Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music ... - NewMusicBox

NewMusicBox May 2003
14. Capturing the Rhythm of the Text
TOM HALL: Now, Alberto, your text is familiar to all of us, "Cantante Dominum, canticum
novum " is the second half of this piece. It seems to me - you mentioned playing with the
consonants - it seems to me that it was not only the literary meaning of the text that inspired you
or led you to your musical decisions, but also the actual physical sound of the words themselves.
When you take a text, any text, what is your relationship with the words?
ALBERTO GRAU: The first thing is that I should like the poem—the text. And when the text is
chosen, then I start to try to imagine the rhythmic patterns of the text, and how I will construct
the whole idea. But this should always be from the point of view of the character of the text.
Once the text has been settled, then I start to read the text, the natural rhythms emerge and I
continue.
TOM HALL: And Jorge, your texts are also very rhythmically vibrant, very powerful. They
make a great impact on the listener. Do you approach your text in the same way as Alberto does?
Does the sound of the words themselves, apart from their actual meaning, bear some importance
to you? How do you approach it?
JORGE CÓRDOBA: Sometimes I try to find the poetic significance of the words. I try to read it
constantly, in this case, multiple roads to approach how I am going to set the text. I was talking
to Alberto and we were talking about this upper or second level of consciousness that is activated
when you are reading the text. You are not sure knowing that this is going to work when you are
reading it, and then it comes to be the right text to set for your music. I was very surprised
because Maria [Venezuelan conductor, Maria Guinand] analyzed my work, and I was very
surprised to know that I had done the things that Maria had seen in a very precise way. And then
Maria came and showed me some things that I did not know.
TOM HALL: Steve, your piece—it always fascinates me when composers of choral music
choose pieces that are in the singular personal pronoun. There are many great examples of that: I
think of Dominick Argento's "I Hate and I Love," Kirke Mechem did a wonderful setting of
"Come live with me and be my love." And yours is in the first person—"I beg, let death come
quickly." Yet it is sung, of course, by more than one person. So many of the texts that appeal to
composers of choral music are things that are very general, and use plural pronouns—"Dona
Nobis Pacem." Grant us peace. Do you ever think of it in those terms? Does it ever affect your
setting of the piece, of the poem when it is in a personal pronoun as opposed to when it is in a
plural pronoun that a chorus is going to sing?
STEPHEN PAULUS: This is an example of what my colleague Jorge was talking about that the
less you analyze the work sometimes reveals things we didn't even know we were doing. I have
never thought about that. The thought of 40 people begging all at once rather than a collective
thing adds some power—40 people begging all at once adds some intensity to it. I'm sure I have
set some third person things; I'm just trying to think of them now. I'll go home now and find out
Composers’ Dialogue #1, 08/06/2002