"Vasco Mendonça’s omnivorous curiosity"
Pedro Boléo | Público, 21.01.24
“Composer Vasco Mendonça's relationship with Casa da Música (CdM) began in 2007 when António Jorge Pacheco, then programming coordinator and now the institution's artistic director, invited him to be the Young Composer in Residence, the year the programme began. Now, at the age of 46, he is the composer-in-residence for this season, which has Portugal as its theme country.
"At the time, it was something very special," Vasco Mendonça, a composer that has been consistently making a name for himself in contemporary music, told PÚBLICO. "I had just left school and it was, in a way, the moment I realised that there was the possibility of a career as a composer." Mendonça studied at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML) and then had two important stints abroad: Amsterdam, where he studied with Klaas de Vries, and London, where he went to further his studies with composer George Benjamin.
And what does this residency mean at this point in your life? "It's extraordinary in terms of prestige. You only have to look at some of the composers who preceded me, some of them my heroes, really. And I'm grateful and honoured to be able to present my work in such a substantial way this season," he tells us with a certain pride. But which heroes are they? "Kaija Saariaho, who beyond an artistic admiration was someone with whom I had the pleasure of having a personal relationship, and who was very important to me. But also Helmut Lachenmann, Magnus Lindberg or, more recently, Rebecca Saunders, who are fabulous composers with a very special voice," says Mendonça.
The pieces chosen for this residency give an - open-ended - picture of his journey so far. The first, ‘Group Together, Avoid Speech’, which was performed this Saturday, was written for the anniversary of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (in 2012), but Vasco Mendonça thought it would make sense here, "in this case celebrating the incredible Porto Symphony Orchestra and its soloists. This piece was the moment in my symphonic writing when a door opened and I felt that I had found something personal," says the composer, as if he were pointing out the forks in his artistic road on a map. "A dimension was revealed, which is the dramatic nature of my personal discourse. Almost all the works have this feature of dramatic opposition, whether it's the concerto grosso in Group Together, the two concertos for piano and violin that will be performed at the CdM, or even the two pieces with voice. There's always this theatrical side that reveals my predisposition for scenic drama," says Mendonça.
‘Three Speeches and a Technique’, a suite taken from the opera ‘Bosch Beach’, will be performed this Sunday by Remix Ensemble, alongside works by Peter Eötvös and Emmanuel Nunes, and with mezzo-soprano Christina Daletska. But this suite transforms the opera's original numbers with a new text: "I changed the text into three political speeches, each with a quality: The choice; The future; The recount. And a fourth part, which is called ‘A technique’, referring to an exercise: how to hold a fist in public to achieve maximum rhetorical effectiveness. I wanted to create a series of musical speeches at archetypal moments in political discourse."
Opera and musical theatre don't leave him - after Jerusalem (2009), Ping (2011), The House Taken Over (2013), Bosch Beach (2016) and The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf (2022), he continues to work in this field, and is preparing "a slightly less conventional musical theatre piece", without revealing more for now. "Opera interests me a lot as a creator. Next week the French version of ‘The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf’ will premiere at the Paris Opera, and I'm really happy about that too."
Musical theatre is now part of his nature: "George Benjamin, speaking about Messiaen, said that we need to find our 'vérité'. I think opera fits into my artistic 'vérité'. It also interests me as an educator: I'm writing and directing a series for Mezzo channel, [streaming platform] medici.tv and for RTP2 about contemporary opera. It's a medium and a genre that I think is extremely rich and that needs to be better known,” he says.
"This series arose from a personal dissatisfaction I had. Since the beginning of the 21st century, we've had a group of fabulous operatic works and people still have the idea that opera is Carmen and the Puccinis. It makes sense to show other things. And then it has to do with my own creative satisfaction and my teaching activity. Talking to creators, lighting designers, stage directors, everything contributes to enriching my palette, and not just the musical one: theatre is the main reason for being an opera composer. It's important to understand how artists from completely different fields work and think." And he insists that we must not lose our curiosity: "How can I use these very different languages and incorporate them into my discourse?"
Creating is "confusion and doubt"
How does Vasco Mendonça set about writing music? How, in his case, does one move from the zone of creative chaos to the "invention of the concrete" spoken of by the painter Marcel Gromaire? "The creative process is above all confusion and doubt. But there are two essential dimensions: one is the conceptual vision of the work, a priori, which can be of the most diverse inspiration possible. Then there's the labour of executing, of building the soundscape, which has to stand on its own. A good concept doesn't always create a good piece. More and more in my music there is this urgency of creating, through musical invention, a soundscape that is fresh, contrasting, personal. And that's almost the work of a craftsman, of manufacturing," he explains to PÚBLICO.
At the same time, he seems to be broadening his interests and horizons. "There's also a certain omnivorous characteristic to my research," he says, referring to his pedagogical work (teaching at ESML and Universidade Lusíada), his musical theatre projects and his broadcasting work, because "it's all connected". But for him, contemporary music has to come out of its shell and its "niche" even more. "There are various misconceptions on the part of the public, and sometimes in the students themselves. This idea of 'contemporary music'... That doesn't mean anything. What exists are contemporary manifestations and proposals for music. It doesn't necessarily have to obey this or that aesthetic primer" says this creator who is concerned about the echoes of his music.
Vasco Mendonça believes that there is also a responsibility for artists: "There needs to be an awareness among creators to adapt the discourse, not in what we do, but in the way we communicate. There are initiatives parallel to creation that can help us get out of this dead end. Taking music out of intimidating concert halls, holding meetings with the public so that they have access to the voice of the creators. Because that's also what sets us apart from Beethoven - we're alive!"
A vision
This season, Vasco Mendonça's music will appear again on CdM in March (16th), with ‘Step Right Up’, a piano concerto, and in April (19th), with a new orchestral version of ‘American Settings’ (the version previous one was for countertenor and percussion), a song cycle based on poems by Tracy K. Smith and Terrence Hayes that is, according to Mendonça, “a kind of imaginary American folklore seen through my eyes”. A concert with countertenor Iestyn Davies, which Mendonça considers “magnificent”.
Later, in October, there will be the premiere of a new piece for orchestra: “This one is still a mystery. I'm going to give the muse a little more time so she can get closer...”, he ironizes. And finally, in November, his violin concerto will premiere, with the Remix Ensemble and Carolin Widmann on violin. “I wanted it to be for violin and ensemble – and not for orchestra –, because the character of the violin, in my projection, makes sense with a smaller ensemble”, says the composer, who realized that the violin could give him “more pleasure than what would you imagine” when he composed ‘A Box of Darkness with a Bird in its Heart’, a piece written for Ukrainian violinist Diana Tishchenko, premiered at Gulbenkian Foundation in 2023.
A year full of music for Vasco Mendonça. Music with dramatic momentum, but without drama. "I feel less and less the idea that the world is going to end or be mine depending on whether a piece goes or well or not. More and more I have this notion of creating a long-term discourse, a personal vision of the world."
"Children deserve to be taken seriously"
Wout van Tongeren | Nationale Opera & Ballet, 11.10.22
In The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf, the character of the wolf is not the scary monster we know from fairy tales, but a hunted loner in need of help. Director Inne Goris and composer Vasco Mendonça talk about their children’s opera, which invites the audience to be open to new ways of thinking about the world.
read online here
To start with: how did the idea for this show come about?
Vasco: ‘I was interested in making a children’s opera about a subject that is close to my heart. I’m worried by the way that people handle differences of opinion in the today’s world. If you have a disagreement, you should be able to sit down together and find a compromise. But it seems that nowadays people often want to silence their opponents completely, to crush them. I wanted to make the point that what is different is not necessarily dangerous. So I came up with the idea of taking the story of the three little pigs and telling it from the wolf’s perspective. He would explain that it was all a big misunderstanding, that he never intended to eat the pigs. I got to talking with Inne about that idea, and she suggested broadening my focus beyond that one fairy tale and take the character of the wolf as a point of departure.’
Inne: ‘I told him straightaway that I’ve never been crazy about the tale of the three little pigs. That could’ve been the end of the project right there, but we managed to find common ground in the figure of the wolf, a very intriguing character. We know him from various fairy tales: he is always the bad guy, always solitary, manly and hungry. But if you read about real wolves, you learn that they can go up to 10 days without food, that they usually live together in packs and that a “lone wolf” is actually often a female. All those things seemed like an interesting context to work from. That was the jumping-off point of our conversation.’
In the story as it was ultimately conceived by librettist Gonçalo Tavares, the hungry wolf is on the run from two hunters. He meets Little Red Riding Hood, who, in contrast to the hunters, actually opens up to him and tries to help. Whether she succeeds or not is left up in the air. Why not opt for an straightforward happy ending?
Vasco: ‘The wolf embodies our fear of the unknown, of the Other. In this show we tell a story about differences, about disagreements, about misunderstandings. From that perspective, would it make sense to have everything come to a nice pat conclusion? That’s not what the world is like. I think it would be great if the children thought about the ending for themselves afterwards and came up with their own ideas about how the story should end.’
Inne: ‘We soon found ourselves on the same page on this issue too. Neither of us are afraid to show the darker sides of life in a show, to leave things ambiguous. That’s very important to me as a creator. I think you should take children seriously. They also have a dark side; they also do bad things.’
And shows for children should reflect that complex reality?
Inne: ‘That’s right: I don’t want to shy away from heavy topics. As a child you go through a lot: your cat dies, your grandmother dies, you get into a row with someone at school – you name it. Ugly, dark things happen, that’s part of life. And you’re not doing children any favours by leaving things like that out of a show. You have to give them a chance to relate to these kinds of issues and talk about them. I sometimes get the sense that parents and teachers are afraid to talk to children about the more serious themes after the performance. That’s the real problem.’
Vasco: ‘But that’s the crux of it: you have to talk about it, so these subjects don’t turn into boogeymen, so big and terrifying that you can’t deal with them anymore. If I shielded my children until they reached adulthood and then sent them into the turbulent world, how long would they last? Wouldn’t it be better to expose them to the less pleasant side of life in a mild way, in small doses like with a vaccination, so they build up their immunity?’
And how does The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf prepare its young audience members for life?
Vasco: ‘It’s important that in this show Little Red Riding Hood is not the helpless girl threatened by the wolf. Of all the characters she’s probably the one who’s most in control of the situation.’
Inne: ‘She can build a rocket; she’s a tough cookie.’
Vasco: ‘And a special connection develops between her and the wolf. There’s a basis of empathy between the wolf, who needs help, and Little Red Riding Hood, who is more self-assured. It’s a layered relationship, which the audience can interpret for themselves.’
Inne: ‘In the end it’s Little Red Riding Hood who brings the proceedings to a close. She sings: “The world is a strange party, but I’m dancing.” And to me that means: the world may be complex, but it’s possible to move through it gently, at your own pace. Be open and make connections; to me, that’s what she’s saying at the end.’
Vasco: ‘And ultimately that’s a very positive message: connect with people, don’t say no right away. Give others a chance.’
"Piano for the new generations"
Artur Tavares | Carbon Uomo, 22.10.18
Portuguese Vasco Mendonça disembarks in Brazil to present his first piano concerto in Sala São Paulo.
Sala São Paulo presents, Nov 22 to 24, STEP RIGHT UP, the first piano concerto of Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça. STEP RIGHT UP was commissioned by the Gulbenkian Foundation, in partnership with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (...).
STEP RIGHT UP is your first piano concerto. What was the challenge of composing such a piece, after devoting yourself in recent years to the composition of three chamber operas?
My interest in the concert genre, in particular the piano concerto, isn´t new. The initial dramatic tension of a concerto is always the opposition between man and the world. In a sense, one of the compositional challenges was to develop a consistent dramaturgy, in order to create an unstable and exciting relationship between piano and orchestra.
To what extent is the piano important in your operas, and how was it to have it as the central element in the composition of SRU?
Although my catalog does not have many piano works, it is an instrument that I feel very close to: the precision of the mechanism, the percussive character, its "orchestral" nature, all these characteristics place it within a very particular place in the instrumental pantheon. Apart from JERUSALEM, which is a particular piece, none of my operas has piano. In general, in chamber ensembles, it seems to me that the homogeneity of the piano somehow neutralizes the timbral diversity at the composer's disposal.
After touching the refugees issue in BOSCH BEACH, what was the inspiration for SRU? What does the composition deal with, what feelings and impressions do you express through this piano concert?
SRU is an interjection used to draw people to an attraction or a variety number, for example at countryside fairs. It pleases me because it evokes the communal nature of the artistic act, and it is associated with the idea of illusion. Each of the movements is a particular form of ritual, a millimetrically synchronized collective experience, with the precision of a Swiss watch.
The project sounds grand, and was conceived with the Gulbenkian Foundation, your longtime partner, and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. Is the connection between Brazil and Portugal also expressed in the piece (...)?
Not in a conscious manner. Oddly enough, after finishing the piece, I think there is a festive energy to it, and a way of using the percussion - an exteriority, so to speak - that perhaps has some affinities with Brazilian culture.
Another fundamental partner for this project was Rolex, which helped in your artistic development in recent years, through its Mentor & Protégé scheme. Can you tell me something about the time you´ve spent with the scheme?
The Rolex Mentor and Protégé scheme is a unique program, at all levels. First, it allows for two artists from different generations to be in contact for a period of time, supporting them generously, without any restriction, leaving to the artists the definition of what their shared course will be. Then, because it brings together different generations and cycles, it promotes the exchange between an ever larger group of exceptional artists, creating an artistic community of absolutely unique characteristics.
And what can you tell me about Kaija Saariaho? Has your musical style changed after the mentoring?
Kaija is a remarkable artist and person. To witness her availability and humbleness, during our time together, to all those around her, was inspiring. Just as it was inspiring to be exposed to a series of premieres and presentations of her music - whose aesthetics are substantially different from mine - allowing me to discover entry points for my own ideas in unexpected sound universes. I would not say that my style has changed, but it was certainly enriched. (...)
It will be the second time SRU is be presented, soon after its premiere in Portugal in June. How was the premiere? Will something change for the Brazilian performances?
The world premiere in Lisbon with [pianist] Roger Muraro and the Gulbenkian Orchestra was very gratifying. From what I know of OSESP and Giancarlo Guerrero, I anticipate a beautiful American premiere.
This concerto will be released on CD by Naxos. Will there be other performances (...)?
I would be very happy if that happened. At this point, contacts are being made to this effect.
What is your next project? Creating a piano concerto gave you the inspiration to work hard with another instrument, or will you return to the opera world?
I'm leaving the concert hall and entering the museum. My next work will be a multimedia piece for percussion, closer to the performance territory.
"Vasco Mendonça´s new adventure for piano and orchestra"
Pedro Boléo | Publico, 15.06.18
STEP RIGHT UP can be translated as "gather round", or "come and see", as if summoning the audience for a show. An inviting title to the new piece by Vasco Mendonça, premiering tonight at the Main Hall of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. Vasco Mendonça is a Portuguese composer with a meteoric career. Gulbenkian Foundation presents him as "a composer who is already an essential voice in Portuguese and European contemporary music". He recently won the Rolex Mentor and Protegé Arts Initiative (with Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho), a program that gives young artists the chance to develop new projects, while having their music performed all over the world. Among these projects is the recording of a solo album with orchestral works. Gulbenkian and its artistic director, Risto Nieminen, supported and welcomed the idea, commissioning this piano concerto, and including it in a major concert dedicated to contemporary music - (...) a partnership with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (...).
"When I spoke with Risto, I told him I liked the idea of composing a piano concerto, and he approved of it," Mendonça tells us in the foyer of the Gulbenkian Foundation. "It's my first concerto," he says. Then the question arose as to who would be the soloist: "I had seen Roger Muraro playing the Ravel concerto, and I immediately thought about him. Also, he knew Messiaen, and plays his music frequently. I studied with a student of Messiaen [George Benjamin] - there is an interesting genealogy here as well ..." It all worked out, and pianist Muraro accepted the challenge.
THE INSIDE OF A CLOCK
"I'm a terrible pianist, but I´m very fond of the piano," says VM, dwelling into his aesthetic ideas for SRU: "The concertante format is an enigma - two entities that both are and aren´t together. For me, the orchestra and the piano are precision mechanisms, and the piano is in itself a machine of orchestral nature, by register, scope, volume, dynamic agility, everything. On the other hand, the orchestra is a like a kaleidoscope, and that opens up a sea of possibilities. In a way, one can be seen as extension of the other, and this dramatic idea nourished the form of the piece: expansion, precision and timing." VM seems enthusiastic about this project, and that is clear in rehearsal, as he, score in hand, is clarifying passages and answering questions by the conductor and the orchestra: "There are always small adjustments, clarifications. It is necessary to shape the music, the material, like a potter." Everything needs to be perfectly synchronized, like a clock: rhythmic and dynamic difficulties have to do with precision requirements - if we can make everything fit properly, it´s like seeing the inside of a clock. I think there's poetry in that. "
For VM, composing a piano concerto doesn´t mean carrying the whole of history of the piano and the concerto. "I´m not that connected to the romantic piano," says the composer. "The history of the instrument, and of the concerto form, is so rich that it can become paralyzing. So I had to think about what kind piano I really wanted, how to best articulate the ideas that interest me for my music. I wanted to be sincere, personal and consistent, without worrying too much about the idea of the concerto. "And this to get to "the dramatic opposition between the piano and the group, where the piano is like a master of ceremonies, a black shape in the middle of the orchestra". In his program notes, the composer explains that each of the three movements searches for "a different balance between the piano and the orchestra, an unstable dramatic relationship between almost equals." Almost...
The title STEP RIGHT UP refers to a typical expression used in countryside circuses, mostly in the US. "It means 'everybody get together', which is an interjection that I find quite beautiful. It relates to street music, which is particularly obvious in the first and last movements, where there is a sort of 'outdoorsy' character to the music. And there's also this idea of people coming together to share a moment. I see music and the arts as a form of empathy, a way of communicating with others."
STEP RIGHT UP will be recorded for future edition on a portrait CD. "I delayed recording a CD under my name, perhaps for a certain modesty in taking that step," he confesses. "But there is also a practical reason: to record an orchestral CD is a homeric task because of the costs, so I am very grateful to Gulbenkian, who has made the orchestra and the venue available for a week. And I was fortunate to have the support of Rolex. So I put the two together, the concerto premiere and the record, which means I´ll be able to do it in the best possible conditions, with an excellent conductor, an excellent orchestra, and an excellent soloist. With technical means to make a solid project."
Jornal de Negócios
Lúcia Crespo | A minha Economia, 15.06.18
At his parents', Vasco Mendonca listened to jazz and classical music. Then he brought a guitar from friend's house and "tragedy" struck. The composer, pointed out as an essential voice in Portuguese and European contemporary music, realized then that it was through musical harmony he was best able to express himself. He then studied Jazz at the Hot Club, classical music at Escola Superior de Musica de Lisboa, did a masters degree in Composition in Amsterdam, supervised by Klaas de Vries, and studied in London with composer George Benjamin. It was there that he composed the opera JERUSALEM, based on the book by Gonçalo M. Tavares, and staged by Luís Miguel Cintra. In 2004, he received the Lopes Graça Composition Prize, and was the first Young Composer in Residence at Casa da Música.
"The piano is an immense instrument, it can be so many things: an instrument of percussion, a music box - and I´m very fond of this mechanical quality. For me, the piano isn´t so much that romantic instrument, full of pathos and lyricism. I appreciate its more classical, crystalline objectivity, connected to the keyboard instruments that preceded it, like the harpsichord. I see the piano as a sort of harpsichord in steroids. I like its clarity, I like the word clarity and I always try that my ideas are as clear as possible when proposing something. When there is no master plan, a kind of overall idea, we risk becoming derivative, inconsistent.
I see myself more as a craftsman than as an artist. I like to focus on craftsmanship, like a potter or a sculptor working slowly. There´s a good expression for that in english,"through-composing": to go on composing, bar after bar - but always with a master plan at the back of my head.
I do not have any musicians in my family. My father is a doctor, my mother a Philosophy teacher, but both are music lovers, and and there´s always been music at my house, especially jazz and music. One day, as a teenager, I went to a friend´s house, and there was a guitar there. I took it with me, I started trying out some chords and became completely consumed by the experience. It was not the result of a conscious desire, it just happened to me almost like a tragedy, in the Greek sense. I´ve always wanted to be connected to the arts, I wanted to be a film director first, and then a writer, but I felt that this desire was not matched by a particular talent. With music, I realized it came quite easy and naturally, and that it was a way of channeling things I needed to express and wasn´t able to do it otherwise.
Before entering college, my most striking contact with contemporary music was with Messiaen and Stravinsky. I remember thinking that I had no idea what that music was, it seemed like a distant planet, and this strangeness awakened my desire to explore this planet, to drill into it and understand its genealogy.
My transition from jazz to contemporary music was more or less equivalent to the leap I made from light music to jazz. At one point, I felt that I could be a bit limited and I looked for some novelty and variety in jazz, and then I also struggled with the repetition of formulas in jazz, so I went looking for music that was less pre-determined. And when I entered college, I had access to an incredible wealth of composers. I also looked for them, because even now contemporary music is still a kind of UFO. There is the great canonical repertoire and then there is contemporary music.
The contemporary composer is still an invisible figure. And it is invisible because the music is invisible. It virtually does not exist in the media.
Classical music audiences tend to be a bit conservative and seek some comfort by listening to the 20th version of a piece, performed by great stars. Me and my colleagues in contemporary music feel a greater affinity with audiences who are looking for adventure. The same people that go to an exposition of conceptual art or that are willing to try a new gastronomic combination. The people who are always looking for something alive, who live the present and are not scared if Björk releases a very strange record, and really different from her last one. They appreciate the new because they feel challenged. I don't think people need to be "initiated" in contemporary music, audiences are much smarter than we sometimes think. More sensitive. Children have amazing reactions to contemporary music because they aren´t prejudiced, as no one should.
After college, I went to Holland to do my masters in Composition, under the guidance of Klaas de Vries. In Portugal, it was hard to have an orchestra available to play the students' pieces. In Amsterdam, there are a number of professional groups that do so and the city is a kind of "el dorado" for music students. I was there for two years and then I came back.
I did part of my PhD in London. And from London, I was able to create a network of contacts that allowed me to work in several European countries, especially in France, the Netherlands and Belgium. In fact, Lisbon is two or three hours away from any European capital. Tomorrow, for example, I have a rehearsal in Paris, and I come and go the same day.
We must value local talent, but it is clear that there has to be a circulation of the artists, and I have had a lot of opportunities abroad. Most of my work in recent years has been abroad. It would be difficult to work just in Portugal, where only two or three institutions regularly commission new work.
Sometimes, when I hear the argument about culture´s economic sustainability, I am afraid this argument is being used as a kind of detour from the maindiscussion. To ensure cultural diversity, there must always be deficitary structures. For example, most opera houses are maintained by political decision or because there are patrons that allow for the existence of a form of human cultural expression that guarantees us another kind of value, be it civilizational or aesthetic."
"The complicated relationship between the piano and the orchestra, as seen by Vasco Mendonça"
Bernardo Mariano | Diario de Noticias, 15.06.18
The name is unusual, at the least. Vasco Mendonça explains: "It relates to the idea of outdoor music, a gathering of people attending a show. It means something like "Gather round, come and see! ". An interjection addressed to the public, with the piano, in this case, as the master of ceremonies."
This title already expresses the character of STEP RIGHT UP, VM´s first concerto for solo instrument and orchestra, premiering this friday at Gulbenkian. The work is part of the SP-LX partnership, established between the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and will have its Brazilian premiere at the end of November, also with Roger Muraro, but conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero.
Facing the fabulously rich heritage of the piano concerto, Vasco is quite candid: "If I had to take into account the genealogy of the format I was writing for, I probably hadn´t made it past the first bar...". But he nevertheless did his homework first: "Over the course of three months, I listened to a substantial number of contemporary piano concertos - and those with which I felt closer to were obviously the ones that used the piano in way that was closer to my own ideas (...)". He then had to trust in his own instinct: "For me, the advantage of having piano and orchestra in a concertante format is the underlying tension between these two "dramatis personae" - and you can actually create something from it, you´re not starting from scratch. And that is already kind of liberating in itself". And further: "I thought of everything the piano can become, from a sound wall full of romantic pathos to the crystalline clarity of the Classical style. And I prefer to see the piano almost like a music box; a sort of music machine . A 'character' that "allows itself brief moments of lyricism", although these are "exceptions to the essential virile character of this work." He goes so far as to define his creation as "relentless", insofar as, as he puts it, "it is a really loud piece, quite assertive, and with the character of street music. "
Within this framework, the 2nd movement "has a more interior, nocturnal character, with a degree of nostalgia in the material, evokes a more traditional role of the instrument". The whole piece ended up adopting a "very traditional" fast-slow-fast structure: "It was clear to me that I had to start in a certain way, and it was also clear that it would have to have a circular nature. For the sake of "contrast in the 2nd movement, I ended up quite naturally with a traditional structure."
We are thus faced with a work in which "two fantastic musical machines - the piano and the orchestra - confront each other, they sometimes communicate, sometimes not; sometimes converge, and sometimes take different paths." A relationship that is governed by "instability and unpredictability", rooted in a certain "strangeness" between the two: "The piano does not really belong to that party taking place on stage, and it's never its own 'orchestra', but it may come to liven up the party in its unique way.
And facing the piano is a massive orchestra: "It is a symphony orchestra, a force I´ve written for before in a number of occasions. (…)" The difference, here, will be in the dimension of the percussion ensemble: "I ´ve always liked to use abundant percussion, I think it is a way of subverting - or amplifying, if you like - the orchestral vocabulary; it´s a chance to use sounds that aren´t usually found in that world. It´s like a blank page you can write freely in".
And within this ensemble, he adds "subsection" of bizarre instrumental combinations: "There is a water gong, African talking drums, steel drums, pebbles, crotales on timpani skin to be played with a bow and the pedal..." - you have to see (and hear) it! But Vasco justifies this arsenal: "as a listener, it pleases me to suddenly hear something and to think: 'where did that sound come from? …" Nevertheless, he says, "the percussion is almost always integrated in the texture, used for coloristic effects, as well as a few more independent gestures related with African percussion."
The following week, performers and composer will meet again on the stage of the Grand Auditorium for a week of recording sessions. Vasco couldn´t be happier about this: "It was a fortunate confluence of situations: on the one hand, the Rolex Arts Initiative, which I was involved in two years ago, accepted my proposal for a portrait CD; on the other, the full support of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, without to which this CD would not be have been possible!" The CD will be released on Naxos, "possibly in 2019" and the recorded works are "this concerto, of course; a piece I did in 2012 for the Gulbenkian Orchestra ('GROUP TOGETHER, AVOID SPEECH'), which is a kind of concerto grosso; and the piece UNANSWERABLE LIGHT, written for Casa da Música in 2015. I feel these three pieces are a good showcase of my orchestral writing at this point."
"Composing is a gesture"
Luciana Leiderfarb | Expresso, 09.06.18
At 41, Vasco Mendonça is one of the most active Portuguese composers - who found himself, he says, when he assumed the role of a craftsman. (...) This friday, Gulbenkian Orchestra premieres his first piano concert, STEP RIGHT UP, which will be played again in November in Brazil by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, a co-commission of both institutions, (...) and recorded by Naxos as a part of his first orchestral portrait CD.
We met him at his studio in Lisbon: a piano, scattered scores, notes, a b&w photo, chaos on his desk. And a piece of paper that was the "embryo" of the third movement, the musical gesture from where everything started.
How did you arrive at this Concerto?
It's a two-step project, a co-commission from Gulbenkian Foundation and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, which will also be part of my first monographic record for Naxos, with just orchestral music. Also, two years ago I was involved in the Rolex Arts Initiative, and one of the prizes was the financing of a project.(...)
This is the first time you´ve approached this musical form. What sets it apart from the rest?
As a composer, I am interested only in the piano concerto. Even if the piano isn´t incredibly present in my catalogue, I´ve always felt very close to it. In this case, I focused less on the romantic pathos of the piano than on its mechanics, on the piano as a musical machine, as percussion, and on its relation with the keyboard instruments that preceded it.
Do you see the modern piano as the point of arrival of a genealogy?
Maybe. Because it was the idea of a machine that led me to ornamentation, in the traditional, almost baroque sense - although presented through a contemporary filter. If we pay close attention when listening to a harpsichord, we´re able to hear the noises of a precision mechanism. What remains is this huge meta-percussion. Also, I was also being pestered by ghosts of African percussion, and decide to allow them to appear throughout the piece.
How does that get along with the orchestra?
The idea was to take the common identity of the orchestra and the piano as precision machines. I have always been interested in synchronism, articulation, arabesque - here linked to the notion of parade and procession. The name of the piece is "Step Right Up," an American expression use to gather people around. The piano is a sort of MC that throws stuff at the orchestra, and I hope to have achieved an unstable relationship between them - not necessarily a dialogue. From a visual perspective, the pianist is there and at the same time remains isolated, separated from the orchestra (...)
You have written (...) a lot of music for the stage. What took you there?
Opera has always moved me a lot. There is something unique about its artificiality. Singing is usually associated with extreme acts - great happiness, pain, or lamentation, and there is something profoundly excessive in opera that brings us to the limit of human experience. Music is a self-reflexive art, a reflection of the world in second or third instance, and the connection between theater and music allows it to be anchored it in the real world. On the other hand, I am moved by the presence of the singer on stage. In terms of risk, Luis Miguel Cintra compared singing to driving a Formula 1. An actor who misses a line can improvise. A singer who misses a beat takes him and the whole room behind him. It is immensely fragile and delicate.
How do you get an identity as a composer?
By trial and error. The world of contemporary music is a world with an elitist burden. Some music of the last 50 years has a strong intellectual component. At first I had difficulty articulating this need to rationalize everything with the search of my own voice; what I liked and what I wanted to do with the rules, with what you´re supposed to expect from a contemporary composer. And then there was a moment when that changed, from a thinker to an artisan. Realizing this craftsmanship aspect freed me immensely, challenged my tendency to rationalize with the ultimate question: how does this work as an aesthetic object? We don´t listen to rules, we´re looking to be touched and challenged.
Can you identify the moment where it changed?
It had to do with a practical question. In 2011 I had two demanding requests: a big orchestral piece for the 50th anniversary of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, and an opera commission from Aix-en-Provence festival. Suddenly, I had this crazy schedule, and virtually no time to over-think. And I thought: I have to write music in a sincere, controlled and serious way. And by way of circumstances, something was eventually released.
How does a musical idea appear?
The question is that you need to be constantly focusing and un-focusing. An idea comes to mind, you imagine this music in your head, sometimes even record yourself singing it, so you won´t forget its character. But then the process of organizing it for 70+ instruments, while keeping its initial freshness and interest - that´s hard work.
I was going to compare it with the poet's craft, but multiplied by a hundred. Is that so?
It is more elaborate, although it has to have the same freshness, the same spontaneity. But yes, and sometimes I get quite attached to the poetic images of authors I´m fond of. Writing a piece can sometimes begin as the materialization of a feeling. Years ago I discovered Philip Larkin - the soundscape of my piece "Unanswerable Light" is a response to him.
You´ve also departed from Cortázar and Bosch.
I am naturally drawn to borderline manifestations. It is when we are at the extreme of our existence, be it suffering or happiness, that we are more human. The story of Cortazar ["The House Taken"] is a tale of excess, of two people refusing to leave a house in danger. Choosing not to live, in order to avoid the world. (...)
How do you react to a work being premiered and then forgotten?
It's devastating. It is harmful for everyone involved. There are masterpieces that were played once and not even recorded, a graveyard of scores waiting to be rediscovered. Because the work will die if it´s not played. We rarely have solid performance of contemporary pieces, it´s mostly the more or less stressful version of the premiere. My big question is: why can't contemporary music have a greater presence in people's lives?
And what´s your answer?
The feeling I have is that the ritual closeness - same orchestras, the same halls - between the canonical and contemporary repertoires may be inhibiting to the typical concert hall audience: the need for comfort provided by the 100th version of Beethoven's 5th tends to be sabotaged by a universe of contemporary creation that is increasingly eclectic and less reverential to great European erudite tradition. Therefore, perhaps the audiences in theory more distant from classical music (those looking for new stuff in light music, pop, dance music) are more willing to be confronted with a more contemporary repertoire. And, being difficult to bring them into the traditional concert hall, I would like to think that it is not impossible.
You´re optimistic, then.
I am. The worst thing you can say to me is, "I don´t really know much about music, but I really liked your piece." There is an element of self-censorship here, of those who think that, because they are laymen, their opinion does not count. We have to accept that there is be an instinctive connection to any kind of music, the same as in the plastic arts, or in film. (...)
"An opera for Gulbenkian Orchestra to play with stones"
Isabel Salema | Publico, 20.09.16
When Vasco Mendonça was invited by the Foundation Bosch 500 to compose the music for this chamber opera (...), the librettist had already been already chosen.
We are in an oasis, Club Med-type, where two men and a woman spend their holidays on a beach surrounded by horror (...). "It is a series of episodes, typifications of things that can happen during a decadent holiday, based on drink dancing, and doing as much sex as possible." Bosch in the XXI century: a paradise, a beach in the Mediterranean, which after all is hell, Lampedusa.
Already in his third chamber opera, VM acknowledges he likes to work with the voice and with theater. "Opera has the advantage of joining these two elements".(...)
Unlike The House Taken Over, his second chamber opera (...), here there isn´t an increasingly tense musical narrative. " Given the nature of the libretto, it was counterproductive to try and create a narrative musical drama, a story through music." The composer took the episodic nature of the piece and established an opposition between what is happening at the resort, between that which is sung, histrionic, euphoric, and that which is associated with horror, more ritualized, almost sacred. For the resort episodes, he uses historical archetypes, such as the trio, the lament or the aria, while instrumental, voiceless moments are given to horror, a kind of trance induction.
"The libretto presented me with three monsters: people who sing, dance and copulate while others die next to them. And what happens is that we immediately distance ourselves from them. That to me was relatively problematic in the libretto, because from the moment that there is a judgment and a condemnation, we can go all home quietly, thinking we are not like that. And I am always a bit afraid to adress topical issues in my work." The challenge was to look at these monsters, and find out how similar they are to us. And this challenge", explains Vasco Mendonça, "was left out to music."
"Music is a powerful language. As Samuel Beckett said, music always wins. I can take any word, for example an obscenity, and easily change it into a lyrical moment." This was ultimately his dramaturgical counterpart to the libretto. "Creating a sort of snake that sometimes redeems the characters. But does not attempt to exonerate them."
Each composer, says VM, has its own way of putting a text to music. "When we compose an opera there are always changes that have to do with prosody, number of syllables, stress, the very nature of consonants. I tried to adjust a few things in the text to fit the type of vocal writing I was interested in doing: privileging simple grammatical constructions and short words. " The economy, he adds, is for me the most important feature of a libretto, because "music, adding an abstract dimension, easily compromises the understanding of the text."
The unusual instruments are back: the didgeridoo and the melodica, for one. But this time even stranger objects - stones and papers. None of them are particularly associated with an environment. "The use of these instruments isn´t dramatic, but has to do mainly with timbral research. If we start from the traditional forces and add unusual elements, this enriches the timbral vocabulary." (...)
"Holiday in Paradise, with Hell next to it"
Bernardo Mariano | Diario de Noticias, 19.10.16
What has the work of Hieronymus Bosch in common with three European sunbathers in a Mediterranean resort? At first glance, nothing, but our perception may change if we locate the action: the island of Lampedusa. It was from these contrasting premises that Vasco Mendonça´s opera BOSCH BEACH was born (...)
"The commission from Bosch Foundation proposed a reflection on the painter's work, and we were immediately interested in the themes of guilt and atonement. When, after a while, the pictures of Lampedusa surfaced, this shocking confluence of such radically different universes seemed the ideal setting (...)" Faced with a libretto "in episodes or vignettes, without a narrative or chronological thread, written in a biting, sarcastic, even blunt register(...)," VM decided to "create a structure in separate numbers, related to opera archetypes, thus mirroring the shape-mosaic of the libretto. "
But then he took advantage "music´s fantastic capacity to go beyond the text, which can ultimately suggest the the opposite of what´s in the words. He thus forged "a route that is often not paralell to the text", a kind of "snake". In his opinion, "constant sarcasm and vitriol are a trapdoor, become superficial and merely for effect"," because, he argues, "one should not be afraid of sincerity or lyricism". And with these "weapons", "mechanisms that, through the type of vocal writing and harmonic treatment, are hopefully able to create empathy between us, audience, and the characters, which we would otherwise dismiss as monstrous". To create "elements of recognition, and the realization that their behaviors could be ours". The aim being to escape the "temptation of simple explanations for complex issues" (...)
In this scenario, the Other [the refugees] is notably absent: "Only indirectly realized in the form of corpses." Rather, it is in the music that they live: "I´ve created opposing universes: histrionic and loquacious inside the resort and austere, ritualistic and sacred in the surroundings (...)
VM recognizes the dangers of treating such a burning topical issue, "the risk is that it will narrow down one´s appreciation of the piece to its context, and to our ethical judgement of the artist´s position." (...) This "is only one dimension" of the piece (...). He prefers to see it as "an allegory of horror, capable of generating a reflection on the relationship between our intimate and collective guilt" (...).
All served through a piece in which VM that identifies three new features of his work: "pastiche, a set of dances that refer to the universe of pop culture, and instrumental exploration: the use of instruments associated with other languages, such as electric guitar and bass, melodica, slide whistle, didgeridoo,bass clarinet ... ". With the purpose of "putting sand in the mechanism." (...)
"I´ve always been interested in deviant behaviour"
Myriam Gaspar | Sábado, 12.10.16
The composer likes to see himself as a craftsman. A craftsman who carves the score with notes. Not just any notes. The notes that reflect what he thinks and how he feels about the world. About guilt, for example. The main subject of Bosch Beach, his most recent opera, commissioned by Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of the Dutch painter, opening October 20th, at Teatro Maria Matos. Inspired by Bosch´s 'The Seven Deadly Sins', Vasco Mendonça´s piece was deals with the arrival of refugees in Lampedusa, in a beach full of tourists sunbathing. Whose fault is it? The composer was leaving for New York when he spoke to us on his three new pieces opening this October.
What are these pieces you have been working on recently?
I´ve preparing a new production on my previous chamber opera The House Taken Over, inspired by the writer Julio Cortazar's short story Casa Tomada, which debuted in Aix in 2013.(...) The second work is a piece of chamber music called Fight | Flight | Freeze, which will be performed at the Lincoln Center on the 12th in an event sponsoerd by the ROLEX Institute, and is based on a mechanism all mammals have when facing a threat. We fight, flee or play dead.
Why did you choose this title?
I always had claustrophobia and fear of flying. And this mechanism - Fight, Flight, Freeze - is distorted when there is a phobia. Claustrophobia or the fear of heights are distortions of that process. That is, the mechanism is there, but for the wrong reasons, because there is no real threat.
How is that transposed into music?
Over the past five years I´ve had to travel so much that I was sort of stunned. Now it's just boring. The fact is, these mechanisms have always interested me and are something with which I've always had to deal with. The piece itself is somewhat rough, made with music moments that succeed each other in a discontinuous manner, not very organic. I see it somewhat as a representation of panic.
How do you react to fear?
It depends on the type of threat. Fear of flying is an acute form of claustrophobia. But there are several strategies to control it. Now I don´t feel anything, really. Deviant behavior always interested me immensely, but it is very difficult to transpose this into absolute music, because it is so abstract. No text, no actors. For me it is more like a motivation, an excuse to create music, to express things that, at some point in my life, were important. to me. This piece coincided with a tumultuous period of work, I traveled a lot, my children were small. There were a number of factors that could cause anxiety.
How does the management of the creative process with your day-to-day?
Composing music is always a highly technical and abstract activity. There´s an idea you want to express, but then when you start putting it down on paper, there are many details that have nothing to do with the creative process. Things as prosaic as: does the violin play this note? You have deal with orchestration, compositional technique, etc. This technical dimension leads me to think more like a craftsman and less in my psychological motivations. Composers I admire in the conceptualisation of a piece, generally have this approach of a craftsman. As if they were potters shaping the clay. This was a hard piece to write. It was written in the most bizarre places. Some bits in Helsinki, others in Los Angeles, while traveling. When I finished it, I had no idea what it was. It was so different from anything I'd done. And now it´s is a piece that I really like. And I am very pleased that people like to perform it. It has stones, paper tearing, it is extremely virtuoso. Not everyone can play it. It requires a level of energy and anxiety that relates to the title.
Bosch Beach was inspired on Jheronimus Bosch´s 'The Seven Deadly Sins'. Did you chose the name?
The name was given by the librettist. The Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation commissioned us an opera that should somehow be inspired by this painting. It is a particularly evocative depiction of sin, the world of Bosch is always populated with these completely deranged creatures, monsters and lecherous beings. These medieaval paintings were a kind of moral guides, dealing with guilt and sin. For example, Bosch was part of a sect that considered people with physical disabilities as sinners. And as we were discussing how that ambiguity and strange relationship with guilt would translate to the contemporary world, those horrible pictures of Lampedusa appeared, where refugees are side by side with tourists drinking cocktails at the beach, an absolutely obscene image.
It is a contrast. But whose fault is it?
That is our point. On the one hand, those poor bastards, lying on beach chairs, can´t be blamed for the disgrace happening 20 meters away from them. On the other hand, they are part of a world that is responsible for that same disgrace. That is, we have our thirty seconds of guilt when we see those pictures, but then we calm down because we think that we are powerles. If we are in a Club Med on a Greek island and twenty people cast ashore nearly dead, we´ll obviously give them our water and our blankets. But to what extent we are willing to give up certain aspects that are a part of our well-being and way of life? The opera takes place in this space, a rather strange beach, where three bathers are spending their holidays surrounded by a universe of death and misery.
Do you think people will understand?
What interested me the most was to empathize with the bathers. Through music, particularly through their vocal lines, I wanted to suggest the following: these swimmers are not necessarily monsters, we can recognize ourselves in them, to a degree. Their actions are reprehensible, but they´re are also capable of compassion. This recognition is the key to the restlessness I wanted the audience to experience.
People always end up feeling guilty.
When I saw that child´s picture on the beach, who is the age of my son, I didn´t sleep for three days thinking about. We need more awareness. When I look around me, I realize there is something seriously wrong with the direction we are taking. This whole issue with the refugees is quite bizarre, in the sense that we are responsible for those migrations, but then think superficially, we think the Muslim entering Europe will put a bomb in a shopping center. We either acquit or condemn. And we lack true political leaders. We mainly focus our discourse on numbers. Numbers decide people's lives. As if some sort of alien octopus decides those who survive and those who don´t. There is a dismissal of political decisions and lack of political courage (...)
Fear speaking.
We must refuse simple explanations because the world is complicated. There are situations where we can't say this is good or this is bad. We have to reach out to others, understand their motivations, make our own judgment instead of repeating the mantra we hear.(...)
"An opera after Bosch and guilt"
Manuela Paraíso | Jornal de Letras, 12.10.16
With his previous chamber opera, The House Taken Over, being performed last week in New York, his last one, BOSCH BEACH, opened in September in Bruges, is now in Frankfurt and will come to Lisbon on October 20. At 39 years he is the one of the most prominent Portuguese composers, with growing international reputation. We've talked to him about his music, and particularly about this new work.(...)
What was the initial concept for the creation of this opera?
The question of guilt, inspired by Bosch´s 'Seven Deadly Sins'. (...) To transpose this idea onto the show interested me as a starting point - but, as in any piece I compose, it must transcend it, it should translate my artistic and personal concerns, which are nevertheless fed by this initial idea; this is a piece inspired by the underlying ethical issues present in the painting, particularly at that time, where representations such as this were allegories, codes of conduct. I'm more interested in this abstract take. (...)
Is the setting inspired by Lampedusa?
When we started to dwell on this creation, someone came up with a photo of Lampedusa. I usually think it´s risky to circumscribe a show to a topical issue, because it tends to be examined in the light of that issue. This is such an important subject, that we tend to analyze the show mostly from an ethical perspective, as a mirror of our own relationship with that subject - that is one of the intentions, but it should also serve to make us think about wider problems. It is an allegory. The subject might be that one particularly, but it might also be the other thousand points of confluence of horror we see today. What interested me most - and therein lies a disagreement between me and the librettist regarding the setting and plot - is that we have on one hand these voracious swimmers and onthe other a setting of horror and suffering around them. The risk of a scenario such as this is that the audience can easily identify those swimmers as monsters.
And this would be restrictive on a dramaturgical level?
Yes, the whole thing would be put to rest, and that´s not as interesting as if we try to look more carefully into these people, look for what kind of empathy we can create with them. Because if we consider them straight away as monsters, then it becomes simple. None of us, public, creators, considers himself as a monster, because we are capable of empathy, and we´re appalled by human suffering. The more we relate to those characters, the more we realize that they are able to feel someone else´s pain at the same time they carry out those unbelievable actions.
If any of us, while drinking a cocktail, would see a refugee cast asore, we would immediately feel guity and offer assistance. But to what extent, unconsciously, are we responsible? The truth is that we are both guilty and innocent. And for me this ambiguity is far more interesting, because it forces us to think about these issues and our conduct. In your program notes, you mention you´ve established two musical layers to distinguish the lightness of the characters from the horror of their environment. How is this ambiguous side musically dealt with?
It's hard to explain. The point is that, in the libretto, I was faced not with a narrative but with a situation, and then a series of episodes, in some of which there are moments of awareness, only to be quickly swallowed up by more alienation. In this sense, what I wanted to do in formal terms (because it would be counterproductive to establish a continuous narrative flow in an episodic situation) was to amplify this formal idea of episodes, almost as a number opera, and stress this inorganic structure of narrative development. Some of the episodes have an atonement element - mostly associated to the contratenor, who acts as a mirror of the ambiguous way we deal with these situations.(...)
In your previous opera, based on a short story by Cortázar, space was closed; I this one, there is a a beach, but it is also claustrophobic. In both pieces, you could have focused more on the social and political element of the subjects, but instead you´ve chosen to focus on the characters - and in Bosch Beach, in the creation of empathy.
That´s is an interesting observation. I´ve just saw again The House Taken Over, which is being performed in New York in a new production. Yes, despite the political resonances this issue might have, what we ultimately have to face are our intimate choices, which is my preferred territory. I am interested in the intimate, personal choices, whether in a context of family intimacy as in The House Taken Over, or the intimate moral sense in our choices of how to relate to each other, and to the other who´s different from us. These make for the core from which we build political and social behaviours - and we know the dangers we are presently facing. Ultimately, what interests me the most are the personal decisions, individual responsibility and inner guilt. In that sense, there is indeed a connection, a common thread between the two operas, despite their differences in content, approach and character.(...)