An Interview with Benjamin Dwyer
Benjamin Dwyer is one of the few composer-performers in Ireland. He talks to Jonathan Grimes about his musical development, his current projects, and his life in Barcelona.
Jonathan Grimes: Ben, your musical background is very much rooted in performance: you're a classically trained guitarist who has performed, and indeed still performs, extensively. Would it be true to say that you came relatively late to composing?
Benjamin Dwyer: I came late to everything in life. I started playing guitar late: I started at sixteen, which for a classical musician is considered retirement age. My early training as a musician was as a performer and I went as far as London to do a Master's degree in performance at the Royal Academy [of Music]. Strangely enough, it was around that time that I began to question the whole thing about wanting to be a full-time performer, mainly because of the repertoire. At that stage I'd already given my debut playing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. I thought, 'Do I really want to spend my whole life playing Rodrigo?' because that's what most people want to hear. By the end of that year, I came out of the Academy with a Master's degree under my belt but with a feeling that the doors had opened or my view of music had broadened somewhat. Of course, I was always interested in contemporary music but I hadn't seen myself as a composer; for instance, I had works written for me by John Buckleyand a few others -- rather substantial works -- and I collaborated with these composers closely. So as a performer I was very much at the epicentre of what was happening here, and I wanted to make a contribution to new Irish music as a guitarist. But it really did happen by accident. I did get some scores written for guitar which I thought were not very good, and I felt maybe I could do just as good myself; it was as innocent as that. A colleague of mine, Ken Edge, the saxophonist said, 'Look, I've got this quartet -- why don't you write us a piece?' That was how it started. The first piece I wrote was a dreadful piece called Toccata but the second piece I wrote wasOmeros. I was listening to a recent performance of this work and was quite amazed at -- can I say such a thing? -- how good the piece was. It still is, as Jim Wilson would say, 'A piece that I'm still not ashamed of.' So I think in a way, without realising it, that I was in training to be a composer, so that when I started to write, it more or less kicked in immediately.
JG: So, what you're saying is that you were absorbing these things from working with composers, performing their music -- this was all part of the process of you becoming a composer?
BD: Exactly, but I didn't really think that I would be a composer. If you told me when I went to London in 1991, 'You will be a composer in 2001,' I wouldn't have believed it. Obviously, all these abilities -- areas of notation, understanding structure -- although I wasn't composing, I was absorbing them, so when it came to sit down and try it myself, it just happened.
JG: So shortly after you composed these first pieces did the idea of being a composer begin to take root fairly quickly?
BD: It took a while for me to consider myself a composer because I was a bit sceptical of other people who wrote one piece and immediately said, 'I'm a composer’. I wasn't going to do that myself. But I kept writing pieces and people wanted to play them. It took about four years for me to have the guts to say, 'Yes, I'm a composer.' Then I realised that I was a slightly different type of composer because I played a lot. It struck me then, as is does now, that this still is a rarity.
JG: Yes, because you do hold the rare distinction of being one of the few composer/performers, in the genuine sense of the term, in Ireland.
BD: Yes, it's still not a very common thing. For me it's essential, and I think one feeds into the other. Certainly my interpretative abilities have improved tremendously with my development and understanding of form and structure -- I can bring all that information to a score when I'm interpreting. I do think when you are performing at a high level that you have a kind of physical relationship with an instrument, which informs your composition. I think this is really important because you do get the impression that composers can write notes so easily without considering or being conscious of the mental or physical effort required to make a beautiful note, so to have this inside you when you're composing is very important. Apart from that, it has also fed into my approach to composition in that I usually write for very specific performers. I usually do a huge amount of research on the instrument; for me, this is quite important, as today technology has brought us to a situation where virtually any sound is possible to create. So if we're going to write for a piano, why should we bother to write for it specifically unless we try to find something very unique about that instrument. That has been my philosophy of late.
JG: So one half of what you do informs the other half -- the performing is very much rooted in the composing, and visa versa. Picking up on this idea of being a performer/composer, at this stage in your career, which comes first: performing or composing?
BD: Neither. This is the problem with modern life: we all want to compartmentalise things. I don’t separate them anymore and I don’t want to separate them. I had the pleasure last week of performing my own Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet. Despite the fact that the cellist broke a string, the piece went very well and the audience really appreciated and enjoyed it. Afterwards I just felt that this fulfils all my particular desires as a musician: to be able to perform my own works with other people.
JG: So the performing and composing become almost indistinguishable?
BD: They do. It’s a very unique and humbling thing that people will sit down and listen to you perform, but when they listen to you perform your own music it is doubly humbling.
JG: Again a more general question, which perhaps risks the idea of compartmentalisation again. How do you see yourself as a composer musically?
BD: I think I can only answer that by saying I don’t really believe in ideologies or styles or systems. For me composition is a form of emotional response informed by the intellect. It’s usually the medium that determines how I write. I also try to avoid if I can -- and it’s not easy to do it -- abstract commissions, or if I get commissions I really try to fit those into something that I want to do. For instance, this piece I’ve been working on for Vox 21, Al-Andalus, for ensemble and accordion. I’ve wanted to write for accordion for some time and I’ve wanted to write for Andalusia for some time. The first movement is about the village of Tarifa, which is the southernmost village in Europe. Because of the difference in temperature between land and sea, for almost 365 days of the year the wind is over 100 miles per hour. It’s an incredible place and the wind has an effect on the men who live there -- they go crazy. I’m writing about that experience so I’m not going to fit that into some twelve-tone technique; I will find a way of responding to that. I try to respond innocently to every new piece I write instead of writing a piece within a system I’ve inherited and maintained.
JG: In other words, your approach to writing really depends on the specific purpose of the piece?
BD: Exactly. My concern then is a concern of technique and form and getting that right. Some pieces are more theatrical or dramatic than others. The Crow pieces for example: I probably won’t write stuff like that ever again -- hugely theatrical and connected to the concepts brought out in the Crow poems of Ted Hughes. But I’ve just written pieces for violin and piano which are pure abstract and almost neo-classical in their structure. I’m happy with both because they both, I think, achieve what I set out to do. But they’re very different and you probably wouldn’t think the same composer wrote them.
JG: You mentioned your early works and that you were still happy with them when you hear them afresh: can you hear a progression between these works and what you're writing now?
BD: It depends on what you mean by 'progression'. Does it mean a progression in terms of quality or in terms of complexity? I can't at the moment see any particular line. The funny thing is that Tiento, which is quite an abstract piece, is very modern; then I went on to write a Sonata for Guitar and Flute, which falls into a more traditional[style], which I've since moved away from. It would seem that the Sonata would come before Tiento but it hasn't worked that way. I'm not going to worry about these things; you try to compose as honestly as you can, and sometimes that means writing music that is not cutting edge, or trendy, or doesn't have electro-acoustics.
JG: Sometimes, one does get the feeling that some composers almost write to please their audience.
BD: This, I suppose, is a dilemma for composers who are wholly dependent on commissions. Obviously there are certain composers whose music is perceived to be trendier than others, if I can use that awful term; and others would be considered not cutting edge or slightly passé. I do get the feeling that it could be a dangerous thing to be too successful as a composer: you're constantly fulfilling commissions and you stop thinking about why you're writing because you're too busy being successful. I think this is probably the dilemma of the modern composers because, quite often, success is understood by the quality of the commission, the number of commissions and so forth. You could be commissioned ten times a year and be repeating yourself because you're under pressure, or else you could be writing two or three pieces to which you've given a huge amount of thought. So the whole compositional process, as far as I'm concerned, does not fit very well into the modern business aspect of being a composer. We all have these problems; I'm not saying I'm outside this arena -- I'm inside struggling with it as well. It's something that I'm mindful of: we have to really stop and ask ourselves what does successful composition mean?
JG: Yes, because there is composing for the moment and then there's, dare I mention it, composing for posterity.
BD: I don't know if any composer really thinks about that. I imagine conscientious composers or artists want to do what they do to the best of their ability; and sometimes the attraction of commissions or to be part of a certain trend can be a dangerous tendency. It doesn't necessarily have to be, but it's just something that we need to watch out for.
JG: In 2002 you moved to Spain and you've now settled in Barcelona, where you spend most of your time. What made you want to move there?
BD: That's a complex one but I did have a history with Spain from being a guitarist. I've been playing Spanish music for years; the man who makes my guitars is Spanish; I've been visiting Spain and had developed friendships there. The main reason was I felt I needed to exile myself, to take myself out of the Irish arena. I'm also very interested in literature and I did feel that I wanted to get hold of a new language and get that whole perspective. It's had a huge effect but I'm not too sure exactly what that effect is. After moving to Spain I began to write a lot for The Journal of Music in Ireland, so I found myself in this situation that I was writing about and reviewing things Irish from outside [the country]. It was an unusual perspective.
JG: So moving there has created this critical distance, which allows you to stand back and look at things differently?
BD: Absolutely, and I've been able to see the whole Irish scene in a much better context. It's been a very interesting process but it's continuing, so I don't have all the answers yet.
JG: And as a composer, is it easier to live in Barcelona than in Dublin?
BD: That's neither here nor there. Actually -- and this was a big surprise for me -- the scene in Barcelona is dreadful. We always complain about the Irish scene but in fact, Catalan composers have a big problem because they have an internal fight between Catalonia and España. I think things are better in Madrid but Catalan composers are invisible.
JG: I remember hearing you say that composing is not just about putting dots on a page; it's also about how you view life. Can you explain a little about what you mean by this?
BD: Well, if you think about it, in a way there's nothing more intimate than a piece of music you've written, but thank goodness it's in a language that nobody can interpret with one hundred percent accuracy. When you're writing a piece that you genuinely want to write and feel connected to, you're writing about your inner thoughts. I suppose it's a form of self-exploration and that's what I'm interested in. We live in times where 'intellect' is a dirty word or elitist is considered always negative, and I have a problem with that. Learning Spanish, for example, has allowed me enter a very rich literary world that I didn't have access to. I read Marquez in Spanish now and that is one of the great joys I have: getting that experience first hand. I don't know if I'm answering this question well but composition is, for me, the result of your own intellectual, personal and emotional development, and if it's not that, I don't think it has much value.
JG: So moving to Spain and settling in Barcelona is all part of that process?
BD: Yes, absolutely.
JG: And would you regard this a turning point in your life or career?
BD: I don't know. I do think it's important for artists that we don't just consider ourselves Irish; we have to consider ourselves as part of a broader European or world intellectual movement. If we do that then I think we will see ourselves in less negative terms. We've a tendency to moan -- I've done it myself in print several times -- but if we view and value ourselves only on the level of our Irishness or the scene in Ireland it's a small pond and we need to get intellectual access, at least as far as Europe. I want to feel out what’s happening in Europe. And even though Spain is not the most obvious place to go to, it’s not about going to meet other composers. It’s about seeing the world from a different point of view, or seeing Ireland from a different point of view.
JG: And with that distance that you have in being able to stand back from Ireland and look at it objectively, how would you access the role now of the composer or the artist in Irish society today. Do you think it’s changed?
BD: That’s a very difficult question. I think there are two levels: we compose or create because we want to do it. At some stage, collectively, we make an impact. I do think we are in a very new phase of Irish life at the moment and we’re too close to be able to comment with clarity. It might very well be that historians will look back and see that Irish composers did make a very specific contribution. So, it’s very hard to answer what the role is because we don’t think about that -- we compose because we want to. But I do think we make a contribution because every society has to re-imagine itself through art: it's part of our modern mythology.
JG: You’ve been running the Mostly Modern series of contemporary music concerts in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre for over ten years, and in April you will be holding the Mostly Modern Festival. When you began this series way back in the early nineties, did you ever think it would be running this long?
BD: No, not at all. We started with a £2000 grant from IMRO and we just wanted to play. Because the money came from IMRO we had to do Irish music. There was no great vision then; the scene in those days was bleak. I was running it with a pianist, Neil Cooney, but he was living in England and he couldn't maintain it, so he just let me continue on my own. Then by 1995/6 I was developing my own ideas and was writing, and I found a home for the series in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre [in Dublin city centre]. It was then I became very conscious of what we could do with it. I don't know what the statistics are but we've had something like one hundred world premieres. If it stops soon, it will be interesting to access the contribution it has made; I think it's made quite a contribution.
JG: As to working methods, when you sit down to write a piece is there a typical pattern that you have or does it vary?
BD: It varies because, as I said previously, I have many systems that I use to write. I usually allow the ideas of the instrumentation to come to me and I don’t try to impose an ideology or system. It's a very interesting process because the piece rarely ends the way I think it will when I'm starting to write. Quite often, I find that I'm composing when I'm away from the music -- when I'm walking or I figure out the problems and wake up the next day and a problem has been sorted. I'm not very disciplined but I'm very tenacious, so I don't get up at nine every morning and write for three hours, but if I do sit down, sometimes I'm sitting down for nine hours, and I won't stop. I find the whole process really irritating and disturbing. There is a point -- and other composers will recognise this -- when you’re turning into the straight, to use a racing term. Until you get to that point you feel that you may never finish the piece. You know when you're not writing well, and you know in your heart and soul that you're going to have to change the piece. That can be a very disturbing process and I really hate it. That's different to actually writing. When you break through and things are beginning to happen -- that's a great moment.
JG: And that isn't always you sitting at a page -- you're thinking things through in your head?
BD: Absolutely. Trying to figure out a way forward and then sometimes it happens very quickly and you're saved!
JG: Of all the combinations that you've written for, is there one particular medium that really grabs you?
BD: I think writing for orchestra has to be the one. Unfortunately, it's so difficult to get commissions from orchestras and I'm ready -- I'm ready to rock! I've just written one major work that I've heard for orchestra, which is ridiculous considering the amount of music that I've written.
JG: That being the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.
BD: Yes, in which I used something like thirty-five percussion instruments and everything I could get my hands on. I'm glad I did, even though it might prohibit future performances; I learned so much about composing and orchestration from doing this. I'll be writing a book on John Buckley soon and when I review the amount of orchestral works that John wrote in the period equivalent to my present state – it’s a huge amount. And it's the same for Raymond Deane and that generation of composers in the late seventies and early eighties. They were getting a huge amount of commissions for orchestra; they were writing for orchestra all the time. I'm writing all the time but there are so many composers now -- it's such a competitive field that it's just a natural situation where people aren't getting large orchestral commissions. I think this is the ultimate instrument. When you hear your own music played for orchestra it's such a crazy thing. I couldn't help being blown away when I heard my percussion concerto. It's not just the music: you have this whole industry behind you that is prepared to trust in you. It's an extraordinary situation: there are one hundred people on stage working very hard, there's the conductor, the administration behind that, the finance that goes into it, the copyists, and then there's the audience that comes and wants to listen -- it's an incredible situation to be in.
JG: It's a pity really, but then that's the economic reality and the times we live in.
BD: That's one of the reasons why I formed Vox 21. I've never had this idea that I'm waiting for someone to play my pieces -- I suppose that comes from being a performer. I am always surrounded by colleagues who want to perform. When it gets up into orchestral music that gets more difficult.
JG: Yes, it's a bit difficult to have your own personal orchestra.
BD: Yes, those days are over. [laughs]
JG: What about future projects? You mentioned your new work for Vox 21. Are there any other things that you're involved in at the moment?
BD: Not really except that I feel that something is happening to my music. I'm exploring very deeply the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of certain instruments and I'm getting stuff out of that. It came with the last work I wrote for guitar, Voces Criticas, in particular the last movement -- the idea of exploring all the timbral possibilities within a given pitch centre. I brought that to my next piece for violin and piano and that brought very specific sounds that I'm very interested in: techniques which when employed create rather unique sounds. I used this also in Afterjoyce I for flute and percussion. What I've been exploring in some workshops lately is spending a day exploring different possibilities of sounds and using those already extraordinary source sounds as a basis for further computerised manipulation.
JG: So we can expect more electro-acoustic works from you in the future?
BD: I titled Afterjoyce I specifically because I envisaged an Afterjoyce II and III. I've been responding to texts throughout my work. Obviously the big one would be Scenes from Crow. I really think that exploring Joyce's ability of bringing language closer to music... I was trying to explore this idea [in Afterjoyce I] of creating a kind of textual language from music. I'm just beginning to get at that withAfterjoyce so I do envisage doing more. So I see that as a trend in that language is becoming increasingly important for me as a kind of source.
JG: And going back to Scenes from Crow, did you envisage when you wrote the first piece extending that in the way that you plan to do with the Afterjoyce pieces?
BD: Well, I'm more experienced now in that I can see the potential of certain things. When I first read the Crow poems I was completely blown away -- poetry seems an insufficient term for these. I did respond with this first piece for Peter Wells, the recorder player, but realised that there was so much more in these poems and I just had to keep going. I do feel a bit like that now with this Joyce thing -- I don't know how this will proceed. But the other interesting aspect about the Joyce material is that I want to work with David Farrell, the photographer and video artist, who has in fact responded completely to Scenes from Crow. We'll be premiering this in September -- so now Scenes from Crow comes with complete video from start to finish. This is an artist I'm very interested in working with and we have spoken about this Joyce project, so I think in the next year or so we'll be working together.
JG: Well, we look forward to hearing it and seeing it.
BD: You heard it here for the first time! [laughs]
JG: Thanks very much, Ben.
Benjamin Dwyer was interviewed on video by Jonathan Grimes in the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, on 25 February 2005.
The views expressed in this interview are those of the persons concerned and are not necessarily those of the Contemporary Music Centre.