Wed 28 April: Martin Butler

Martin Butler, distinguished composer, and Professor of Music at Sussex University, gave a talk on the processes of collaboration and creative discovery in particular connection with his opera, A Better Place, and his work with ensemble notes inegales.

Nobody Likes a Control Freak

I want to speak about two examples of collaboration:
1. A Better Place - my opera commissioned by ENO Studio
2. Notes Inegales - my work in this ensemble which blurs the roles of composer and performer

I wrote an article for a book on Music and Collaboration which was never published. This addressed the following points in relation to A Better Place:

The process of collaboration in opera is complex and demanding; interested parties include composer, librettist, funder, producer.
Opera is costly; perhaps mired in bourgeois sensibilities; and yet it is still a valid art form in its special properties, which include the artificial telescoping of time, distinguishing it from song setting.
In this context, the composer is the first, and foremost, director.
The creation of the score requires a special kind of precision.
But there is then a responsibility in the production to be open to exigencies as they arise (i.e. more time/less time for action).
I was teamed up by ENO Studio with Cindy Oswin. To create something using the resources of ENO Studio.
We decided to invent the story through improvisation.
We began with actors.
We were interested in enquiring into the qualities of ghostliness.
Windows became important in the language of the piece.
Although I was initially unused to the lack of structure, I learnt to derive the material from the leading players.
The pacing, and musical ideas, came from this process.
A woman learns her husband has been killed.
She goes into denial.
'A Better Place for you'
She adopts two teenage refugees from a war zone.
She meets a male character, in some way the embodiment of the river her apartment overlooks, called Siward; he wants to get her to kill herself and almost succeeds.
Mary King was the singer for Suzanne in the workshops and developed a repertoire of musical gestures.
Because she has perfect pitch her vocal ideas always started from the same note (E).
This 'natural' gesture of descent I then developed into a constructed symmetrical structure, around a pitch centre of A flat. [example]
Meanwhile, the 'river' chord drowns, or contains, Siward. [example]
The musical examples in the session demonstrated:
(a) Suzanne reflecting on previous life; the links between formal compositional procedures and narrative. And
(b) The confluence of forces at the climactic part of the opera; the intertwining lines of orchestra and voices featuring the fundamental material (rising-River; falling-Suzanne)

Now I will describe my work with the ensemble Notes Inegales.
This is directed by Peter Wiegold who spoke earlier in this seminar series.
I play piano with this unusual group of hand-picked musicians.
As a performing member of the group I also compose, arrange and improvise.
We're interested in improvisation and notation, and the area in between.
Peter uses signals to direct the flow and the course of the performance.
I arranged Spanish Key from Bitches Brew.
Peter Wiegold 'transcribed' the playing style of Davis' trumpet sound.
My work with the ensemble is becoming important to wider compositional strategies.
It's important to know how a player will respond to material.
The ensemble's practice relates well to my long-standing practice of improvisation of musical material at the piano.
Working with the ensemble can imply differing levels of collaborative commitment.
A kind of loop arises in our process:
(1) Composer provides something
(2) Performers realise and transform the material
(3) Composer then has to respond to these results and work out a new strategy

Question from the floor: is Notes Inegales influenced by known/historic examples of improvising ensembles?
- Not really; we reflect on our own practice; not on others.

Comment from the floor: it seems there may be a field of probability; there may be a dialogue between determinism and chance? Or, more simply, just as Miles created the sound by picking the players, so does Peter Wiegold.