me to experience a special joy in life and a new sense of rhythm and movement. India and Nepal inspired me in the area of spirituality. These foreign experiences were an inspiration to support my work with a deeper meaning. The link between music and spirituality became particularly important.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
There are multiple ones! For instance composing my first major orchestral work, my first opera, basically any new commissioned piece is another big challenge. But the most ambitious project so far was definitely my work Antifoon (A resonating bridge) (2014) for multiple orchestras, wind bands, choirs, different ensembles, carillons and two solo voices. Composing this work was one thing, but also taking the musical direction of 500 musicians on different stages on a large bridge between Hasselt and Genk (Belgium) was an almost undue risk. I had conducted my work before, but this was certainly of a different caliber.
It was quite a relief when it all worked out great.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?
Knowing who you compose for and working together with particular, often excellent performers can be very enjoyable. I work with very diverse musicians and cultural institutions, but I am also artist-in-residence for the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and for Muziektheater Transparant. Both of them give me a lot of credit, I can shape my ideas in my own way, what I experience as an incredible luxury.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles and orchestras?
You can go into the depth of a work and to the extreme. You can compose for people who are anxious to perform your work and often for an audience that is getting to know you. Also the feeling that the performance will be in good hands, is wonderful and reassuring.
How would you describe your compositional/music language?
I start from my own Western contemporary language, which I developed over the years, undoubtedly influenced by idols such as Ligeti, Messiaen and Xenakis. I am also highly fascinated by the musical language from other cultures, including rhythmic structures such as tala’s from Indian culture, microtonality from Arabic music culture and rhythmic grooves (also ostinatos) from African culture, which I try to apply in my own way into mymusic. Furthermore, I am always looking for new performance techniques and new sounds. My greatest aspiration is always to connect with the audience through my music.
How do you work (as acomposer)?
I start from inspiration around a certain idea or sound performance, which I intuitively try to understand and write down. I let my ideas flow, often at the piano. Then I search for certain systems, rhythmic or melodic motifs, harmonies etc. that are present in this inspiration. Subsequently I structure them in order to get a logic system and then I make a visual overview of the overall form, on one page. From that moment on I can start to work everything out in detail.
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
When you can develop or realize what you personally had in mind. When a composition or performance sounds as you had imagined it and when a part of the audience can go along with your story or make their own interpretation of your composition / performance.
Tell us more about the new CD ’Nostalgia’
When David Ramael, artistic director of Boho Strings, approached me about the idea of recording my works for string orchestra, I immediately responded with great enthusiasm. Many of my orchestral works have already been recorded on CD, but none of my works for string orchestra. The openness and creativity of this young ensemble and their search for new ways to introduce contemporary music to the public, also inspired me to make new versions of two of my works, Nostalgia and In Deep Silence III.With five very different works, this recording spans a large part of my compositional life and in a few works also shows the influences of various cultures on my work, as an outspoken western composer.A fantastic added value is also that three top soloists, flutist Valerie Debaele, marimba player Lin Chin Cheng and clarinetist Roeland Hendrikx, made a great contribution to this project. I have the feeling and hope that we have made a very accessible and listenable recording.
How has your interest in Eastern philosophy influenced and shaped your composing?
It became the foundation of my artistic thinking. It has also influenced my musical experience of time.
Which works are you most proud of?
Tejas for orchestra and Disappearing in Light, but I think Void the most, a work for music theatre in commission of Muziektheater Transparant. There was no semantic text, only sound combinations I had designed myself. I worked without a libretto or a story. A deep and spiritual performance of 75 minutes arose from an abstract, Buddhist yantra inspired form, and the impact on the audience was huge.
Who are your favourite musicians/composers?
They are very different in styles, historical and geographical, ranging from contemporary music to jazz, pop and ethnic music. Some names: Ligeti, Xenakis, Messiaen, Harvey but also Miles Davis, Björk and Frank Zappa. Also musicians from various ethnic regions.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
A concert that probably determined my musical evolution the most, was that with the Indian bansuri player G.S. Sachdev, in Antwerp in 1993.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Work hard and never give up. Have a positive attitude, an open mind, faith in your own abilities. Sometimes go against the flow, if you feel that it is right. Enjoy what you are doing. Communication is essential, both in terms of artists among each other, as with the audience.
Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?
I would like to compose really vast works, an opera for example.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Experiencing life intensely, with people I love and with music of course.
What is your most treasured possession?
Naturally you don’t possess people, but my family is very important to me.
Also health in the broadest sense – and of course music.
Whatever you may think of Ivo Pogorelich’s piano playing, there is no doubt you will think *something* about it. He’s not a pianist who inspires an indifferent shrug, nor a polite round of applause. With Pogorelich, you’re either with him, or against him.
I found my position wavering during his Royal Festival Hall performance on 24th February. There were moments where his eccentricities utterly overwhelmed the music, smothering it in a blanket of weirdness. Entire passages verged on – and frequently crossed the line into – incoherence. His slow tempos constantly felt like they would break off and stop altogether. Faster sections were often magicked into slow sections, seemingly just to see what would happen.
So: infuriating, yes. But this is Pogorelich. We know this about Pogorelich. This is why the RFH was only about three-quarters full for a pianist who would once have sold it out easily.
The thing is, sometimes all those mannerisms and bizarre quirks coalesce into something magical. And that happens more frequently than we might have been led to believe by his reviews over the last decade or so. Those moments where he hits just the right wavelength and makes you feel like you’re wandering around inside the music, gazing at the melodies and counter-melodies and harmonies and rhythms as though they were exhibits in an art gallery. In these moments, you notice things you’d never noticed before, discover a hundred shades of pianissimo you never knew existed, comprehend the most obscure of connections between notes. Those moments can revitalise even the mangiest of warhorses.
Other times, of course, he misses that special wavelength completely and turns in a clunky, thumping performance of Stravinsky’s ‘Three Movements from Petrushka’, or a disjointed, unmusical opening movement of the Schumann ‘Fantasy in C’. It’s telling that his best performance tonight was of the Brahms ‘Paganini Variations’, whose short contained little blocks of music offered few opportunities for epic self-indulgence.
And yet, I think it is the strange and beautiful closing movement of the Schumann I will most remember from this evening. It’s a piece I sort of play myself (slowly, with many wrong notes and retakes) and yet it felt thoroughly unfamiliar in Pogorelich’s hands, as if he were inventing it there and then. It’s that sense of spontaneity and discovery that makes Pogorelich a special artist. Yes, he may frequently discover utterly perverse new ways to play something. But even those failures are fascinating, and worth hearing.
In an age where young musicians are hewing ever closer to a uniform, idealised style of performance – as exemplified by whatever classic recordings they’ve heard growing up – here is a resolutely individual performer who sounds like he’s never heard another pianist in his life. We need more Pogorelichs in our world, in all their perverse, egotistical, infuriating and ultimately scintillating glory.
Tristan Jakob-Hoff is a freelance writer and critic based in London. He plays the piano not nearly as well as he would like to.
Teacher and pupil took the stage at London’s Wigmore Hall on Friday 20th February in a joint concert by Maria João Pires and Pavel Kolesnikov featuring late works by Schubert and Beethoven, and Schumann’s love letter in music to Clara Wieck, the Fantasy in C, Opus 17.
Pavel Kolesnikov, the young Siberian pianist who has already garnered many prizes and much praise for his playing, is a soloist of the Music Chapel in Brussels, studying with Maria João Pires as part of her ‘Partitura Project’ which offers a benevolent relationship between artists of different generations and seeks to thwart the “star system” by offering an alternative approach in a world of classical music too often dominated by competitions and professional rivalry. In keeping with the spirit of the Partitura Project, the pianists shared the piano in two works for piano four-hands by Schubert and each remained on the stage while the other performed their solo. From the outset, this created a rather special ambience of support and encouragement.
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