Thomas Daniel Schlee has composed three important new works for Konstanz, Vienna and Stuttgart: a piano concerto, the ensemble piece Enchantement vespéral and finally Spes unica for large orchestra. An interview with the composer.
[t]akte: You’ve composed a piano concerto for the South West German Philharmonic. With the composition of a piano concerto, the question always arises of how it relates to the genre of the virtuoso concerto. You yourself are a renowned organist. How do you deal with this question in your new concerto?
Schlee: Generally it is a complex task to write a solo concerto with all the technical possibilities and demands of the present day, when you are not a proven virtuoso on the instrument. I’m an organist and a passionate piano player, but no pianist. And all my piano works are individual poetic pieces in which the variety of touch or the poetic fragility in the piano sound is exploited. With a piano concerto, however, I find the way the solo part unfolds very important and also the creation of something novel, something unique, within the important literature in this genre. With this work, it is the form, for four movements are grouped in pairs which belong together in an individual way. The first movement is a colourful kaleidoscope of thematic elements which are used throughout the concerto. The second movement brings attacca the elaboration of one of these elements as a scherzo, a lyrical figure over a characteristic rhythm which appeared only briefly in the first movement, and then appears again as a kind of broad, unfolding coda in the scherzo. In my compositions, I always refer to the great stream of history. Here, for example, the slow movement returns to the principle of Ravel’s G major concerto, where the solo piano sings and sings. In my concerto it is the orchestra which is heard for a long time before the solo instrument begins with its reply, before arriving at the only cadence in the concert. In this third movement the tonality is handled freely, whereas otherwise the piece has a modal flavour for long passages. The final movement then presents a completely new landscape – new themes are introduced. I approach virtuosity in the sense of Scarlatti. The virtuoso exhilaration, like that in Liszt, remains untouched. I am always concerned with the transparency of movement in both the virtuoso and the lyrical parts.
The ensemble “die reihe” in Vienna was the first specialist group to play an important role in the history of new music after the Second World War. You were asked to compose a work for the group’s 50th anniversary. What have you composed for “die reihe”?
This composition is so to speak a counterpart to the piano concerto, remaining without exception on the inside of sound and feeling. It relates to a painting by Chagall, Enchantement vespéral (Evening spell, which for me portrays the crystallizing of happiness: the happiness on a balmy summer evening, when everything is in harmony. I have found an arrangement, a unique ensemble, which may express this balmy atmosphere. The piece is primarily lead by tone colours. Alto flute, cor anglais, contrabassoon, horn, violin, two violas and cello, harp and celeste – in other words, mainly low pitched, soft, dark instruments. For me, such stimuli, whether they come from pictures, religious subjects or words, are often triggers for music; I always compose with a central theme which is seldom purely musical. In this case, the painting even contains musical elements – with a violinist and a bird. The piece is a study in slowness, and it is concerned with finding the right sounds to depict the poetry of this moment so beautifully portrayed by Chagall. The listener expects flowing beauty ...
In your compositions for orchestra, are there constant questions, for example with regard to the large forces?
Not in an intellectual sense, but rather more with practicalities. That is the attempt over years to arrive at sounds which are broken as little as possible, that is to say a rejection of the refinement through fragmentation, although I derive incredible enjoyment from refined sounds. The subjects of my last orchestral works have all been about giving the musicians lines in their hands and instruments, which automatically develop in the music-making.
The Stuttgart State Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck, will premiere Spes unica, your new composition for large orchestra in a concert with works by Frank Martin and Bruckner. Is this context significant for you?
It was no coincidence that I was invited to contribute something to a programme including works by Frank Martin and Bruckner. I knew Martin personally, respected him greatly as a person and love his music. I have always regarded the lyrical seriousness of his characteristic music, achieved with relatively simple means, the discreet rigour of his compositions and not least his deep rootedness in the religious as exemplary, as something closely felt. I only came to Bruckner late. What very much attracts me, and what should be precisely the subject of the new piece is the question of the affirmative in art. The tremendous thing with Bruckner is how he was able to think up such an art unfolded over time so majestically and how he created such a great context. The magical moment of the transition from the task of composition to something of the highest art fascinates me. The transition between the conventional and the genial in Bruckner is the actual secret for me. With the affirmative, I mean an art which takes its time to express fully what it wants to say. With Bruckner, these exceptionally long developments are only possible when he keeps faith with what he wants to express and allows his forms, his contrapuntal elaborations time, so that they become art.
In Spes unica – the title comes from the hymn “O crux ave, spes unica”, “O holy cross, our only hope”– the structure is a great crescendo, whose outlines sharpen and clarify during the course of the piece. The teleological structure aims towards a great, unbroken orchestral sound. Art needs to have the possibility of putting forward clear theses. In other words, it is not about breaking up melodic lines or immediately scattering colour, but is also about achieving a beautiful sound within a process. Differently from Musik für ein Fest, music for the reopening of the Theater an der Wien in 2006 which begins with a big noise, here the idea is to allow the state of the sound to emerge slowly.
Interview by Marie Luise Maintz
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
from: [t]akte 1/2009