Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music ... - NewMusicBox

NewMusicBox May 2003
20. The Compositional Process
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I have a question about process. When you are composing, are you
working at a keyboard, or are you at a writing desk, or a table? Or do you use software and write
with a keyboard?
ALBERTO GRAU: The first approach is without a piano. I will take the text and organize
whether to separate [it] into 2-3 parts. What are going to be the climatic points, the deep points?
All the scheme is done at a desk. Then I use a piano for the melodic and harmonic points to come
out.
JORGE CÓRDOBA: In my case, I am contrary to Alberto. I think that a piece has a life of its
own. Sometimes I need a piano to write it; sometimes I do not. I do not use software to write
music. No two compositions of my own for choral performance have been written with the same
process. Sometimes I just write it. Sometimes I use a piano. Sometimes I write bits and pieces
and then compile the whole work. The basic idea is the intuition. That is the main process,
intuition.
STEPHEN PAULUS: I write at the piano. I use a Pentel rolling writer, which is basically a felttip
pen, to do a complete draft. It doesn't matter if I make a mistake; I just cross it out. Then I
hand it over to my copier who puts it on Finale, and sends me a final copy, and that's it.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I have a question related to the process. When you're thinking about
what you're going to write… As a performer, I have had the experience of being given pieces that
were fantastic, but also extremely difficult, and so, if you think about performability, that a piece
may be at a level, what do you think about settings that take high-level forces, or large forces,
knowing that it may not be performed as much as you might like?
ALBERTO GRAU: I would like my music to be performed more—and of course to be bought
more, but I insist on the fact that when you compose, you should think to whom you are
composing for. Sometimes if something is extremely difficult, you as a composer should make it
easier, if you see that the performer is not able to do it. But sometimes for respect of the
institution, you have to do things harder, because the choir that is going to sing this deserves such
an amount of difficulty.
JORGE CÓRDOBA: In this case, I think that it is risky to think about the performer. That does
not mean that I am opposed to Alberto's idea. I was commissioned in Mexico from very highlevel
musicians. They talked to me and they actually got into my ideas of the compositions.
They were in the process with me. No one can sing those pieces besides them because they are
too difficult, and that is why I think it is too risky to think about the performer for whom one
writes. In the case of the Norwegian choir that just sang my piece, I did not know the level of
this choir, because I never talked to them before. That is why I wrote a piece that I think was not
as complicated as it could be. It would be very risky to compose something very complicated,
Composers’ Dialogue #1, 08/06/2002