Third of an eight-part interview by YoWangdu’s Yolanda O’Bannon
YO: Can you talk about one of your pieces, about how you would develop a piece?
GLF: Well, generally speaking, when I first started composing when I was a student, a teenager, I came up with an idea first and then went and hunted down the players after, and hoped I could find people. And as I went along, people came to me first and said this is what we want, what can you do with it? And I would say yes, and come up with something. And then, as the years go on, it’s kind of a dialogue initially, and people who know my stuff kind of generally understand my style or styles, and what they are probably going to get. Sometimes you’re leftover with ghosts, you know like mystery writers that start losing their magic?
That poor woman, the one who wrote A is for Alibi and B is for Burglars, I feel so bad for her. The first seven are pretty spicy, and then the rest – a lot of hit and misses going on there. And I think the only way she could write something different would be to take a pseudonym. There’s too much pressure on her. So there have been a couple of pieces in my estimation that were subpar, because I couldn’t get away from what I knew that person was hoping for. And even though those pieces came early enough that just by virtue of doing them, I picked up some new skills, that starts to run out of gas too. By repeating yourself you’re not going to be picking up any more skills. You have to be really actively finding those spaces where you’re going to be able to do something more.
So, now if somebody approaches me, generally they will say something like, we want to commission an orchestra work, we want to commission a choral work, you know they have a genre in mind. Then, my agent, my publisher, my people [laughing], get in there. My people have people. They get in there and the idea is to separate the roles very carefully. I talk about the artistic stuff with the commissioner, who may or may not be the performers, who may be speaking on behalf of the artists. And then the business details about the piece are discussed among the people. That could be stuff that affects me, like length, so that’s a big one. And exact instrumentation, if it’s orchestra. How many flutes do I get, how much percussion do I get? Do I get a harp? Do I get a piano? Do I get the low brasses? How big is the string section? That kind of thing. They may say something like, no solo. We want it to be strict orchestra. They may tell me what other pieces are going to go on the program, which can or cannot be helpful. I mean if you’re thinking about the long-term life of the piece. It can’t be bulletproof just about one thing. So, anyway, you’re given a lot of the business details of it.
Then you have to deal with your knowledge of that orchestra. Are they a good orchestra? Now, the orchestra is going to say, we’re fabulous, but you yourself know something. The Chicago Symphony are pretty good. The New York Phil are pretty good. What is the spirit of these orchestra players? Are they willing to try new things? A lot of players just want to play the Greats. So you’ve got all of this stuff before you even start thinking.
Then, I start looking at my binders, I start looking at my ideas that I have. What’s going to be a nice marriage between the two? Will I feel true to myself, but I am also being respectful of the parameters out there. You have artists out there, who are, like, “Girlfriend, this is what I’m gonna do, and you gotta deal.” They’re real divas, and unless you are a genius beyond all geniuses, you’re not getting your way. I mean even Pavarotti was not getting his way. It’s very difficult, I mean you are part of a team, and they’re putting a lot of trust in you writing this music that they are bound to perform…
YO: And they’ve given you a theme, or not?
GLF: Rarely. Rarely. Sometimes they will say, we’re hoping for text that is not in Spanish. They know I like to do a lot of Spanish. Sometimes if it’s a conservative group I have to be very careful. But, you know, I want to stretch them and I want to be respectful, I want to stretch myself, too, if there are skills that I want to get. This is my opportunity to get those skills. Or maybe those are not the right players. Then I save that. I have a lot of things I would love to try, but I haven’t found the right group of people yet.
You know there have been times when they suggested a theme and I’ve said no, I don’t want to do that. The Indianapolis Symphony originally proposed something. Since the idea of the collaboration with them was to reflect the community and I was going to be hearing about a lot of people’s experiences, they had the idea of collecting poetry from the people and setting it to orchestra. I nixed that right away. I told them that we would have a real quality control problem. Sorry, just to be honest, it would be hard to listen to somebody’s poetry and encourage them to write, and then not use it, because it’s not well set for the voice, or it’s just nothing original. It takes time to knock out a good poet, just like it takes time to knock out a good musician. And I don’t want these people to look ridiculous. So it’d be better if I pay homage to their stories, without them looking ridiculous.
So that was an idea that I nixed. They thought maybe we could have a narrator and orchestra, but those pieces rarely work. You have a few: Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, you know, and the Lincoln Portraits by Copland are often done at galas and functions. You get somebody like James Earl Jones, maybe a really great voice. That’s a pretty rare kind of event, but it’s not going to get much playing time as time goes on. I want something that tells the story. So the way to do that is to use traditional orchestra, nothing else, just use a ready-to-go medium. All symphonies have this going – they don’t have to find something, and it’s up to me to make that music sing and tell the story as brilliantly as a great narrator. And so that was a theme that I nixed. But the basic theme – telling the story of the immigrants, was always there.
I think my mom will remember a piece that I did. This wasn’t even that long ago, but I learned a lot because I really struggled, and I learned some new things about myself, too. My mom remembers because I was cussing a lot. This one was difficult because it was asked by some really good friends of mine. The father of a musician they wanted to play with is a painter, a very good, kind of surrealist, painter, a lot of his stuff is kind of Dali-esque. American Dali – kind of brighter than what you would see with Dali’s stuff. And they wanted me to write something that was inspired by his paintings. And although I liked his stuff, there’s an extra level of connection that I need to do something really good. And I just wasn’t feeling it. And I was struggling, struggling, struggling. And then I finally took two of his more mute paintings, funnily enough, that gave me some space, or just did something more for me. Although, I still never came from the same place of discomfort and curiosity as I usually do. Even without that, that was the first piece, this would be 2005, that was the first piece I did where it turned out all right but it did not come from that place.
And I realized I had skills. I had some artisan skills, very good to have, and I learned a lot, it kind of put me in perspective to myself about what I could do. But it’s not a piece that I think will contribute in the long term, I don’t think it has longevity. Every composer, every artist, has stuff that is going to be remembered, and stuff that’s going to fall away. That one’s going to fall away. It taught me things. It was good for me to do, but only privately was it good, so it makes me feel not so good now if I take on something that I know is only going to be good for me privately, that I don’t believe has that much of a chance.
[Commentary made post-interview: I should be clear and say that whatever lack of inspiration I had, that I would have wanted to have, was entirely due to my own failing as a composer, and not to the painter in question who is wonderful. I should also say that to my surprise, this piece of music has been played quite a lot, making me reflect on other pieces in my work list that I’ve pooh-poohed but became beautiful jewels in another’s hands. You see, we composers don’t always know our own children and there is a strong element of losing ownership of something once we hand it over to someone else. It’s amazing when they discover something beautiful I never anticipated… It takes my breath away. If by losing ownership, I’m proven wrong about a piece’s inner worth… Ah! A humbling lesson, and a good one.]
In Part 4, Gabriela discusses some fears she has as a composer.
