BY HARRY SDRAULIG
What place does religion have in classical music today?
Australian composer Roger Heagney spent more than three decades as the music director of Melbourne’s St Francis’ Church, and has crafted much of his musical output for liturgical use. Also a pianist, conductor, and harpsichordist, Roger has written a new song cycle to be premiered at the Songmakers Australia Gods and Legends concert this 31 May.
The Sirens makes reference to the legends of ancient Greece and will be performed alongside works by Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, and Glanville-Hicks. Roger talks us through the meaning behind his work and what he feels is the role of religion in new composition.
Roger, you’ve had a long and decorated career in music, during which time you’ve written a number of works for voice. I’m wondering how this came to be, and whether it’s because you have a special affinity for the sound of the human voice?
It is not so much a ‘special affinity’ with the human voice as a fascination with words themselves and the rhythms they suggest. However, I have been greatly influenced by knowing and greatly admiring Merlyn Quaife, who has the wonderful ability to portray words and their emotion so clearly.
How did you become involved with Songmakers Australia?
It was through Merlyn that I met Andrea Katz, and together they took up my settings of texts by William Blake, Kenneth Slessor, Wilfred Owen and Graeme Ellis. The texts for the Fortune My Foe CD were by Graeme Ellis, and raised a large amount of money for Australian Catholic Religious Against Human Trafficking.
Tell us a little bit about your new song cycle to be premiered at the upcoming concert.
The text I used for Sirens was written by Graeme Ellis in 2014. Andrea suggested over a very nice lunch that it would be a good text for me to set for Songmakers Australia, and we decided on a piano duet with four solo voices. It refers to the age-old story of Jason and the sirens trying to lure him on to the island to die with all the other unfortunates. But he wins through!
Many of your works have a religious inspiration or undertone, which we can also see in music historically. What kind of role do you feel the church has for living composers today?
Since the Second Vatican Council allowed the Mass to be sung in the language of the people rather than in Latin, there was a need for new musical settings of the liturgical texts to encourage peoples’ participation. However, there have been many revisions of the English language translations of psalms and liturgical texts over the past 50 years, which has made for much confusion on the part of composers about which translation they should use! The future holds great potential. We need music that suits our culture in Australia, and not just that of America or England. We need commissions to achieve this.
Across the years you’ve been involved in a large number of world premieres by Australian composers. I’m interested in your thoughts as to how the landscape of new music in Australia has changed over the years?
When I was a student, there seemed to be very few Australian composers. Those that were around were thought to be a little strange, because it was generally accepted that all composers came from Europe. The locals were considered odd! That has changed dramatically over the years due to many great works written by Peter Sculthorpe, Brett Dean, Richard Mills, Nigel Westlake, Carl Vine, Miriam Hyde, Margaret Sutherland, Christopher Willcock…the list goes on! They, and many others, were and are the trail blazers who believed in our national identity. They brought about an enormous change in how Australian composers viewed themselves and how the Australian people viewed their music. They gave us the confidence to express ourselves.
If you had some of advice for young composers, what would it be?
Get a solid grounding in harmony, counterpoint, history and orchestration. Listen to as much live music as possible. Study the scores of great composers. Stay clear of passing fads and influences. Be true to yourself.
See Roger’s composition The Sirens performed by Songmakers Australia in Gods and Legends, Melbourne Recital Centre, 31 May. Find out more on the Songmakers Australia website.
Image Dun.can via Flickr CC-BY-SA-2.0
