Ahead of the LSO Panufnik Scheme Workshops on 31 May, we interviewed LSO Panufnik composer Robin Haigh to discuss his brand new work DRIFTWOOD, that conveys a beach heavily mediated and with a dark underbelly.
I’m always keen to find musical worlds that contrast greatly with the norm of contemporary orchestral music – Robin Haigh
What inspired you to become a composer and when did you start composing music?
I seem to remember writing a few bits of music as a child – a four bar piano thing on the white keys that I’d play on repeat for example, but nothing of any substance. I certainly always enjoyed listening to music though, becoming more and more interested until I eventually got into heavy metal in my teens. I had been playing trombone very un-studiously with my local music service in Newham, but playing electric guitar, being in a band, and writing songs ignited my musical energies, very quickly developing into an obsession with songwriting. At this point it was pretty clear that the only thing I’d be happy to spend my life doing involved writing music, but how exactly this panned out ended up shifting away from my dreams of being in the world’s greatest progressive death metal band.
As I learned more about the classical (especially orchestral) music being written in the 20th-century and the present day, it dawned on me that what I really enjoyed was writing complex music for other people to play, and perhaps this was something I could try – it helped that I realised I hated practicing songs and writing lyrics! So, it was a rather slow journey, but my goal of becoming a composer pretty much crystallised around age 20.
When starting a new piece what are the first steps you take?
It’s quite important for me to be thinking about a piece many months in advance of writing it. None of this is anything concrete – I don’t make any structural diagrams or sketch any notes down, but I think about how I might fill the amount of time allotted to me, imagine little instrumental ideas, mull on extra-musical topics. Very simple things can be an enormous help, like deciding ‘I want the first half of the piece to be only for strings’. Making this kind of decision early on can provide a very clear framework that cuts down immensely on the ‘blank page’ anxiety at the beginning of writing a piece. Sometimes I like to try and have a title sorted before starting, or at least a sense of what the piece is ‘about’ – this way, I know what I’m trying to work towards in an admittedly intangible, but very helpful way.
Once I’m actually ready to begin a piece properly, I’ll inevitably spend some time trialing ideas before I’m able to find some music which passes the test and is ready to build from. Depending on the piece, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks. I’ve developed a system of auditioning this music based on whether or not I want to share the playback to my Instagram story! This is surprisingly effective – most of the struggle at the beginning is an internal battle of working out whether I actually like the music I’m writing, but if I have a little mental urge saying ‘people need to hear this now!’ then that probably means I do in fact like what I’ve written a lot, and it’s ready to be elaborated upon.
Where do you find inspiration?
In all sorts of places – I’ve become a big fan of film in recent years, everything from very arty stuff, Oscars contenders, and blockbusters alike. It’s good to have another medium to find joy and intrigue in. The world around me provides much inspiration – a recent substantial piece, my Quadruple Trombone Concerto THE DREAMERS was inspired by a certain genre of TV advert which so deeply frustrated me that I felt I needed to get it out musically somehow. Sounds from nature have been a frequent source of musical ideas – most prominently the sounds of howling dogs in my string quartet Samoyeds.
What can you tell us about your new piece DRIFTWOOD?
I had a very specific mood in mind as I was writing this piece. There’s a sort of shared shorthand for music which represents ‘the beach’, ‘holidays’, ‘luxury’, ‘relaxation’, ‘tropical’ – musical images of glissando strings, pedal-steel guitars, ukuleles, major sixth chords. I’m always keen to find musical worlds that contrast greatly with the norm of contemporary orchestral music, by tapping into something a bit ‘cheesy’ perhaps, that can be subverted and expanded upon in surprising ways because the base is so ubiquitous. With the vast variety of instrumental options available to me, I found it important to set up some very strict instrumental roles – the strings are the solid foundation of the piece and play throughout, the high winds are very much their own group, and pretty much everything else is in a supporting position. I was very wary not to have every instrument playing throughout, and to try and create a sense of shape through the withholding of certain instruments until pivotal moments.
What can we expect to hear in this piece?
There are a few key sounds that I think make the piece what it is. The harp is heard from the very beginning, with two strings microtonally detuned to make a sort of hazy ukulele effect. Soon after, we hear a ‘massed pizzicato’ sound, whereby instrumentalists within the string section repeatedly pluck the same note out of time with each other to create a continuous cloud of plucks. Around halfway through the piece, we are introduced to a ‘seabird’ sound in the oboe – sustained tones which bend down microtonally at the end. The piece concludes with two of my favourite ‘extended techniques’ – clarinets playing without their thumbs, and flutists rapidly alternating between trill keys, both of which produce erratic microtonal effects.
What has your experience been like on the Panufnik Composers Scheme?
It has been a real pleasure to get to know the music of all the other composers on the scheme, and see how their fascinating ideas have developed through the many chamber workshops we have taken part in. The LSO players we’ve worked with have provided invaluable advice at every stage, as have Colin Matthews, Christian Mason, and Errollyn Wallen, all of whose attentiveness and care to our music has been a great support.
What piece of advice would you give to anyone who wants to start composing or writing music?
I’m obviously far from the first person to say that being original is important, but that fact can get missed. I think the fact that composers are often put into competitive situations like conservatoires leads to a mindset of ‘ok, we’re all writing the same kind of music – whichever one of us can write that music the best is the one who will succeed’. Once you leave that situation, you realise how warped and flawed that mentality is.
Of course, there’s no such thing as being ‘the best’, and also you just end up with dozens of people writing identical music! It’s true that it can take some time to work out what it is that makes your music yours, but once you find that personal thread you need to follow it rather than get into an arms race. It’s vital not to lock yourself off from anything musically, or get stuck into thinking writing in certain ways isn’t allowed. Write all sorts of music, and dispel anything in your mind that might subliminally be saying ‘this is how we do things in this genre’ – let creativity and love for music be more important than trying to reach the pinnacle of a style of music that hundreds of people have already mastered.
