Composer in Focus: Jonathan Harvey- Interview

An Interview with Jonathan Harvey

“The further you push the boundaries of consciousness up, the more the mysteries come.”

On November 7th of 2007, Composer’s Notebook Quarterly had a conversation with Jonathan Harvey transcribed in the following text:

RELATING TO THE OCCULT IN MUSIC

Composer’s Notebook Quarterly (CNQ): Mr. Harvey, you are a well-known composer throughout the world, and particularly known for your associations with music and mysticism. How do you connect mysticism to your composition music? And what role does your spirituality play in your music?

Jonathan Harvey (JH): That’s fundamental. Since I was a boy, a choirboy, singing in the liturgy twice every day, music was always connected with the mystical: with the sunlight through the stained glass windows, with the candles [or robes], the beautiful space, and the formal elements of the ritual. So the connection has never been anything other that central to my musical world. It is quite difficult to say ‘how it is connected’; it was just there from the beginning. There are various ways in which this manifests itself to the listener and those are varied. In the first place, I take texts very often, or themes, titles, and preoccupations as the subject of my music, which are connected with mysticism and mystical experience. Secondly, the way I compose results, very often, in a ‘research’, if I might call it, into mystical consciousness. By that I mean meditation or reading or thinking about this area, in one way or another. I find some experience of consciousness; a change in consciousness, which I try to express though the music in many different ways.

One of the principal ways is through electronics, because this expands the listener’s consciousness outside the normal world of instruments and familiar sounds, into a completely expanded world; a completely different world in some cases, so immediately there’s a symbolism between the media and the subject. Of course, it’s very difficult to represent a mystical experience in one’s consciousness to another person. Famously, writers have tried to do this through the centuries and they tend to use poetic language, the language of metaphor. And it’s the same with music; music can only be a metaphor for the mystical experience. For me the connection is very close. I hope that some of that communicates to the listener.

There are many other ways, apart from electronics, in which the ambiguity and mysteriousness of the musical structure can represent the dissolving of the normal hard edges of reality.

CNQ: With respect to the “occult” versus “hearable” elements in music, one of the discussion topics of the magazine; in your opinion, what should be the composers approach to this relation?

JH: That depends a little bit what you mean by occult. Do you mean by occult just hidden, which is the literal meaning of the word? Or do you mean by occult in the sense to do with magical practice.

CNQ: We mean the literal meaning of the word.

JH: Ok, that’s good. The function of what is hidden is that it is not completely hidden; if it’s completely hidden it’s useless. If it’s partially hidden of course it’s very interesting, and usually it’s perceived only gradually, maybe only after many hearings and maybe only by some people; there are different degrees of being hidden. But one of the great joys of listening to music for me is to discover with my semiconscious mind things that are there. In other words, having heard a piece of music, you are vaguely aware of something even if you can’t say what it was. You can’t analyze it exactly or pin it down precisely, but the important ‘aura’ surrounding the work is composed of these almost completely hidden elements, which if present give the work a lot of power; if they’re absent I think the music lacks interest or lacks mystery; it lacks the qualities of great art.

CNQ: In earlier works, you used specific qualities of your material to create the structure of the piece, so that the microstructures were intrinsically related to the macro-structures.

For example, in your piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco the partials of a bell, which’s spectrum was analyzed, serve as the harmonic path of the piece and determine the lengths of each of these harmonic sections, so that the longest section is built harmonically around the longest lasting partial.

In your more recent compositions, however, you have moved to a more intuitive approach to the macro-structure. Why is this?

JH: I’ve said before that the narrative, or the line of time, in a composition is quite important because it’s obviously everywhere with us. The other approach, the global approach, where the work is kind of a plan from above, where the beginning and the end are sort of in view all the time, is an interesting one. During the twentieth century, it was used famously by people like Stockhausen and the more ‘rational’ composers like (Milton) Babbit and others, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about a more realistic line of time. And to experience the line of time you have to really internalize the feel of each moment and how the next moment kicks against it, because the second moment is only meaningful in relationship to the first moment. It’s a contrast, it’s a repetition, it’s a transformation. The more that quality is deeply felt, at the time of composition, for me, the more vital the work is. So, for that reason, I very often don’t know the end of a piece when I start. I have a solid architectural sense, which I have acquired since teaching analysis for 35 years, but that’s something I just trust. It’s not something I use consciously. I like to keep the outcome of the work open. At any moment something could happen, because I feel that resistance against what’s just gone before is the most interesting thing. If we lose that in a composition we are in danger of a lack of vitality. Of course when we, as I say sometimes, use the architectural approach, the planning approach, it can produce very new and wonderful perceptions of time and, perhaps, even to its relation to timelessness: Time seen from above or the non-existence of time, in more Buddhist terms; the moment which is important, the strength of the moment.

CNQ: Throughout your life you have been very open about explaining how your pieces work. In articles you have revealed, not only the makings of the structure or the material in your music, but also the intentions behind these choices, and even personal or religious reasons behind these intentions. What motivates you to reveal so many details about your music?

JH: I think it’s quite useful. One is doing a certain thing in life and if anybody is interested in it, then you should tell them. It’s not, in my view, interesting to hold back or keep secrets. Because if they’re not interested that’s fine, but if they are, then it’s nice for them to know, and it can sometimes be useful. I hope it’s a matter of being useful to people really. They can perhaps understand and take something from it for their own work and that, I believe, can help people to understand my music better. There is danger that it can be overdone at the other side of it. We composers are constantly asked to explain and sometimes that can limit the understanding to a particular perspective in an audience. So, I have to be careful as well not to close off too many imaginative interpretations because each person interprets my music in their own way. I don’t want to impose anything, but on the other level you talked about, a more analytical background, I think that’s nice to do.

CNQ: Do you search for the same level of clarity when you compose? Or are there things that are not revealed? Why is this?

JH: I try not to think like that until I’m finished, because any theory must come after the work, not before, in my view. Well, that’s too big a generalization, but in general, the theory follows the inspiration rather than the other way around.


CNQ: After a century where the division between the composer, the performer and the audience has become so stark, is it the responsibility of a contemporary composer to make his intentions visible? In other words, is it irresponsible to hide things from others?

JH: I don’t really want to say what other composers should do. I think its up to them. It’s partly a matter of temperament, how you feel about the world, about your work and I only say what I feel, others have a different view of the world and that is perfectly right and important that they should.

About Tradition vs Innovation and compositional technique

CNQ: You have spoken about the re-birth of perception with respect to spectralism and electronic music. Why do you think there is a shift in musical thinking?

JH: It’s an enlargement of awareness, in my view. People can now listen into the sound more deeply with more consciousness and with more knowledge of the spectrum, of distortions, of inharmonic spectra. All of this has been there all the time, but it’s very important for consciousness to expand, isn’t it? Consciousness should look at what has always been, and look more carefully. I think it’s what humans do all the time, at least in the last millennium or two. So, it seems to me obvious that it’s rather enjoyable to look through the microscope and to find the acoustic structures in sound and to try to hear them. It’s not so easy to hear these structures, but once one has a little bit of education, then one begins to perceive them. It’s the same with a scientist: once that person has learned something about physics, he or she will probably never see the world quite the same again. It has changed their looking at the world. For me it’s a very good thing to push out the boundaries of consciousness. I think there’ll always be mysteries beyond, but in a sense, the further you push the boundaries of consciousness up, the more the mysteries come.

CNQ: Like you have said, the development of technology has presented the possibility for composers to have a better understanding of sound and its inner structure. With tools like spectral analysis we have found elements of sound that exist in the real world but that we can’t consciously perceive. Would you say that these tools get the composer closer to a more ‘realistic’ approach to sound?

JH: Yes. In my classes I always gathered my students around a grand piano, opened the lid and play bass notes over and over again until they could hear all the harmonics that resonated from that string. It’s a good exercise. It opened theirs ears. For composers it’s wonderful to use these things and, in a sense, to show the listener that they are there by coming in and out of the single object: the sound, the timbre, and going into the multiple objects, the partials which are present. That can be very easily done with instrumentation, or instrumentation plus electronics perhaps.


CNQ: You have placed electronic music and spectralism as a technological and spiritual breakthrough.

JH: Yes, it has that possibility because of the reasons I suggested before. One obvious thing is that its superhuman or also, subhuman and mechanical. It does things which humans cant do, like sustaining steady sounds for very long time and many other things one could list which the electronic studio can do and no other instrument or human voice can. It’s a kind of interesting extension of human possibilities because you, in a way, imagine as a human listener that you can do these things. Well, you can’t. But they nevertheless relate to your singing or playing and they take it further; further than is possible within your present technique. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to do that, but today it’s an extension.

CNQ: Computer-aided mysticism?

JH: [laughs] hmmm, ok. Not bad. (jokingly) It should be the name of a new program.

CNQ: You have composed works for traditional formats like: cantatas, concertos, string quartets, and operas; and you have closely explained your material and compared it with hierarchical tonal structures and early music procedures (modulation, pivots, imitation, etc.). How do you perceive innovation? Within your language, what constitutes innovation?

JH: A very good question, very relevant today because nearly all composers think one must innovate to be a valid composer, and it’s a difficult question for many people ‘how do I innovate?’ It makes some composers rather desperate. You can see that, you know, they try to hide. It’s the climate of European dynamic thinking: everything must progress which, of course, is not the case so much in non-western cultures. Be that as it may, I do want to innovate, and I think its not a hundred percent that. It’s more that I want to find expressions of things that are deep.

Going back to the psyche and to the mind and, if you like, to the spiritual mind, the emotional and psychical mind, there one finds the desire to be oneself or to be true, that would be a better phrase. Not oneself, because I think the self is always hard to find, it’s always changing and probably doesn’t exist anyway. But whatever you think is the truest experience that you have, the most exiting perhaps, or the most profound, in some sense, it’s how to judge that, that gives the innovation. If you can judge that well, ‘this is good, this is rubbish’, then you can sort out your experiences, your feelings in that way. I think that is going to lead you to some degree of innovation, originality, a personal voice perhaps.

However, I don’t worry about anything personal, originality, or personal voices, I just worry about trying to get to that which I consider very important: the essence of being human. It’s quite close to what I would call emptiness, the non-existence of anything except for the projection of what we create into the world. That exists, but it’s our creation and it doesn’t exist by itself, but the business of doing that makes for a certain question: what is beyond that? The answer to that I can’t put in a few words. That is a life’s quest, what I spend my life trying to find, and that I would call not so much innovation, but trying to get to the truth, trying to get to reality. That is, for me, a better kind of originality than going to Darmstadt every summer trying to learn what the latest things in the air are, although, of course, one could pick up many ideas by such things.

CNQ: In terms of techniques, in some of your works you have used techniques that have been used by other composers, like symmetry or spectral techniques, but unlike other composers you have explained what the result of these techniques should be.

For example, when you use a symmetrical pitch set built around a horizontal axis, you often talk about wanting to bring “the bass to the middle” and thus create a floating sensation.

So, in a way, you’re using the techniques as a tool to create a result, as opposed to using techniques to validate your musical discourse. Do you think it is necessary that a compositional technique is used with the result in mind, or is it possible that the techniques can be used as a building principle in a composition?

JH: It’s related to feeling. I hate to be so unscientific about it, but ultimately that’s the truth. It comes from feelings. Any mathematics, any ‘systems’ would be a better word, any symmetric structures, shapes, patterns, all come from feeling. The feeling is of the type I’ve been talking about: this digging for the nature of reality. The symmetrical mirrors in the structure are always loved because they have this rather ‘spacey’ feeling, they seem to float a bit, they get dissolved, the rooted structures of solid objects; and they create a certain ambiguity, always changing, because they are not so easy to perceive, you grasp them and then you lose them. So those kinds of structures I can formulate as symmetrical and mathematical patterns and then use them with the knowledge that they are close to my feelings in that subject.


About Technology

CNQ: Since you arrived to IRCAM in the 80’s you have often been grouped with the so-called “spectral school.” What is your reaction to this label, what was the influence of spectral technology on your music when you first encountered it, and what do you vision as the future of spectral means in composition?

JH: About the label, first of all, I’m not particularly happy because so much of what I do is not pure spectralism at all; I hop in and out of spectralism: from the intervallic to the spectral; I like that for transformation of going back to the other, backwards and forwards. So if that makes me a spectral composer that’s ok; but it’s a bit misleading because much of my music is not spectral.

The influence of Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey and Co. in Paris was certainly considerable. I found the music very beautiful, particularly because I love harmony and the harmonies were strange yet, coherent. I remember studying ‘Desintegration’ quite closely and I talked about it with my students. The way that music moves, from the instrumental writing to the FM synthesis behind it is fascinating. It does need a good balance though, so that the electronics mix with instruments without any seam, without any joints showing very often; it’s one world, and when the balance is good and this is achieved, then the work is extremely new and beautiful.

I think it goes back to the knowledge that we were that talking about before. If the listening public gets to know a bit about harmonic series and listening for them, then the world is transformed, but more simply, if people learn to understand how color can be used in a structural and meaningful way, the significance of sophisticated use of color, or timbre. Of course it’s been around a long time; I don’t know, one could think of Berlioz. Many composers have drawn on color as a deep and important part of music, not just as something which is added later like a painter who draws everything in black out lines and then fills in the coloring, no it’s much more like more recent painting, for example, Rothko, where the colors determine the form. And color thinking is something which I think is growing, the critics often write about exceptionally sophisticated coloring, beauty of coloring in the score and I think it’s something which you wouldn’t have read about in the earlier part of the XIX century or probably even in the late part, so it’s become more important. That’s all part of spectralism and the whole development of computer analysis; computer music is making young people’s consciousness change. They learn these forms in school and a bit about how they are made sometimes with various CD-ROMs which have been coming out, and that’s is a good education for the musical public.

CNQ: In your own thoughts and music you have given special interest to the perceptual attribute of timbre. Timbre as ‘mysterious rhythm’: The non-discursive element underneath the discursive arguments of rhythmic form-shaping. What is the function of timbre in contemporary music practice?

JH: I really don’t know how to answer that. Each composer is different so you’ll have to have about a hundred different answers. Is it possible to generalize? That’s really the question. Perhaps one can ask: is timbre just another element like rhythm or pitch? I don’t think it’s quite the same. It’s not just another element, because it is intimately related to pitch and it’s intimately related to dynamic. I don’t think the function of timbre can be easily talked about.

There’s a sense in which timbre doesn’t exist, in a computer composing sense. You can boil it down to the behavior of components, of pitches or noise structures or waveforms; you can boil it down to the behavior of a fundamental in microtime; the formantization of their fundamental, how the formants move, the rhythm of the formants. There are many ways in which timbre can be deconstructed into other more fundamental elements. But, that’s another question.

CNQ: To finalize, could you tell us what are working on at the moment?

JH: I’m working on an orchestral piece with electronics for the ‘Agora’ festival in Paris next June, and also for the BBC Scottish Orchestra at the Promenade concerts in August. This is with IRCAM, and we’ve been researching on how to make the orchestra sound as if it speaks. This is done by process of formantization of the orchestra; vowel like changes of the orchestral input into the computer and then making that input move in accordance with some recorded speech, which is recorded in another input. The two are not convolved but put through a filtering process and then out of loudspeakers; when the speech is ‘speaking’ the words are completely indistinct, but it sounds like speech. There are consonants, there are vowels, and it’s very, very clean and beautiful. It’s an extraordinary process. So my idea is a Buddhist one, it’s the third of three pieces: The first is purification of mind, the second purification of body, a very loud piece with a lot of deep bass notes, very vibrating piece, and this one is purification of speech: Body, mind and speech, being the three Buddhist attributes. Or for what they call the process of purification. I have studied speech and linguistics and sonology and so on for quite a while now and this work is the product of that research.

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