« Passion and fireworks (and a great fall) | Home | Performer & composer, viewed sideways »
My new CD “Hamlet” and some thoughts about the listener
By Nicholas | July 6, 2008
I finally had the launching of my latest CD “Hamlet – 11 improvisations for piano”, on the 28th of June at the Fábrica do Braço de Prata in Lisbon, organised by André Gago and Teatro Instável, the producer of the CD and of the original performances of the play for which my music was created (a 12th track on the CD consists of music for flutes by Armin Pircher, which I used as the music for the mime in the original production).
My friend the composer Luís Tinoco kindly agreed to make a presentation of my work, beginning with an overview of the different forms of improvisation practised these days, in an attempt to put my form of improvisation (which he saw as a little different from the others) in some sort of context. He then confronted me with some questions on the process by which the music came to be, and I linked my answers to a performance of several of the pieces, with the help of my careful transcriptions.
Five days later, quite by chance, I had the opportunity of playing some of the CD again in the same room, as part of a festival, “Festa Paradoxal”, organised by Luisa Costa Gomes. I was also involved in a totally improvised collaboration with an exceptional young actress, Sara Carinhas, who read a selection of very unusual texts, taken from writings of Gertrude Stein and two Portuguese authors, to my musical accompaniment. It was a brief but rare pleasure, echoing in some way the end of the text below.
In thinking in advance what I might say to explain the process whereby the music of the CD came to be, and how I manage to play the music again, I unearthed some texts written by me in 1999 as a preparation for a live improvisation recital I gave at that time. These short texts actually say very little about my work, but try to cast a light on my attitude to the role of the three protagonists (the improviser must be all three simultaneously) in any musical performance – the composer, the interpreter and the listener – in a very provocative way, which is why the last of the three is signed “Devil’s Advocate”. Here is the first:
1. Music belongs to the listener
If the listener owns the music
then all is changed.
If the listener owns the music
he knows his rights.
But he must also recognise
the rights of every other;
and everyone can accept
what the other knows as true.
He can say “I accept
your truth as true for you
but retain my truth
as true for me…
We agree not to differ
but rather to expand
our understanding of what
the TRUTH may be.
We agree to believe
that the TRUTH is far bigger
than anything
that anyONE can see.”
Art need not be a battleground
where people lose self-worth
but rather a marvellous labyrinth
where souls can meet on earth.
Topics: Uncategorized |