Thomas Simaku Looks Forward to 2008

2008 marks Thomas Simaku's 50th Birthday. For many composers this time in life brings with it a period of reflection and a hiatus in writing. Not Simaku; he is writing more furiously than ever, with three substantial orchestral pieces recently completed.

Amongst this fervour, Philip Venables caught up with Thomas where he teaches in York.

PV: Hello Thomas! You've just returned from Cologne for the premiere of Insomnio, for the Insomnio ensemble. How was the trip?

TS: Travelling for a world premiere is always an exciting, nerve-wracking business and this one was no exception for me. In the end I was excited; the piece was very well received and was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk radio. Insomnio are a wonderful ensemble of young, passionate players of different nationalities. This piece was commissioned jointly by the Deutschlandfunk and the Insomnio Ensemble for the Forum für Neuer Musik 2007 in Cologne. They are performing the work at various festivals later this year and in 2008; they just did it at the Via Nova Festival on 11 April in Weimar.

PV: Tell us a little about Insomnio. Where has it taken you? Does it have any special relationship with particular previous pieces?

TS: Perhaps more than any other work of mine, this piece explores the drone-based type of linearity - a salient characteristic of the ancient East-European aura. There are no quotations from folk music here, or in any other work of mine, but heterophony, microtonal inflections, the instrumental virtuosity, the static quality of the music, as well as an array of gestures and quasi improvisational elements are incorporated in the overall idiom of the piece. The first-hand experience I had from working with folk musicians for three years in Tirana and listening to ancient songs in a remote town in Southern Albania near the border with Greece, were the first stimuli.

PV: What was it like for you as a composer in Albania in the eighties?

TS: Well, after graduating in Tirana I went to the little town of Permet, in the mountains bordering Greece. It felt like a dead-end at the beginning of my career! I felt like an internal exile, especially since the professors at the Conservatoire in Tirana wanted me to join the staff there, but my biography wasn't 'red' enough. None of my family was a member of the communist party. So, I could not even think of crossing the border - those who tried were killed. In an interview I gave for The Guardian when I first came to this country in 1991, I said that there was no medicine for such a terrible illness as Communism; and Albania was arguably the most repressive regime in the whole communist empire. So, I took refuge in composing, and soon realised that the folk music of the South, with its modal 'purity' and its intricate polyphonic and heterophonic textures, was extremely interesting and largely unexplored.

PV: Do you think this three-year experience has had an impact on your music?

TS: The impact, I guess, must have been on a subconscious level, but now I feel that resonances of that sound world are becoming part of my own music. With my recent trips to Northern Greece and Skopje I feel I am discovering an exciting musical triangle of three ancient cultures: Hellenic, Illyrian and Slavonic. What I am looking for is a meaningful relationship between modality and contemporary idioms, for I believe that the ancient spirit not only survives in our modern world but is capable of taking its rightful place in contemporary music.

PV: Recently you have completed three orchestral pieces (Hyllus, The Three-Arched Bridge and Arc-en-ciel for cello and orchestra) - do they have any connection with one another? Is there a message, musical or otherwise, in them? They're really a marvellous and substantial addition to your orchestral repertoire.

TS: Well, I think they are three different pieces, but if there is something that Hyllus and The Three-Arched Bridge have in common is the idea of a voyage in time in search of an expression where modern and ancient aspects of utterance, musical or otherwise as you put it, interconnect and complement each other. All three works are for full orchestra, but in Hyllus ('star' - in ancient Illyrian) there is an important part for the accordion and towards the end of the piece I focus exclusively on one single pitch hummed by the whole orchestra, alongside harmonics and bowed percussion. The Three-Arched Bridge is based on the novel by the same name by Ismail Kadare, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2005. I was a child when I first read Kadare and have been fascinated by his writings ever since. The work I composed is not programmatic music as such - there was no attempt to write a 'musical translation' of the book, as it were. Having said that, I think there are a number of stimuli drawn directly from Kadare's novel: the stones of this bridge (brass instruments, muted, open, and with bells-up); the water underneath and the sky above - the same in ancient and modern times (woodwinds, strings); the human sacrifice at the centre of it all. As far as Arc-en-ciel (a concerto for 'cello and orchestra) is concerned, it's all about space and colours, hence the title. The word 'Concerto' here is more of an 'agreement' between the soloist and the orchestra. The piece is in one continuous movement - a movement of 'spatial exploration', as it were, lasting about 15 minutes. It is this sense of suspense, I suppose, that attracts me. As I see it, an object radiates better from a distance and you can grasp all sorts of colours...

PV: Speaking of colours, I think what strikes the listener most immediately about your work is the strength of harmonic colours. I think 'Politiken' summed it up well by describing your work as 'tumultuous and glistening'. Of course, the orchestration is very evocative too, but I think it's the harmony that really underpins this strength. One of my favourite pieces in this respect is Plenilunio. Like many of your pieces, the chords in Plenilunio often seem to build up like clouds and then dissipate. I hear connections with similar ideas from Ligeti and from Berio's ideas about harmonic fields. Is this something you feel is important in your language? What's your secret?

TS: I am not going to tell you the secrets, because there aren't any. With each work I compose, I try to create a specific sonic profile based on the initial idea. You are right in mentioning Plenilunio here, for it was with this work, which I wrote in 1999, that I became consciously involved with the enormous possibilities of 'white modality'. Plenilunio (Full Moon) is the Italian version of a poem by the Greek poetess Sappho translated by Salvatore Quasimodo. In the piece I saw a real possibility of integrating modal elements into the overall chromaticism of my music and tried to create a special relationship, or, in Ligeti's words, a network of relationships, between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the music. I see the chordal structures in Plenilunio as signposts of a much bigger musical map and it is their local harmonic areas that I try to explore in linear terms. These specific chords appear at strategic points and I regard them as pillars of the overall design - in architectural terms, that is. They, I think, hold the whole musical edifice together. It's very interesting you mention Berio here - I have always enjoyed Berio's music. But in a wider sense I would say that at various stages in my composing career I have drawn from a number of composers whose music has made a strong impact on me: Debussy and Stravinsky, Berg and Webern, Boulez and Birtwistle, Lutoslawski and Kurtag. They have long been in my 'bible'. But if I had to mention just one composer, that would be Ligeti. His music of imagination has been more than an inspiration to me.

PV: Absolutely - he is a great inspiration. On that note, what are your plans for the future?

TS: I feel I am at a crucial point in my composing career and believe that I have much more to say - I will just compose, compose and compose… Here I guess I have a long way to go; in the words of a Japanese monk, composers retire the same day as they die. Thomas Simaku turns 50 in 2008. In celebration of this anniversary, UYMP is encouraging many more performances of his work. This anniversary will also coincide with the release of his debut solo CD: chamber music for strings released on Naxos records.