Miroslav Srnka has been awarded a Composer’s Prize for 2009 by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. At the award ceremony in May, Fan Faire for wind and percussion has been premiered. He is also working on a chamber opera after Isabel Coixet’s film The Secret Life of Words.
Miroslav Srnka has written Fan Faire for wind and percussion, a work about the creation of an expectation, the gathering of attention and the form of the fanfare. Composing a work for the award ceremony of the Ernst von Siemens Composer’s Prize in Munich has given the brand-new prizewinner an opportunity to examine the role of such fanfare music. “These pieces function as a punctuation in a communal event. Time stands still, attention is concentrated on a point, and there is a moment of tension for what is generated, what follows”, explains Srnka. A study of the principle of expectation is also the compositional theme of the piece for four horns, two trumpets, two trombones and percussionist. “The idea of great volume is automatically associated with the sound of brass instruments. That makes their quiet notes particularly exciting, because they arouse an expectation per se.” As a result, it is volume itself which becomes a further compositional theme. Next to dynamic, Srnka plays with the origin of the fanfare, particularly its etymology: the fact that the word fanfare has either an onomatopoeic basis, or could also derive from the Arabic “farfar” (a chatterbox) and directly from the Spanish “fanfaron” (a bigmouth) is scarcely known. “The idea for the composition came whilst contemplating the function of music at a gathering of people which is not primarily a concert, but also a conversation, a communal event, entertainment. In a concert, concentration and silence are a prerequisite, under which conditions the music is played. A fanfare, however, rings out in order to produce such a concentrated silence.”
“The Secret Life of Words”
Miroslav Srnka and the Australian director Matt Lutton have carried out research into communication for their full-length chamber opera based on Isabel Coixet’s film The Secret Life of Words. Both artists have been awarded one of the much sought-after fellowships from Aldeburgh Music, enabling them to write a music theatre piece together. The concept of the fellowship is that a project phase of 18 months’ duration is financed, that is to say the work on a dramaturgical concept is supported and in the course of this, other artists, set designers or writers can be commissioned. The fellowship enables joint meetings, study trips and two one-week workshops in Aldeburgh to workshop the ideas with musicians and singers. This concept, together with the fact that the award is explicitly for teams of writers, is an attractive alternative to the conventional commission for a composition. As Srnka describes, this model for encouraging young artists allows “a great freedom, for the composer is not an isolated individual sitting alone in front of a sheet of paper. The realisation of the work for the stage is a part of the process of composition here, that is to say a step towards a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ really takes place. We work together on all aspects of the piece, striving to create a consistent whole which develops out of the collaboration.”
The Secret Life of Words is about two people who have experienced a trauma. When they meet they find a way towards resolution in which they learn to talk to the other person about themself. “This channel to communication interests us. In the film, a barrier is removed by the slow, mutual experiencing of the other person’s traumas – and this happens simultaneously with the observer’s understanding. Our theme is how this understanding comes about in the course of the action and how it develops. And Isabel Coixet’s great emotionalism helps us here. The development also takes place on a musical level: “This process is symbolised in our music theatre piece in the development of the main characters from speaking to operatic singing. The protagonists do not sing in the same characteristic style from beginning to end, but develop, and this symbolises the question of how they are able to communicate with each other. What cannot be said can perhaps be sung. Our field of experimentation is this journey towards the supported, full sounding, artistically controlled operatic voice, and the question to what extend this carries on this stage.”
In addition, it is the parameters of the dramatic which occupy Srnka. “What interests me most is the dramatic interpretation of the tempo and the register whilst singing. In the perception of the singing voice it is precisely these aspects which are most important, in other words how quickly, fluently or uninterruptedly the singer articulates and in which register he or she sings, at first independent from the musical material. I am pursuing – as in my earlier ensemble piece with soprano solo My Life Without Me – as it were research into singing without (thematic) material, a kind of dematerializing.” This work is a result of a general focus in Srnka’s composing. “I have always been interested in the human voice, although I have essentially composed more instrumental music up to now. In addition, a certain dramatic potential is acknowledged in my instrumental music – listeners seem to perceive events in it. And I now want to try out this characteristic of my music on the stage. In other words, I am testing its potential. And last but not least, it is a fact that opera is one of the most powerful experiences in western culture, no matter how frequently it is declared dead.”
Marie Luise Maintz
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
from: [t]akte 1/2009