Peter Wiegold - Wednesday 18 November 2009

Peter Wiegold’s interest in collaboration is focussed in the question of communication between performing musicians and a creative leader.

He first discussed his song for counter-tenor and piano, A Cause for Wonder. He showed the score which includes opportunities for performer interpretation, including ‘decoration’ and graphic notation.

A moment of particular interest is the phrase ‘Born of maid mary’, heard twice on a single f sharp. The second iteration is freer than the first and the choices that the performer makes are of great coloristic and expressive interest. Peter Wiegold comments, ‘I love it, but you shouldn’t write it down – he’ll do it differently next time’. This creates a new richness. It opens the door – the singer can own it and ‘feel respected’.

Peter Wiegold sees three ways of approaching or seeing composition.
1. The authority of the text. Vertical. Absolute.
2. Open. Democratic. Horizontal. Relative.
3. ‘Third Way’. Line from the centre from which you can spin off.

He argues that this ‘third way’ is not new. It is the basis of cantus firmus composition – a line at the centre from which multiple possibilities can proceed. He sees it as typical of African traditional music, of Miles Davis’s constructions of music from a strong centre.

He sees in Brian Ferneyhough’s music and Steve Reich’s music a commonality: the fixity and lack of room for interpretation. ‘Only since Monteverdi’ has western music been in this condition. Mistakes have no value in Steve Reich. Mistakes can be productive: if you make a mistake, play it again (Miles Davis).

The score is not dead: but it has relative, not absolute value. Before Monteverdi’s time, players who departed from the text were more highly esteemed.

In theatre, there are techniques for developing work which are truly collaborative. Collaboration needs work though. It questions how you hear, and how you express yourself.

The composer must embody what they want; an image; a timbre. Invoke, don’t describe. Avoid 19th Century infantilisation of the performer, beholden to the text. A more adult relation is wanted now.

Bjorn Heile (Head of Dept, Music) commented: ‘in your culture, scores are central; isn’t that different from Ellington, for example, who wasn’t concerned with score production at all’.

Peter Wiegold responded, ‘I’m not sure I’m operating in that culture.’

Peter Wiegold described his collaboration with the National Youth Orchestra. He wrote ‘60%’ of the score in advance, lived with them for a week, and produced a collaborative performance, performed by the ensemble from memory. The work/performance was entitled Bow-Wave, and was premiered in the Roundhouse, London, on 9 January 2009.

Working with his ensemble notes inegales, Peter Wiegold has developed sophisticated strategies for working with top new music players wishing to explore new expressive possibilities for combining notation with structured improvisation. Influenced in part by Frank Zappa, there are signals for harmonising, repetition and solo. The ensemble is a special resource, capturing the essence of western music and invigorating it with new forms of living, creative expression.