Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music ... - NewMusicBox

NewMusicBox May 2003
to that note. And so you stand there like a censor or border guard, saying, "Okay you can
pass…. no, you can't pass…. okay…. next!"
CHEN YI: For me, usually the process goes both ways: from choosing the text and getting the
image. There are many times in my life I have read a text hundreds of times, and gotten into the
mood. And the most important thing is to get an image and the idea. The idea means the unique
sounding, the structure, the design of the timing, and a good beginning and an impressive ending.
And then the texture comes to mind. And my job is to arrange that, to write that out.
R. MURRAY SCHAEFER: Well, sometimes if there is a text, the text creates the substance of
the music. If there is a given text, I would take it and just sit down and maybe just scribble some
features that would suggest what is going to be a lengthy vocal curve, or what is going to be very
quick, rhythmic. These would be nothing more than scribbles on paper. And I'd do this maybe
two or three times as I dream my way through the text, sing it to myself, and then perhaps the
next day I would get a pen and start doodling some lines. I always draw my own lines. I write all
scores by hand, and I find that the best way to work because it slows me down. I rule all the
pentagrams myself too, so I would rule 5 lines, and then start ruling 6 and then 7, then 8, then 9,
then 10 lines if I feel like it, and then I say, "Well, I guess the piece is going to have a soprano and
bass part, it sort of goes from there."
DALE WARLAND: How do you decide on your harmonic language? Is it developed at the same
time as the melody or is it something that happens?
ERNANI AGUIAR: I do not have a special choice; no choice is made. Just a melody, the
harmony, and the counterpoint that unite the work, kind of flow together.
DOMINICK ARGENTO: I don't think I have ever really thought about it. It just seems to be
there of its own accord, no pun intended. There are some words where a certain harmonic
combination will be the best that I can think of to express what that word means to me or to give
that word the emphasis that I want it to have. I think all of us probably have a working
vocabulary of sounds that we are fond of, and sounds that we don't particularly like, dissonances
or consonants of all sorts. And we try to find the ones most appropriate for whatever the text
happens to be. I really cannot describe it with any more clarity than that. It is something that I
have never really thought about. It's as if you were to ask a centipede how it knows which foot
follows the previous foot: if they had to think about it, they would become paralyzed.
CHEN YI: If you consider all vertical sounding harmony, then you have many kinds of harmonic
progressions. And sometimes I take clusters, but they are brought in one after another in order to
make it easier for the singers to join in. Sometimes if there is a row form, you have to follow the
twelve-tone rule. And if it is counterpoint writing, the vertical sounding is also a harmonic
progression. So I always have a combination. I don’t separate them as harmonic progressions
strictly. My cluster may be chromatic, or it may be pentatonic.
Composers’ Dialogue #1, 08/06/2002