BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Prestigious Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin doesn’t take any piece of music as “the holy grail” – not even Bach. That’s why she improvised over his Two-Part Inventions with recorder player Genevieve Lacey, and together they created a new work tastefully titled Re-inventions. Kats-Chernin tells us what it’s all about in light of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s April performance of the work.
When did you first encounter the magic of Bach?
Probably when I was about seven. My mum was a musician as well as a doctor so we had a lot of piano music at home. I was hooked on Bach from the word go. I really liked the symmetry and the calmness of it. It always calms me down. Whenever I had trouble at school or with friends, I used to open a book of Bach and just play it, however badly. I had very small hands when I was growing up so I was always improvising around everything I saw. I found the clear lines of Bach very appealing.
Did it ever feel unnatural to re-invent a work by one of the masters?
I have no shame. I just go for it. I never took any piece of music as holy grail. I always thought it was only what composer wrote at that moment. Composer could have improvised on it and made many different choices. So I expect other people to improvise on my music too, it’s fine. It’s not exact science.
Do you ever feel that your own works are never really finished? Do you improvise over them, too?
Always. The process never finishes and often I revise pieces. I go back to them and think maybe it’s too long and I need to cut. Or I wish there’s a different chord, the balance of the instrument is better, then I change things. People should say ‘hands off’ a piece that’s already on a CD, but I will think this piece survives, goes on and has another life. I actually like revising pieces because it’s like visiting old friends.
Did you enjoy Bach while you were studying?
When I was in music college in Moscow, I was living with three other girls in a room. We had a piano and were all playing the same course. One of the tasks was to take a Bach fugue and play two voices and sing the third. So that trained us to hear and play at the same time. Sometimes we would just sing all three parts. That way you also grew to integrate the music into your body. First it was a task but then sometimes we did it just for fun. It was our little party entertainment!
So how did your Re-inventions first come about in 2004?
Genevieve Lacey asked me to write a piece for her and the Flinders String Quartet. She came over and we decided to do a jam session, just brain-storming. I was improvising on the piano and she was improvising on one of her many recorders. At one point, she played an F major arpeggio, which suddenly reminded me of the F major in the Two-Part Invention of Bach. There was a split moment which I’ll never forget where I said: ‘Genevieve, what do you think if we would somehow base the piece in the Two-Part Inventions?’. It just happened because it was so beautiful the way she played it – it was like uplifting bells. I wanted more of that so we just kept playing it and said: ‘Yes, it’s a very good idea’. We had a long day together and at the end of that day I had a concept. That’s always the main thing for a piece – once you have a concept that’s half the piece.
Why do you feel Bach has been such an influence on the compositional world?
He wrote a massive amount of music and he was incredibly hard-working. He was a genius. His music taps into incredible keys. I find the way the melodic lines go, the way they’re constructed, his counterpoint is the most intricate and sophisticated and difficult device. Fugues are one of the most difficult things in music and he wrote so many. However many parts there were, they were perfect, always inventive. I think a lot of music sprang from Bach later. A lot of composers went back to Bachian chord progressions, Bachian bass lines, Bachian turns of motives. But motives aren’t the most important things with Bach. His music is like architecture. They have perfect lines. He’s pure genius. I can imagine a lot of music would have been very different without Bach.
This story was also published in Warp Magazine, April 2016.
Image: Steven Godbee.
