Interview with Johannes Maria Staud

In an interview with BCMG's Development Manager Gwendolyn Tietze in March 2007, Johannes spoke about One Movement and Five Miniatures, his relationship with BCMG and living in the UK as an Austrian composer: 

‘I really wanted to write a piece with live electronics, only using real-time transformation of the sounds, as until this BCMG commission I had mostly used pre-recorded tapes and electronics. I took a minimalist approach, using only one instrument as the trigger for the electronics. There are many pieces for piano and electronics, and so I was tempted to use a harpsichord instead. I find the harpsichord such a fascinating and varied instrument; it has such a characteristic sound, with a very sharp attack, without much resonance.

The harpsichord has of course a strong association with early music, which I also found interesting. When one sits down and starts playing, one finds oneself playing spread chords and ornaments: whether one wants to or not, one starts playing in a ‘Baroque’ style. The instrument ‘wants’ one to play in a more ornamental style. On a piano I can hold a chord in the pedal in order to achieve a rich sound. On the harpsichord I have not got this opportunity, so in order to suggest a rich sound, I have to play a lot more notes, such as appoggiaturas, trills and other ornaments. The acoustic characteristics of the instrument lead one to a characteristic style of composing for the instrument. You can see this with Ligeti, for example – when he writes for harpsichord, in Continuum,  Hungarian Rock (Chaconne) and  Passacaglia ungherese.

J. S. Bach’s solution to the soft dynamics of the harpsichord was simply to use two, three and four of them in his concertos. And in a sense I connected to this: I thought, how would it sound if I have just one harpsichord on stage, but use the electronics to add another four? I have set it up so that the harpsichord itself is amplified (which it nearly always is in contemporary music), and then there are four speakers distributed on the stage which act like four more harpsichords, which are of course often slightly altered in their sound quality. Around those the BCMG players are grouped in three groups of four. The ‘original’ harpsichord that’s on stage is of course as important as the harpsichord sounds coming out of the speakers – it really is sometimes one soloist who is playing 5 harpsichords at once!

The ensemble-part is important though – if there were just the harpsichords and the electronics, it would be a very one-sided piece. I wanted to play with the space in which the musicians perform in this piece, and that is why I formed them into groups of quite heterogeneous sounds: violin, viola, cor anglais and contra bassoon; then horn, trumpet, trombone and percussion; and finally flute, clarinet, cello and double bass. In other pieces I would perhaps take all the wind instruments together, but in this piece I challenged myself to group together instruments that are further apart in their sounds: like for example two double-reed instruments, bassoon and cor anglais, together with two high strings, violin and viola, which is a quite unusual combination. 

One Movement and Five Miniatures has a lot of unfamiliar elements for me as a composer: this adventurous grouping of instruments, and the harpsichord and live electronics! In a piece for orchestra, or in a typical chamber ensemble, the instrumentations are more familiar to a composer – and to the audience. This piece is a bit different – I’ve taken the plunge!

I can clearly remember the first time I heard BCMG live – it was in 2002, when they performed my piece Vielleicht zunaechst wirklich nur at the CBSO Centre and at the Barbican, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. I came to Birmingham for the final rehearsal, and there was such a lovely atmosphere of excitement in the hall, with many Sound Investors present. I thought, that is unusual, coming to final rehearsal and already finding so much interest and excitement. It was such a positive experience.

I am therefore really delighted to be able to return to BCMG with this new commission, One Movement and Five Miniatures. And indeed I am returning to the place that saw the first public performance of a piece of mine in the UK – the CBSO Centre.

I moved to London in 2004. I had studied in Vienna and in Berlin, and I wanted to go somewhere else. I was of course integrated in the contemporary music scene in Austria, but I thought: this is only part of what is happening in contemporary music, and I want to know more. Coming to London was the chance to come to a European metropolis that was full of diverse cultural influences, much more so than in Vienna. It is interesting to live in a country that speaks a different language to yours, where you have not been born. In a way it is similar to writing a new piece: when I write, I want to do something different to what I did for my last piece, I want to question my assumptions. And there the influences of a different country, and especially of a city like London, really help.

My style hasn’t become ‘English’ in any sense; I didn’t consciously try to change my style upon my arrival in England. I am still an Austrian composer.  Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are important reference points I grew up with. This is where I come from.

It is interesting here in England to be with people who have had a different musical socialisation – who have grown up with different musical influences from myself. And of course the composers one encounters in concerts are also different between Austria and the UK. I think in the UK I am seen in the context of a Central European modernism – although nowadays no one really classifies composers as ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’. The world of music does not work within these black-and-white categories.

What I find so interesting about BCMG is how stylistically broad its concerts are programmed. This is the case for example with the programme in which my piece will be premiered on 22 April, going from Webern via Ligeti, Benedict Mason and Edward Rushton. This is a very pluralistic programme, with music that comes from all kinds of angles. BCMG’s programming is open-minded, beyond any categorisations into ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ – it does not know any narrow aesthetic boundaries.’

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