Piyawat Louillarpprasertās composition āTrembleā unfolded as an almost literal translation of its title. The strings tapped col legno battuto, the woodwinds played rapid hairpin swells, single notes were articulated repeatedly and passed throughout the ensemble. At one point, the conductor compared a section to a ārainforest in Thailand.ā
It was August 25, a sunny morning. I was visiting the Composer Seminar of the Lucerne Festival. Rehearsals took place in a stuffy room at the Conservatory of Music. Besides Louillarprasertās work, I heard āImmigrant,ā by Victor Coltea, and a composition by Josep Planells.
Observing the three composers as the ensemble worked out details of articulation, dynamics, and intonation, I wondered: what was the right way for them to behave in rehearsal? I remembered my fellow composition students swapping stories about needing to show the musicians whoās boss, ideally by pointing out a wrong note in the middle of a complex texture, before they took you seriously. Despite the bravado, this usually didnāt happen. Like many young composers, Louillarpprasert stayed mostly quiet. A musician said to him, āI know what youāre asking for, I just donāt think I can really do it,ā and he accepted without trying to rebut her. (Though that comment is still better than the response to a request I once heard in an airline bureaucracy: āWe donāt understand what you want but itās not possible.ā) At one point, the conductor, the percussionist, and the composer engaged in a three-way discussion about the articulation of a passage played with brushes. Wolfgang Rihm, the composer and mentor at the Seminar, got involved briefly, telling Louillarpprassert, āIām your lawyer now.ā The musicians wanted to move on; instead, they rehearsed the passage again in detail. I started this interview off by asking Rihm about that moment.
VAN: To what extent can you help young composers in their interactions with musicians in the ensemble?
Wolfgang Rihm: Itās limited, of course. In [Louillarpprassertās] case, I realized that he was trying to express something that otherwise would have been forgotten in the course of the rehearsal. Thatās why I stepped in there. Sometimes young composers are too shy and they donāt articulate their thoughts, and other times they interrupt while too many other things are going on. If youāre a composer yourself, then youāll know that some people are just naturally talented and quickly get a handle on the situation. Others can be just as talented, but more reserved, and they donāt always share the knowledge they haveāthereās something careful about them. Sometimes whether you put yourself right out there or stay in the background depends on the culture you come from, too.
Those kinds of interactions take practice.
Of course they do. I remember, when I started working with musicians, around the ages of 18, 19, 20, I was barely capable of saying anything to them! And you never know if what you want to say is even going to be right.
At the rehearsals I saw for the Composer Seminar, the focus was mostly on small details. What can young composers learnāaesthetically and artistically, rather than technicallyāfrom this process?
Detail work is the most important kind. Thatās what makes a rehearsal a rehearsalānot doing a run through and then saying, See you at the concert. This idea of the virtuoso conductor doesnāt get you anywhere. It just leads to sloppiness, to use Gustav Mahlerās words. Detail work makes it possible for the musicians, and the composer, to grasp the essence of the piece. The core of the essence, even: the way itās built, the way itās shaped. As a young composerāand now, as an old composer. [Laughs.] It was always of utmost importance for me to work on details in rehearsal, so that I could make decisions that affected the whole later on.
Thereās no point in playing it by ear, letting the performers improvise the details. The ability to improvise is something that lies within us, itās the substance of what you need when you approach a workāthe foundation of everything. But it has nothing to do with the realization of a work. Any realization comes from the exactitude of the details. You have to be able to improvise, but the piece doesnāt.

At times it seemed to me like the composers werenāt sure how a certain nuance should be played. Do you expect them to have a concrete vision from the first rehearsal, or should they be able to decide after theyāve heard it?
Take Gustav Mahler for example: after every rehearsal of a movement from one of his symphonies, heād go back and change practically everything. Even the mastersāyou can recognize them by the fact that theyāre constantly working on the details. Thatās something where a lot of concertgoers have the wrong idea, I think.
Details are what make the whole come together. Theyāre not just a necessary evil or a kind of bureaucratic paper-pushing beneath the musical phrase. They are what makes the music breathe. If you look at a Mozart score, youāll notice how exact his articulations are. The breath results from the precision of the details, not from leaving things open-ended. To repeat: open-endedness is an attitude. You have to have that. But detail work is what makes it possible. When you happen to be rehearsing a piece thatās never been performed before, and you say, Letās go back and try another dynamic, in order to realize your ideaāthat shows that youāre aware of the problems that come up. Thatās just the flip side of a composerās craft, donāt you think? And so the best people have suggestions at their fingertips. Many young composers donāt have that. But a young composer with a certain mastery of craft will have ideas of what to try, so that a given detail becomes an essential part of the whole.
I noticed that the composers mostly discussed dynamics and volume with the ensemble, rather than pitch, rhythm, or articulation. Why is that?
It probably has to do with the fact that these things have a significant effect on a performanceās plasticity. The relative dynamics within an ensemble are something that I have to correct a lot in rehearsals too. Iāll notice that Iāve emphasized one group too much and that itās outplaying another; but Iāll want the listener to hear the different layers. You either have to change the dynamics, or tell the musicians where to come forward and where to hang back. Which is basically something that classical conductors do in every rehearsal. These days, say a group is rehearsing a Haydn Symphony, itās not like the conductor will just beat time throughoutātheyāll work on the details, too.
I used to go to a lot of rehearsals with Abbado. And I used to hear Celibidache rehearse. Whenever I had the chance, I went to their rehearsals and I learned how to work with different phenomena of sound. Thatās why the dynamics often prove decisive: they shape the plasticity of what Iād the call the sound object.
In interviews, you often speak of your need to protect your time from extramusical responsibilities. In the era of the smartphone, is it possible to teach this to young composers?
I donāt want to teach it. For people who feel like they want to protect their composing time, Iāll stand by their side and encourage them to do so. For people who donāt want to, Iām not going to force them. There are plenty of composers out there who blossom when theyāre under pressure. Some live as virtuoso performers, as conductors, as concert presenters, and I think thatās wonderful.
For me that would be problematic, though. Iāve always suffered when people take my time away from me. Iām suffering now, but Iām suffering happilyādoes that make sense?
Do the composers of the Seminar have things in common with one another musically?
The great thing is that in the broadest sense Iām seeing a generation of individuals. Theyāre not all following a dogma. Itās something I find very satisfying. Ever since I started teaching, Iāve always tried to make it clear to each person that they need find their individuality, and not adhere to any kind of aesthetic ideology. Aesthetic ideologies, aesthetic norms, and aesthetic conventions are there to be questioned. Become the person you are inside. Itās an old saying, but itās actually my pedagogical ideal.

You had one week of individual lessons with the participants of the Composer Seminar. How much can you achieve in such a short span of time?
Hereās what itās like. First of all, weāre together for more than a week: there are the rehearsals, and in the first week it was mostly about getting to know one another. Each person had an hour and a half. Each of the 12āit sounds so biblicalāhad time to do a presentation. Some people presented their theoretical thinking. Some played their music and talked about their lives. Others took one piece and discussed the way it was made. Still others talked about plans they hadnāt realized yet. So it was very different from person to person.
And then we had individual encounters, private lessons, if you want to call them that. They took place in the afternoons, and I was able to have more or less personal conversations with each student. Some people react to that kind of thing right away, and others need more time. Itās always different. That confirms what Iāve experienced at the Conservatory in Karlsruhe, where I teach. There are only individuals, and thatās good news.
It used to be different: I always felt that there was this phalanx of people who were all doing the exact same thing. Obviously, that kind of person doesnāt want to come study with me. I attract the kind of people who are trying to find themselves. [Laughs.]
Do you know the feeling of disappointment when a section doesnāt come out sounding as youād planned?
Yes. I know that from my own work. In all kinds of ways. Sometimes in rehearsal weāll be working on a detailāhere we are, back to talking about detailsāand there will only be a couple instruments and Iām thinking, This is fantastic. But then unfortunately the other instruments join in again, and the detail disappears. Or, Iāll want something with pressure, with a kind of underlying violence, and Iāll realize that Iām only halfway there. Things like thatāI know them well.
I donāt know though, I mean, composition is something that has to do with the empiricism of experience. Itās not something where thereās a theory that helps you make decisions. Itās a new experience every time. Whatās right in this hall today could be wrong tomorrow. Performers of classical music know that, too.
Of the pieces that were performed on August 27 in Lucerne, some you had only known through the scores that applicants sent in. Were there any major surprises in how they sounded?
Really major surprises in terms of, āOuch, that sounds terrible, I thought that would be better,ā or, āAmazing, that looked terrible on the page and sounded…ā No, that didnāt happen. [Laughs.] But I was trying to make sure that every detail supported the perception of the composers as individuals. If I noticed that a music was based on accented attacks, than I tried to work on that aspect with him or her. And if I noticed that another piece was all about the flow of the line, the way it revealed itself, that I tried to focus on that too.
Iām not a conductor, but in this case I was a kind of mentor, a figure in the background. And thatās a good thing. ¶
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