From Opera To The Symphonic

The orchestra as a large canvas

I am totally in love with orchestral music. During my singing career I performed in some of the world's loveliest opera houses in mainland Europe with full orchestra. This became a powerful influencer. A peak experience was singing the mezzo solo in Mahler 3 at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Standing centre stage in front of the orchestra was intoxicating. No wonder then that as a composer I eagerly wanted to compose for full orchestra. The opportunity was there for the taking since these years of European singing work blessed me with swathes of free time to compose. Opera rehearsals move at a glacial speed and performances are spaced out with many free days between. In addition, being away from home meant that I was free of domestic duties. However these long solitary sojourns in cities such as Strasbourg, Ghent and Vienna also me feel very lonely and the intensity of overwhelming grief sometimes led me to an abyss. My analyst supported me through these years with great friendliness, humour and a healthy dose of anarchy. Ultimately, though, it was because of our detailed discussions about music that I conceived of the idea of expressing all this emotion through music of a large scale worked through the canvas of an orchestra. Naively, fearlessly and hopefully over this course of 15 years I composed four symphonies.

 Ghent at night

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: An unexpected composer of symphonies

Also during this period I attended advanced composition classes with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington Summer school. Surprisingly he proved to be a champion of the concept of the symphony despite the fact that this terminology had been replaced in most 20th century works with evocative titles such as Atmosphères by Varèse, Grüppen by Stockhausen or Offertorium by Gubaidulina. However, Max believed that using the term symphony as an overall definition was valid. After all 'novel' is used as a generic term to encapsulate many forms of the written word so why not in a similar way use symphony? Perhaps the label was dropped because post-WW2 composers didn't wish to be confined to the straight jacket of traditional expectations. However a quick examination reveals that the vast body of symphonic works rarely conform to this either so I am with Max on this one. 

Stepping up to the covid crisis as a composer

For the last eight years I focussed on composing operas as part of my practice-based academic research. But now with the current restraint on live performances (performances of my opera Artemisia and my commission FAST for Spitalfields Festival are postponed), I feel inspired to release and re-visit the symphonic canvas that I so passionately engaged with during my singing years. The current crisis has inevitably led us all at times into dark tragic places. We all have a connection to someone who had been touched by a premature and often unnecessary CoVid death. It is pretty horrific and we continue to be confronted with deep uncertainty. On a personal level I feel the need during this period to explore the dark forces that drive mankind to ignore the value to all of creating a fairer society and dealing with climate change. Now unexpectedly with a totally free summer I have started sketches for The Red Book  or in effect a 5th symphony. The unexpected ignition for this project began a few weeks ago when the poet and psychologist Graham Mummery bought the CD of my 2nd symphony Memories, Dreams, Reflections. He very kindly reflected back to me such a deep understanding of what I had compositionally been trying to achieve that I felt the stirrings of wanting to re-engage with the symphonic medium. Since my latest private passion has been exploring the concept of active imagination in Jung's recently released magnum opus The Red Book I decided to use this subject as a starting point. More on that later, first I want to explain my symphonic approach so far.

Contemplating a return to symphonic composition 

Placing my work within the field of symphonic composition

Firstly I want to contextualise how I am influenced in my orchestral composition by the composers that have gone before and in particular Bruckner. The sheer vastness and complexity of emotional range in his symphonies reveals a vulnerable autobiography of nuanced eddies of hope and despair. Reflected is not only his personal life but a thread that connects his experience to all of us. In his 3rd symphony there is a hope that confidently intends to find the love of his life. However by symphonies 7 and 8 this optimism has transformed to resignation, stoicism and deep tragedy. Bruckner never found a wife, perhaps because his expectations were unrealistic. In some sense the grandiosity of the symphonies reveals Bruckner's lack of connection to reality and yet it is this very facet that evokes our deepest compassion for the Universal loss of high hopes. If you listen to the recent recording of Bernard Haitink at 90 conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Bruckner 7 you can feel the pathos of composer and conductor. Languishing beneath the sensibility of intricate Viennesy counterpoint festers an overwhelming, unresolvable anguish. It is these difficulties that speak to our deepest humanity.  

Bernard Haitink conducts Bruckner 7 with the Berliner Philhamonic 2019 

On the titling of contemporary symphonic works
 

I already mentioned the fashionable titling of today's orchestral compositions to avoid using the term 'symphony'. This shift is also reflected by changes in subject matter which tend to focuss on external landscapes or events, such as Finnissy's Red Earth or Birtwistle's Earth Dances. Both are great works however in line with the ideas of symphonists I find myself drawn to reflect internal soulful landscapes through the medium of music. My predilection may be fuelled by composing opera which is the king of high drama, especially the expression of dark thoughts or as Jung would say, the bringing up of the shadow. Interestingly the drama of an opera is often most effective when it is manifested as a musical concept rather than solely relying on the voice. A good example of the power of the orchestra alone is in the transitional orchestral interlude leading from scene one to scene two in Wagner' Parsifal.

The beginning of the transition music leading into scene II of Wagner's Parsifal

Commissioning: The final frontier?

Now I can almost hear you at this point (if you are still reading) suggesting that to compose a symphony is a pretty unrealistic, even foolhardy activity, unless there is a commission or a performance involved. Indeed on numerous occasions my mother used to illuminate me of this harsh fact, call me stubborn but it never stopped me! Instead what if a work requires to exist in its own right? Should composers be a hostage to fortune and merely find themselves defined by what others, i.e. commissioners, allow them to compose? In contrast the highly individual composer Charles Ives freely created music letting the process lead him where it would. He resolved his income stream by selling insurance and we all know that Van Gough only ever sold one painting and that was to his brother. Speaking as a composer it feels as though now too much reverence and provenance is invested in commissioned work. At the time I began my symphonic quest I was well paid by opera houses as a singer so like Ives I was at liberty to take a risk. Fortunately getting my music played happened sooner than I expected as the middle movement of my 1st symphony Hokusai Says made it to the finals of a composing competition organised by Annegret Lang in Vienna. As a result South Wind at Clear Dawn was performed and recorded with soprano Eileen Hulse. The text was sourced from the Hui Ming Ching (book of Consciousness and Life) by Liu Hua-yang. 

The CD can be purchased from this link 

http://www.selfmademusic.co.uk/smmrecs.php

Click on the 5' video/audio link below to hear an extract of South Wind at Clear Dawn

https://vimeo.com/438857922

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The success of South Wind at Clear Dawn led on to composing my 2nd symphony Memories, Dreams, Reflections which is also recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic, an orchestra that, amazingly, Mahler once conducted. Through it I explore the deep emotions that Jung encountered when he split with Freud over the efficacy of their psychoanalytic theories. Shortly afterwards Jung had a heart attack which resulted in a near death out-of-body experience which he describes in the chapter Visions in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections. This evocative event provided the back bone for the symphony which is furnished with text from Jung and one of his deep influencers, the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu. The poet and psychotherapist Graham Mummery recently commented on listening to the symphony 

"The Lao Tzu parts remind me of Mahler's versions of Li Po in "Das Lied", though you've both done something of your own there. And the ending of Jung's finding "this life is a segment of existence" has to end in something different to Mahler's "Ewig... ewig...." and yet still make the listener make his/her own leap,  which you succeed in facilitating in the work. " 

Click on the link below to see a 3' Video extract of 3rd Movement: Reflections 

https://vimeo.com/438846740

You can order the full A3 score or an A4 perusal score from this link 

https://composersedition.com/susannah-self-memories-dreams-reflections/

The CD can be purchased from this link 

http://www.selfmademusic.co.uk/smmrecs.php

The Red Book

My intended new work The Red Book is again inspired by Jung, this time via his extraordinary cosmic writings which were only released by his estate in 2009. The giant facsimile is a wonder of publishing. In reality the real Red Book which I saw in Zurich some years ago is much smaller. However the overseer of the publication Sonu Shamdasani felt that it was such a magnum opus that when it is opened it should create an event or ceremony like opening a rare ancient bible. I have heard that people construct lecturns and create altars on which to place it.  

 Lament of the Dead

Held within The Red Book are Jung's deepest musings which are beautifully written out in neat calligraphy. This gives the work a gravitas reminiscent of monastic times. The metaphorical weight of the dense text sometimes gives way unexpectedly to abstract images which refer to mandalas or drawings in the round. The impact of these series of transforming images is sometimes so mind-blowing as to make me feel dizzy. This is a book which is not to be opened lightly as at its core is a radical idea that suggests that for mankind to really thrive psychically we need to engage with the whole history and culture of the dead.

An Internal Conversation 

The concepts behind Jung's momentous tome are discussed with a great deal of insight in a series of conversations between the famous American Psychologist James Hillman and Sonu Shamdasani who collated The Red Book. The relevance of these conversations are even more heightened because at the time Hillman knew he was approaching the end of his life. Hillman believed that the practice of psychology needs to change the World rather than solely focus on people's inner lives. This viewpoint in many ways coincides with The Red Book which features very little of what Hillman would describe as mummy and daddy issues, i.e. personal stuff. His concept of facing up to human sociological difficulties rather than personal pathologies resonates with what I see as the key issue of our current pandemic and World environmental crisis.

Segmentation and Focus

My orchestral work will explore only a segment of The Red Book. Using a slice of the cake approach is similar to the method I used to create my opera The Butt  based on a novel by Will Self. The Red Book is so densely packed that eventually I may make an extended series of works to follow, however for the moment I am resolved to merely engage with a segment. I am inspired by Stockhausen's idea of creating a gesamstkunstwerk such as his  Donnerstag aus Licht. For my 5th Symphony I will source material from the Liber Secundus  of The Red Book which in particular expresses Jung’s soul-searching through the imagery of an egg. Subjects in this section include:

Flood

The Desert

Descent into Hell in The Future

Murder of The Hero

Mysterium Encounter 

The Red One

The Castle in The Forest

Death 

The Opening of The Egg

"This was the night on which all dams broke" Jung: The Red Book, p.299. 

Much more I cannot say as the work now needs to be released and treated to a variety of my compositional processes which could be compared to an alchemical process in the sense that extraordinary and unexpected departures will occur. Also my methodology has changed considerably since I undertook advanced supervision with amazing composers such as Jeremy Thurlow and Richard Causton at Cambridge and Professor Joe Cutler, Dr Elizabeth Kelly, Errollyn Wallen MBE, Richard Ayres and Howard Skempton in Birmingham. Eight years have passed since I last composed for full orchestra so to prepare for re-entry I am undertaking a series pf provisional compositional exercises to generate mood-scapes and textures. I want to impregnate the compositional process with 5 using quintuplets and distorted cycles of fifths. It is fascinating how this number appears in nature such as in this exquisite patterned figure on a sand dollar which a friend gave me that she found on a beach in California.  

Exploring entrepreneurial methods to manifest the new symphony

To conclude as a composer I feel it is sometimes necessary for a composer to follow their own creativity, there is no better time for this than now. I would love to have an official commission to compose the Red Book but I am not going to let the lack of one stop me. You can call me crazy but Goethe's statement that "Boldness has greatness in it, do it now!" resonates. I could never have imagined that already nearly two of my symphonies would be so beautifully played and recorded. If this project interests you you can support it by buying one of my paintings (see below) in The Red Book series. Here are the first two paintings. Red Book: 4 x 4 ft oil on canvas , £1,000 and Field: 2 x 6 ft oil on canvas , £1,000. You can buy them from the following link. http://www.selfmademusic.co.uk/smmart.php 

   

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