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An Interview
by Benoît Dorion
 
(This interview was done before the première of the composer’s Guitar Sonata, commissioned by the
Montreal Guitar Society for a concert in the spring of 1997.)
 
B.D. You started piano lessons at age 7; later, at age 21 you became interested in the organ.
What attracted you to that instrument?
 
A.B. Mainly the desire to play Bach on the organ. I was trained rst as a pianist. I was very motivated as
a child and I even had a formal début concert when I was about 18, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. A few
years later, a friend insisted I go with him to try out the rst modern tracker organ made here by
Casavant. I had no acquaintance with such instruments; my only knowledge at the time was of the
thick, heavy romantic organ sound, which didn’t appeal to me. I played the Casavant, and was seduced
by the lovely clear sound, and the possibility of playing Bach. Eventually I took organ lessons, rst with
Dom André Laberge and then with Bernard Lagacé.
 
Did playing the organ lead you to improvisation?
 
No, I was already improvising before that. Having started the piano very young, I got into the habit of
exploring at the keyboard. Today, I use improvisation as a source of ideas for composition. Ideas do not
always come easily, so improvisation allows me to save up a reservoir of ideas, taking note of anything I
 nd interesting in my sketchbook. When I started using a computer sequencer in my composition in
1986-7, it was still a rather new tool. I tried using superimposed successive improvisations in my
electroacoustic piece Adagio II, which remains one of my favorite works. The computer made it possible
to record the improvisations and then to edit them, re ning and correcting as needed where the music
was not convincing to me as initially played. In an improvisation, there are usually uneven patches, and
the computer allowed me to combine spontaneity with the re nement I demand of a nished piece. All
this is possible of course because I was at ease with the keyboard very young; I am de nitely a
composer who writes at the keyboard!
 
Who were the composers who inspired your rst compositions? Which pieces?
 
I started composing at around 8 or 9 years old. My interests then turned mainly around the piano
repertoire, in particular the standard concertos by Beethoven, Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Schumann.
These pieces impressed me so much that by age 12 I had written three concertos myself! Of course at
that time I had no craft; I did have ideas, but I had no notion of what to do with them. It was only at age
17 that I began to acquire the necessary technical skills, mainly studying with the late Marvin Duchow,
which allowed me to begin composing with some genuine métier. At that point I discovered Berg and
Mahler, who for a while in uenced me quite a lot. And nally, during my doctoral studies at Juilliard my
teacher David Diamond introduced me to the American school of symphonists, which really
corresponded well to my own inclinations. Although I like many kinds of music, the main in uences on
my mature style are mostly twentieth century symphonists like Sibelius and Nielsen and the Americans.
 
You were a founder and the director of the Composer’s Concert Society. Can you tell us about
this society?
 
The original idea was simply to form a small group of composers and to get our music played. For three
seasons, we presented two or three concerts a year, of which several were broadcast by the CBC. It
worked out quite well, and allowed us to promote our work and to organize concerts which would have
been very di cult to arrange individually. However, the group was very small, and the work fell
regularly to the same few people. Nonetheless, it was a good idea and the experience was valuable.
 
You have a doctorate in composition from the Juilliard School in New York. Did your teachers
David Diamond and Elliott Carter in uence your writing style, and if so, in what way?
 
Of course. First of all, just the fact of being accepted to this very selective school and having access to a
high level of professionalism and to teachers who were major artists was very satisfying for me. I was
looking for people who could help me acquire a very re ned level of craftsmanship. I realized very
young that talent without craft still leaves you an amateur. Since I have always loved the orchestra,
Juilliard, with its ve orchestras available to read student composers’ music, especially at that time
when computer simulation of the orchestra was still impossible, was a real pleasure. So the availability
of the orchestras, good teachers who put a strong emphasis on craft – these were the things I liked at
Juilliard.
 
Can you describe your preferred listener?
 
Someone who likes music, new music, and without stylistic prejudices. Someone who goes to a concert
with a certain openness of spirit to enjoy a musical experience, which, in the case of my music, emerges
from our musical tradition. I want my music to express something personal and I want people to make
the connection with the tradition in listening to it. In general, I prefer it when my pieces are placed in
mixed programs, including music the audience already knows, and not just new music.
 
When you compose, what impressions do you want to communicate to your listeners.
 
Certainly, to have an emotional impact. When I compose I put as much of my own emotion as possible
into the work. Also I hope people will recognize that the music is well crafted. But the best compliment
anyone can give me is to say that they found my music beautiful and moving.
 
You are the author of six symphonies. What do you enjoy in writing for orchestra?
 
Obviously the immense color, the scope, the possibility of going to extremes: extreme loudness,
softness. Also, there is something moving in seeing a hundred people working together towards the
same creative goal. In a passage with a lot of momentum, a crescendo, the orchestra has an impressive
strength that no individual can achieve. The orchestra lends itself to large forms, and for me, writing
major works for orchestra is an intellectual and emotional challenge which I nd very satisfying.
 
Your music is often rich in ideas, contains many changes, contrasts and textures. How do you tie
it all together?
 
This is an important point, often poorly understood. We are talking here of the intersection of two
ideas: unity and movement. For me, music is movement in sound. And to put sounds into movement
(and I owe this attitude to Carter), the rst requirement is that one thing ow into another. The art of
creating this coherence is essentially that of making transitions, of linking, and there is a real art to this
process, which comes back to the Latin root of the word compose – componere: “putting things
together”. Sometimes I hear music with good ideas, but where the connections are unsatisfactory. This
is a subject which interests me a lot, and which is the focus of a little book I am writing on the craft of
composition. A large part of this book is given over to what I call the “sense of form”, which in my
opinion is the hardest thing to acquire as a composer.
 
What are your criteria for a successful work?
 
First, it must show technical re nement. And that means that all the details must bring out the
expressive intentions in a coherent way. For example, if a passage is supposed to be strong or noble in
character, and if the instruments are used in their dullest registers, the e ect will not be what was
desired.
 
Beyond that, I want the piece to take me on an emotional voyage, with a large range of feeling. In other
words, I think a work should carry the listener along an interior exploration, and this exploration can
include detours, various interesting places, which should seem inevitable without being predictable.
 
What do you aim for in teaching composition?
 
The most important thing a teacher can give a student is the knowledge of what to ask of himself. You
can’t give someone a style or a language, but you can make them aware of what demands they should
make on themselves.
 
In your classes, students participate a lot. How do you teach writing skills in a group setting?
 
Easy! Ask questions! If there is one thing in which I believe in teaching, it is the old Socratic method:
teach with questions and not with answers. There is a kind of professor who gives a nice talk without
stopping for a couple of hours, until the students fall asleep! The idea is not to have an active teacher
and a passive student, but to have both active. And nothing stimulates students more than asking
questions. You have to avoid giving the answers before making the students feel the necessity of the
questions. There is an analogy between teaching and composition: the rst thing a composer has to do
is to create interest at the start of the piece. There is a certain rhythm to it, you have to create some
suspense before giving the answers.
 
What was your rst contact with the guitar?
 
About 10 years ago, Peter McCutcheon commissioned a solo guitar piece from me. We worked together
on the piece, “Voices”. He lent me several recordings of guitar works so that I could get to know other
things than the standard Spanish repertoire, for example the beautiful “Nocturnal”, by Britten.
 
You de ne yourself as a symphonist; how do you approach writing for an intimate instrument
like the guitar? Do you still feel expressively free?
 
I de ne myself as a symphonist, but I don’t write only symphonies; I also write chamber music and
music for solo instruments. It is true that if I had unlimited access to an orchestra, I would probably
write more often for orchestra than for smaller ensembles. But that said, I still enjoy the challenge of
writing something on a smaller scale.
 
How would you describe your Sonata, commissioned by the Montreal Guitar Society?
 
Since my rst guitar piece, “Voices”, was lyrical and rather impressionistic, I wanted the Sonata to be
di erent: I tried to achieve more dramatic opposition. It is not a classical sonata, but it does respect the
basic sonata principle, that is to say the placing together of contrasting ideas which then evolve
together – rather like a novel, where various characters with certain types of interaction are seen in
di erent situations. And we get to know the characters partly through their reactions to one another.
This piece is a sonata with three themes, developed and then recapitulated with changed characters. It
is rather energetic, with a lot of momentum and a toccata-like aspect.
 
What is required to play this piece well?
 
What I want to hear is that the work not only be well played from a technical point of view, but also that
it communicate emotionally. And to do that, the key word is: character! The contrasts need to be well
de ned, each section needs to have its own feel, the overall momentum must be respected, it needs
brio and re!

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