It’s evident that composers Raymond Deane, Linda Buckley, Bekah Simms and Rhona Clarke share a passion for birthing new music. Each artist has their unique process, yet they share a common trait: a preference for concentrating on one composition at a time. This method isn’t always foolproof and as Simms points out, the risk of what she terms “cross-contamination” can’t be completely avoided. Their greatest focus at present lies in the compositions for the forthcoming New Music Dublin festival, scheduled to be held at Dublin’s National Concert Hall the following week.
Raymond Deane’s latest work, Anaphora, took roughly seven months to complete and is about 21-22 minutes long. It will be performed by distinguished pianist Hugh Tinney and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
Deane found the lockdown period stimulating. It was a time when the typical commissioning cycle was interrupted and allowed him to take the leap into composing, resulting in multiple works that he is immensely pleased with.
His process also underwent a change. Having an electric piano and a computer on opposite sides in his Broadstone home’s attic, Deane alternates between the two during composing. Initially, he used to draft everything on a manuscript using a pencil but with Anaphora, he began inputting his drafts directly into ‘Finale’, a music notation software, for instant playback.
Deane admits that his composing style is markedly irregular. He may spend an hour working in his attic, before taking a break to read or lunch, and then returning to it. Some of his ideas don’t make the final cut, but they remain embedded in his mind. For Anaphora, he started experimenting with the piano, which is his usual approach when starting a new piece. Thought he had created the piece’s opener, he quickly realised that it bore a striking resemblance to the opening of Quaternion, his last composition for piano and orchestra from 1988.
Rather than retreating, he persevered, undertaking an initial transposition-based revision. His inaugural piece, “Quaternion”, was born from a significant hiatus due to struggles with addiction. It played a crucial role in his recovery. Nearly 35 years hence, the very same concept resurged in his mind, as if it was an entirely novel idea and he wondered if there was underlying symbolism in this.
Around the same time, Deane encountered the term ‘anaphora’, a figure of speech denoting the recurrence of expressions or words at the initiation of adjacent phrases, sentences or verses. This concept was adopted as the primary component in structuring his composition.
Linda Buckley: Tuile agus Trá
Spending three-four months in composing a music piece that lasts for 15-20 minutes, announced to be performed by Iarla Ó Lionáird and the National Symphony Orchestra, Linda Buckley’s daily considerations diverge. For orchestral compositions, her simplified approach involves planning the overall form and structure, whilst harmony takes precedence within her sphere of interest in music. Often, the mapping of harmonic progression over the total planned architecture serves as her initiation blueprint. She insists on a roughly formed outline before proceeding further. However, her schematic for electronic pieces contrasts this, focusing more on depicting imagined textures and the sounds they emit.
In contrast to Deane, Buckley preserves everything. She accumulates numerous notebooks filled with melodic, harmonic and textural concepts scattered about her residence. These bits and pieces are revisited repeatedly during the creation of new work. She identifies her approach as largely intuitive, guided by strong convictions about what seems most suitable for a setting.
The piece Tuile agus Trá, which translates to Flood and Tide or Ebb and Flow, is the latest composition gracing the theatre, performed by the sean-nós singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and the National Symphony Orchestra under the meticulous direction of David Brophy. The title is drawn from a poem by Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Having met her in New York a considerable number of years ago, the composer had cultivated a deep appreciation for her partner’s aesthetic, which she described as both profoundly moving and somewhat enigmatic, marked by a distinct gothic air. This partnership has given rise to a prodigious orchestral portrayal of the ocean, evoking a sense of vastness and profundity, throbbing with both stillness and chaos.
Writing for the voice is a passion of the composer, constantly humming melodies as she writes. This latest piece holds a personal significance to her, serving as a profound expression of her feelings and paying homage to her mother, Mary Buckley, a formidable woman from west Cork.
Bekah Simms Cryptid musical composition spans 32 minutes and took over a year to be penned. It will be performed by the Crash Ensemble. Bekah prefers to commence her composing routine as early as she can, as she finds distractions creeping in later in the day, pulling her towards emails and grant applications. Simms identifies herself as an electroacoustic composer, involving extensively with audio recordings, particularly of the ensemble she is working with. Her signature style involves a lot of experimentation and adjustments, especially in the initial stages of her work.
“She equates it to utilising her auditory sense over her mental capacity. Having graduated from a doctoral programme in composition, it’s increasingly liberating to switch off her thought processes and simply employ her auditory perception. Having said that, she acknowledges the close interrelation between the two. The sheer visceral experience of listening and deciding ‘I like how that sounds. I will pursue that.’ has dominated her exploration-oriented approach in recent years.
Her latest piece, “Cryptid”, to be performed by Crash Ensemble, is akin to a subsequent creation to her initial work for Crash entitled “Metamold”. The critiques received indicated it was not of sufficient duration and had potential for extension. She concurred with this view, often finding herself constrained by the time limitations set by project commissions. With “Cryptid”, she was given carte blanche – free reign to determine her creative trajectory. She was motivated by the desire to spend significant time with the ensemble prior to penning a single note, thereby providing them a chance to contribute their performance sounds from rehearsals to the final composition.
Simms created the music at a pivotal point of transition in her life. A decade of her professional career as a music composer was underpinned by stability, being in a single place – Toronto. Following her move from Canada to Scotland and her ongoing pregnancy, her life was transforming and lacked the usual security. Interestingly, she noticed, during a period of relative stability in her life, her compositions were more variable, active, gritty and maximal, whereas they became soothing and almost therapeutic during chaotic times, a way to navigate the confusion. The music started to exhibit features quite opposite to her former style, such as indulging in slow evolving just intonation chords for around 10 minutes.
“Rough Beast II” by Rhona Clarke is a piece to be kept in mind. The composition, taking six weeks to create, is anticipated to last approximately six minutes during performance by the Evlana Sinfonietta.”
Rhona Clarke has a daily schedule that favours mornings for composition, usually beginning work soon after breakfast which is typically around half-past nine or ten. She suggests that her productivity decreases if she delays her start time, though there are instances where she can work at any given hour, especially when she’s deeply engrossed in a project which she refers to as achieving a ‘critical mass’. It’s rare for her to work in the evening, and her meetings tend to disrupt her productivity during the day. She believes that procrastination and distractions should be avoided.
Clarke has a practice of discarding any work that she finds to be unproductive, with no intention of revisiting them. However, the composer contradicts this belief with her latest composition, Rough Beast II. This piece, to be performed by the Evlana Sinfonietta, is a revised version from a segment of a previous composition commissioned for the Decade of Centenaries in 2021.
The music for Rough Beast II draws its inspiration from Yeats’s The Second Coming, instilling an uninterrupted sense of unease and relentless musical momentum throughout, except towards the end. Here Clarke includes a quote from Haydn’s Creation that represents chaos, seen as a spectral nod to the past. She believes that although Haydn’s music was deemed chaotic at his time, it is now considered beautiful, reflecting the disparity between past and present interpretations due to the course of history. She views this irony as strikingly relevant to her current composition.
The National Concert Hall will be hosting the New Music Dublin festival, set to take place from Thursday to Sunday, on the 25th to the 28th of April.