Composer of the week: David Lancaster
David Lancaster is Head of
Music at York St John University and composer-in-residence with Laudamus
Chamber Choir and with the EYMS Band.
David first encountered
contemporary music when as a young cornet player he took part in a performance
of Harrison Birtwistle's 'Grimethorpe Aria' at a brass band summer school.
Music studies at York and Cambridge Universities and at Dartington Summer
School (with Peter Maxwell Davies) followed, along with a period as
Composer-in-Residence at Charterhouse. He gained a number of important awards
including Lloyds Bank Young Composer Award, Michael Tippett Award, LCM
Centenary Prize and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Composer
Award; the Parke Ensemble presented a London concert series of his work and in
May 2011 there was a retrospective concert devoted to his work at York St John
University.
David’s recent work includes
music for choir, string quartet and several song cycles, such as Memory of Place (which sets poetry by the
York-based poet Daniela Nunnari and which has recently been issued on CD on the
Meridian label). David’s choral
work Fallen, originally composed for Canterbury Cathedral, was
used in a documentary made for Sky Television and his band piece On Ilkley Moor – based on the grisly tale
of Yorkshire’s famous folksong – was first performed in November 2011 in Ilkley
and has since been recorded.
In August 2012 City of Kings will receive its first
performance as part of the York 800 celebrations, and in September Mosquito for wind quintet will receive
its premiere performance as part of the prestigious Late Music concert series
by Souza Winds.
Steve Crowther: Can you describe the new work to us?
David Lancaster: It is called Mosquito, not after the buzzing
insect (which I’ve learnt to avoid when I work in Malaysia) but after the
device which emits ultrasonic noise to disperse young people – you find them
outside shops, giving out a signal that only people under the age of around 23
can hear. I collaborated with conceptual artist Rory Macbeth a few years ago
for an exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery which was all about how art has been
used to portray class distinction in British culture; Rory asked me to
transcribe the sound of the Mosquito – very much slowed down and lowered in
pitch – for live performance.
Since then I have often thought about turning this simple transcription
into a fully-developed composition but when I discovered that the manufacturer
of the Mosquito also produces a device which emits ‘royalty-free classical
music’ as a weapon against young people that the idea came to full
fruition. The piece begins with
the sound of the Mosquito transcription juxtaposed with the opening of Tallis’
‘Lamentations’ and the music simply unfolds out of that stark alternation.
SC:
Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional
process?
DL:
No I don’t tend to use the piano.
I suppose because I started as a brass player I tend to think more in
horizontal terms: lines and phrases.
I used to do much more pre-compositional planning than I do now but I
suppose that with experience and confidence I have come to trust my instincts
much more. The process usually
involves one big idea, lots of scribbled notes (both musical and text) on scrap
paper and any number of long walks or cycle rides. Actually ‘post- composition’ has become more important to
me; I like to finish pieces long before the given deadline so that I can mull
over the score, do lots of fine editing and move things around if necessary
before it goes off to the performers.
SC:
Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?
DL:
Not necessarily. I don’t believe
that there is only one ‘correct’ interpretation of a piece of music but rather
that there are very many possibilities, so I enjoy writing for people I don’t
know and discovering what they make of my scores. And also I like hearing second performances of my pieces
which differ from the first since each different performer brings a fresh
perspective.
SC:
How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?
DL: I
think it is quite a dark world but there is scope for black humour too! My over-riding preoccupation is to
achieve clarity of idea so my ‘sound-worlds tend not to be dominated by
textural effect or excessive decoration.
SC:
What motivates you to compose?
DL:
I’ve always done it, since I first started playing an instrument – it seemed
the natural thing to do. There’s
an element of problem solving: setting challenges for myself then finding ways
to overcome them. But it is also
very reciprocal and iterative: I teach student composers at York St John
University and find myself immersed in their ideas as well as in my own
preoccupations and obsessions, so one piece just leads to another…
SC: Which
living composers do you identify with or simply admire?
DL:
Birtwistle, above all others. It
was his music that first jolted me into an awareness of contemporary music and
taught me to follow my own path.
There’s so much in his approach to music, landscape, theatre and visual
art which mirrors my own thought and practice; he seems to think the way I
do. He knows how to write for
performers and audiences but without ever compromising to either, and his music
still has the capacity to move me emotionally.
SC:
If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would
it be and why?
DL: I
discovered a couple of weeks ago that my music teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s
teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s teacher was Mozart! So it would have to be Wolfgang Amadeus since we have so
many people in common! I suspect
he would have been a good drinking companion although it would probably always
be my round. I’ve been round to
his houses in Salzburg and Vienna but he wasn’t there…
SC:
Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you
could not be without, and then select just one.
DL:
Mask of Orpheus – Birtwistle (I worked on the original
production at ENO, playing the voice of Apollo on sampler keyboard).
Symphonies of Winds – Stravinsky
Six Bagatelles for string quartet Op 9 – Webern (who
died on 15th September 1945, exactly 15 years to the minute before I
was born).
Lollapalooza -John Adams
Fix You – Coldplay
Year of the Dragon – Philip Sparke
Soundtrack to ‘Draughtsman’s Contract’ – Michael Nyman
Memory of Place – David Lancaster (if only for ‘If
Wishes are Willows’ and Daniela Nunnari’s wonderful poetry).
If I really must choose one, then let it be the
Stravinsky please.
SC:
…and a book?
DL:
Topology of a Phantom City – Alain Robbe-Grillet (the nearest I’ve come to
reading one of my compositions expressed in words!)
SC: Film?
DL: Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann
at their very best.
SC: … and a luxury item?
DL: I’m torn between my Nikon DSLR and my trusty racing
bike, neither of which would be especially useful on the island. But since I don’t want to get sand in
my camera I’ll go with the bike, which might at least help me to keep fit.
