Communicating with the composer

Originally published May 3, 2011

As musicians, what we try most to do (most of the time) is to effectively portray the intent of the composer.  As Leonard Bernstein once stated, "I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer." Thus, countless "experts" in early music performance practices have lent their own musicological efforts into creating the "true" performance of Messiah, Mozart "as he would have heard it," etc.  Of course this is impossible, for we have no true idea of the composer's intent:  many idioms such as ornamentation, style, use of repeats in da capo sections--the whole gamut--were simply taken for granted by composers such as Bach, Handel, Mozart and other greater and lesser beings in the historical canon.  

And quite frankly we really wouldn't want to create the sounds as the composers often heard them.  It is well documented that many of the now accepted masterpieces were grossly under-rehearsed at their premieres; Haydn would often join his colleagues and actually sight-read string quartets for his patron.  (The latter often caused more than a bit of snickering as Haydn could be quite the jokester!)  So the very idea of creating the "real" Bach or the "definitive" Messiah is nothing if not absurd.

What we are able to do (and contemporary orchestras and other ensembles need to do this) is explore the contemporary canon as well as commission new works for our ensembles so that we have a part in the "birth" of a potential masterpiece.  We have no idea how music historians two hundred years hence will view the music of our time.  Exactly who will be considered the "Beethoven" of the twentieth century?  (I insist that it will probably be Stravinsky, but I could be way off the mark.)

Once such experience was shared by the Quad City Wind Ensemble this past Sunday (May 1) as it offered the world premiere of Roy Magnuson's To have seen the worst...but to expect the best..., a piece that we commissioned (with the generous support of the Riverboat Authority) in commemoration of our twenty-fifth anniversary season.  The piece did not really turn out as we thought it would--a bold and brilliant celebratory display.  Instead the work was highly introspective, imbued with a rich tonal palette, with an ingenious use of swelling, almost throbbing sounds to express the work's inherent mournfulness.  (I would leave it to the composer to share his impetus for the work, but it did follow a particularly tragic event in his life and he told us that he is not a "commercial" composer; he writes what he feels and this was the result of those feelings.)

It was following that discussion between composer and ensemble that the piece actually began to take on a life of its own.  The players could tune into the sounds they were hearing in light of their intent--transcending the black dots and spaces on the page.  And the final result, at least to me, was glorious.  Roy included the following on his own most recent blog post:

QC Wind Ensemble performance 5/1/11

Absolutely wonderful premiere of “to have seen the worst…” yesterday by the Quad City Wind Ensemble in Davenport, IA.  Many thanks to all the performers for their hard work, to Susan Hanford for approaching me about writing the piece, and of course to Brian for pulling it all together.

I have not experienced a darker time in my life than when I was writing this piece – it was, in all ways, a struggle.  There were many times during the process that I almost sent the email returning the commission.  I think at one point, I actually had an email open!  Writing music is hard, made only more difficult when your head is filled with a sad, sad buzzing.

But in a big way, this is what ‘it’ is all about.  Making music is a great force of healing – pushing through the process helped me move on and now, with the piece out in the world, I truly feel relieved.  As my dear friend and mentor David Maslanka has said, “make music like your life depends on it…because it does.”   No doubt I am in a better place now because of this experience, hard as it was.  I only hope that some of that came through the notes on the page to the performers, and to the friends of wind ensemble who came out to celebrate this truly special ensemble.