Grundman has a long-standing relationship with the Brodsky String Quartet and wrote On Blondes and Detectives (Cliche Music for String Quartet) for them in 2012, and this work was awarded first place in the instrumental category of the International Song Writing Competition.
In Mortuis Resurgere is composed in a single movement, but the work was imagined in three parts: the Gospel, the Creed and the celebration or Hosanna. Grundman begins the piece where Haydn finishes off, with the earthquake, imagining a cloud of dust shrouding the sunlight.
What made you choose Haydn's Seven Last Words as the starting point for your new piece?
"There
is at present no tradition in Spain of attending concerts of sacred
music in churches, so I wanted to do my bit by helping to create a
string quartet to play in such places. We were however allowed only
to programme religious compositions. Haydn’s Seven
Last Words of Christ on the Cross
is one work with Spanish roots, of which maestro José Peris Lacasa
made a version with soprano, with the idea of offering a concert on
two successive days, so I thought it might be right to continue where
Haydn left off - but of course in my style."
Are
you religious, are you interested in the religious dimension to
Haydn's work and does your new piece have a religious dimension?
"I
am Catholic and so a believer. I believe in the God who created us
and who accompanies us always, at every moment we breathe, in any
action we take or do not take. That does not mean that He governs us.
Just that He accompanies us. He is joyful when we are happy. Or sad
when solitude seizes us. He gave us life. But so that we would use it
the best way possible. And the best way possible is not for us but
for others. That religious dimension does not coincide exactly with
Haydn’s vision, but it is the one I have tried to make present in
each of the emotions I try to describe with music in the oratorio."
"In
fact, the Gospels are absolutely impersonal, the verses merely
relating the facts in very short phrases, devoid of the soul and
feeling those involved might have felt. It could not be any other way
if the desire was to present a historical and truthful fact. However,
when Christians read the Gospels, they do imagine the suffering and
the mystery of religion. It is to me odd that, in musical terms,
Christ’s Resurrection has not been the subject of such wide-ranging
musical inspiration as the Passion. Yet it is the base of the
Catholic religion. Not the fact of the death but of the return to
life from among the dead: A
Mortuis Resurgere. Thus
I used those three words, taken directly from the Gospels in Latin,
as the work’s title."
"This
aspect was of vital importance throughout the composition process. I
wanted the message to reach non-believers as much as believers. It
might in principle seem easier to transmit emotionalism to a
non-believer, because he or she has no reference or prejudice
concerning the Gospels. But for those who do believe, I had to seek a
balance between the words of the Gospels and the emotive music
describing the events related there."
Did
it worry you, attempting to follow on from on of the greatest of all
composers for the string quartet, writing in the same medium?
"Of
course it did. But I had an additional edge: the human voice. Were I
to make some point about Haydn’s immortal work, it would be how
faithful it is to the neutral spirit of the Gospels. It was not after
all a work for performance in independent movements following the
introduction of each of the last words by the Bishop. As Haydn
himself indicated in the preface to the 1801 choral version, his
score had to submit to those conditions and he feared tiring the
audience. It was in other words music to fill in the pauses in the
discourse."
"My
work on the other hand is structured in a single movement, albeit in
an uninterrupted three-part structure: the Gospels, the Credo and the
Hosanna. And, if it may be said, the concern you raise in your
question was two-fold. Two-fold in attempting to continue Haydn’s
work, and because an hour of music in Latin, without a break, might
tire an audience. Thus, and given that I had just a string quartet
and a voice at my disposal, they would have to alternate and form a
whole as the work developed."
What
sort of reaction would you like the new piece to have on your
audience?
"On
the one hand, I would be pleased if, after hearing the work, the
audience has a feeling of hope. That would mean that the Gospel
message got through. On the other if, after a first hearing, they
wished to hear the piece again, this would mean that I was able to
avoid the sensation of fatigue, but that at the same time a work
based on a question all of us humans ask (Where do we go after
death?) is able to reach the listener’s heart."
The
piece is described as being written for churches, with a long
acoustical reverberation. How did this affect the way that you wrote
the piece and how will listeners experience this?
"It
is easy for a Catholic to discover how, without the necessary
amplification, church acoustics are not kind to a text. The
intelligibility of the word is something still to be dealt with. On
the other hand, it proves very good for music if the tempo is very
slow and dynamics are properly controlled. In general terms, if you
know how the reverberation works, it can be incorporated into the
musical writing."
"So,
if a reverberation time is known to last about six seconds, the sound
of a crotchet lasting one second (crotchet = 60 in 4/4) will extend
until the seventh second. By matching it harmonically with what
happens at that point with the first crotchet, it is possible to
build chords which will provide the desired sonority. Moreover, the
use of repeating quaver designs at middle pitches in the strings also
creates a texture where harmonics can be highlighted on certain high
notes in the violin."
"At
the same time, if the voice dynamics are controlled, with crescendos
regulated from several bars earlier, the effect created eventually
envelopes the audience, which does not just hear the fortissimo but
continues to hear that crescendo."
Does
the piece relate to any of your other works, or is it a new
direction?
"The
work was a challenge for me as I tend to write compositions in a
single movement, and did not know if an audience would endure a whole
hour sung in Latin without tiring. Had the score been orchestral,
with more writing and sonorous resources, I would have been to do
more with a string quartet and voice. However, I am ultimately highly
satisfied with the result, which I think will offer me much for the
new works I will confront. But I felt great fear in trying to inject
emotion into the Gospels rather than into a tale of my own invention.
I hope that such emotion will be understood in the context of the
friendship, admiration and devotion shown in the Apostles, and the
way Mary Magdalene felt for Jesus Christ."
What
other new pieces do you have planned?
"I
am currently engaged in an adaptation for an opera on the masterpiece
of the Spanish writer Miguel Delibes: “Cinco Horas con Mario”
(Five Hours with Mario) led precisely by Susana Cordón, with stage
direction by Emilio Sagi. I am also working on some elegies for solo
violin and have been asked by an Australian duo for a violin and
piano work before the end of this summer."
You
write relatively tonal, consonant music. Is your present style
affected at all by your background in popular music?
"I
am not sure. I rather think it is influenced by the music I have
heard throughout my life. Every day I listen to an hour of music I
have never heard before - or at least I try to. That way I discover
new composers, and revel in the discovery. I have done that virtually
since I was 30 and am now nearly 53. Many are unknown to the Spanish
and I have managed to get their works programmed. For example, it
seemed to me incomprehensible that Gerald Finzi’s Romance for
Violin and String Orchestra should never have been performed in
Spain. Not to mention Michael Hurd’s Sinfonia Concertante or works
by Howard Blake or James Whitbourn. Whenever I discover a work, I
want to share it with all music-lovers. I have done that until now,
by premiering them. And I hope to continue to have the energy and
financial resources to do so."
If
you had to describe you style, how would you do so?
Consonant
music, I think. However, not just given its harmonic sense, but
because it attunes the composer – me in this case – to the
performer and the audience. Nothing needs explaining. I do however in
addition try to make it moving. I think this aspect of music is
greatly neglected at present.
You
were classically trained at the Madrid Royal Conservatory and then
went into popular music. How did your present style of writing come
about?
I
believe from life itself, an evolution in they way I am, until
finding how to express myself and share my emotions with those
wishing to hear the works I write. At any point in our lives, our
personality is forged by our experiences until that time. And the
question always arises, what if I hadn’t? …will I continue to be
the same today? The question could be about whether one always
remains the same until the moment of death. I do not believe so. And
it may also be because I have lost my entire family: my parents and
my brother. I am the only one left in that family branch. That is a
traumatic experience and must surely be reflected in my attempt to
move people. However, I also suffer the lack of solidarity. And
whenever I can help, I do all I can.
Often
the music I compose has provided a vehicle to explain a humanitarian
problem which Doctors Without Borders or Medicus Mundi, with whom I
have long collaborated, offering concerts to collect funds, have
sought to resolve.
Which
living composers do you admire?
This
question makes me a little uncomfortable. I do not wish to appear
either erudite or odd, and it may be that the names I mention are
unfamiliar to many readers. At least in my country, I seem to speak
in strange words … The fact is that given the amount of music I
hear, there are many. But some are friends, with whom I correspond
regularly. I will mention some names, with links so that people may
understand and appreciate that admiration, not in order of
preference, but rather as I remember them: Vahktang
Kakhidze (Piano Concerto http://youtu.be/EfT3N6tYsN0);
Georgs Pelecis (Flowering Jasmine http://youtu.be/dkhukhITcm8);
Valentin Silvestrov (Farewell http://youtu.be/ssIOHVYjXzI);
Giya Kancheli (Styx http://youtu.be/MsY3njTcIRI);
Marjan Mozetich (Affairs from the Heart http://youtu.be/wWc62xO2O2c);
Michael Torke (Mojave http://youtu.be/hnhFYs1k5UM)
or the marvellous Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin (Village
Idiot http://youtu.be/1JVqUYztQ1U).
I think these links will provide enjoyment to many. At least they
make me envious that I did not write the music myself.
What
are your greatest influences when writing a new piece of music?
I
have always admired Richard Strauss, perhaps the composer of whom the
greatest number of works impress me. But also Sergei Rachmaninov or
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky. Yet I cannot be sure whether my notes come
close to even the most modest of their crotchet silences. I would
hope that their influence is significantly present in everything I
write.
What
is your favourite piece of music?
I
do not, in fact, have just one particular favourite, but rather four.
I fell in love with the music which flowed from the violin of Yehudi
Menuhin, explaining Mendelssohn's E Minor Violin Concerto to kids.
And I grew up listening to Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.
However, for me, two works of similar flavour yet completely
different, are of incalculable value: Richard Strauss’s
Metamorphosen and Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night.
- Father and Daughter: Songs and trios by Andrzej & Roxanna Panufnik - CD review
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- Young Artists at Opera Holland Park: Il barbiere di Siviglia - Opera review
- Back to the Future: Tallis Scholars in Taverner - CD review
- The voice and the lens: Spitalfields Summer Music Festival - concert review
- Duet perfection: Handel Duetti da Camera - CD review
- A voice not enough: A further encounter with Nelly Miricioiu - interview
- Four Quarters: Aurora in Ades - concert review
- Sparkling: Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau, Les Arts Florissants - CD review
- A night at the museum: Spitalfields Summer Music Festival - concert review
- Commemorating the Great War: London English Song Festival - concert review
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