Composer
of the Month: Roger Marsh
Roger Marsh studied with Bernard Rands at the University of
York, UK, in the early seventies. He spent two years (1976-78) at the
University of California, San Diego, on a Harkness Fellowship. From 1978 to 88
he lectured at the University of Keele, before returning to York where he is
currently Professor of Music. His music has been performed and broadcast
widely. Roger
Marsh’s new work, Running, Jumping,
Standing Still, will be premiered by the Late Music Ensemble, conductor
James Whittle, at the next Late Music concert, Saturday 5th July.
Steve Crowther: Can you describe the work
to us?
Roger
Marsh: It’s a piece for
instrumental ensemble in three short movements. It’s called ‘Running Jumping and Standing Still’ – which was
the title of a famous short film in the 1950s made by Peter Sellers and the
other Goon crowd. I’ve always
loved the title. The three
movements are all, in their own way, concerned with physical exercise (I
thought of calling the piece that). Two of the movements are a re-working of
earlier material – a piano piece I wrote last year (Descending) and a solo
piano section of my music theatre piece ‘Rising’ (Rising). The third movement is all new and is
the Running Jumping and Standing Still movement.
SC: Do you write at the piano,
do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?
RM:
Actually I used to always compose at the piano, a bit too much really; I would
spend forever trying and re-trying chords and changing them, adding to them
every time I sat down to carry on working. But now I don’t use the piano so much – just to get
initial ideas, and then I do almost everything at the computer with good old
Sibelius playback allowing me to check things. I don’t know if it’s better, but
it seems to work and I spend less time doodling.
Again,
I used to re-plan, but I moved away from that quite a long time ago. I think and imagine a lot in my head
(and at the piano) before I start writing – which is a less rigorous kind of
pre-planning I suppose. I mean, I
don’t start from scratch with a clean page in front of me. By the time I’m thinking about writing
something down I’ve done a lot of composing in my head already. Usually. There are always exceptions. With Pierrot Lunaire I had 50 poems to set, and I gave
myself the challenge of starting with the first one and never moving on until I
had finished a setting. Some of
the settings went from initial idea to finished score in a matter of hours. Some took days. But I didn’t allow myself to think
about the next one until the one in progress was done.
SC:
Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?
RM: Very often that’s the case. Not always. Two of my recent pieces were for the Hilliard Ensemble – you
can’t write for them without hearing their sound as you write. When I wrote my Lullaby I had a
particular sound in mind, but no idea who would perform the piece. In the case of the new piece, I knew
who the performers would be, and it has influenced me a bit, but not a huge
amount. Except in ‘Rising’ because
there’s a little bit of theatre involved, and I thought carefully about who
would be doing it.
SC: How would you describe
your individual ‘sound world’?
RM: That’s
hard. The one thing I can say that
might help is that I think a lot about chords. I almost said ‘harmony’ there, but I find that that invokes
notions of a harmonic theory, and I don’t have one. I just like to hear chords which make sense in relation to
one another, and which seem to have a purpose, and which are rich and
interesting. I use the same kind
of chords a lot, so I think you can listen to my music and say it has a
recognizable sound world because of that.
And melody too, but more in some pieces than others: Pierrot Lunaire and
the Hilliard pieces are full of it, Running and Jumping less so (but a bit).
SC: What motivates you to
compose?
RM:
Another huge question. The desire
to make something; to make something different; to provide something for a
performer or ensemble that has asked for it. Like all composers, I suspect, there are days when I wonder
why I put myself through it (because it can be hard and frustrating), but
there’s a satisfaction in having made a piece that seems to be valued.
SC: Which living composers do
you identify with or simply admire?
RM: I admire and find inspiration in so
many kinds of music it’s impossible to give a list. When I was younger I used to be a bit clearer about
it: Britten, Stravinsky, Berio, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles. Those names would
all still be on the list, but the list would be so long and I wouldn’t be sure
that they would be at the top of it.
SC: If you could have a beer
and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?
RM: I had tea and a chat with Maderna once,
and a few beers with Berio. But I
think I was so overawed to be in their presence it was less a chat and more an
‘audience’.
SC: Now for some desert island
discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then
select just one.
RM: The truth is there is no
music I couldn’t live without. But
I’ll play your game:
Oedipus
Rex (Stravinsky) blows me away every time.
Bach
B minor mass (ditto)
Fulfillingness
First Finale (Stevie Wonder).
Mahler
9, with Das Lied on the B side.
Love’s
Old Sweet Song (sung by Anna Myatt – as on the Ulysses audiobooks I produced)
Kinshi
Tsurata singing Dan –no –ura (Heike Biwa). It’s used in the film Kwaidan –the last story about Hoichi
the Earless. Tsurata – blind
female singer and Satsuma biwa player – was phenomenal.
Smiley
Smile (Beach Boys)
Il
Cor Tristo (Marsh) - it’s the piece of mine I’m most proud of and I most like
listening to.
SC: …and a book?:
RM: Ulysses
SC: …a film?
RM: The Godfather parts 1 and 2
SC: … and a luxury item?
RM: Binoculars
