Dr. John Purser
Dr. John Purser is a Scottish composer, musicologist, poet, playwright and music historian who currently resides on the island of Skye off Scotland. As a young child, his parents used to take him to see classical music concerts at the St. Andrews Hall in Glasgow. He was exposed to the piano at a very young age but it was the cello that would be his main instrument through grade school years, culminating with degrees in Composition, Singing and Violoncello at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Later he also earned a PhD in English Literature.
With this solid background, John began his career writing and composing music, poetry, plays, and books that produced numerous works with a well balanced output and variety. One aspect of his work was to showcase composers who may have been forgotten or neglected through the years. In 1992, John worked on a detailed project on the history of Scotland's music for the BBC Radio that produced 30, 90 minute programs and an accompanying book titled "Scotland's Music" A History of the Traditional and Classical Music of Scotland from Early Times to the Present Day. John has also been involved in the restoration and re-construction of ancient musical instruments. One such project was a re-construction of a carnyx. The carnyx, though made of beaten bronze, comes from the iron age. It is now part of the National Museums of Scotland. I recently spoke to John and he reflected on the outstanding award winning work that he has accomplished.
R.V.B. - Hello John. This is Robert von Bernewitz from New York. Thank you very much for taking this time for me. I really appreciate it. Your career is so diverse it's difficult to know where to start. Congratulations on it.
J.P. - It's a mixed bag. They way I tend to put it is, when I get discovered that I'm not very good in one medium, I tend to head for another. (Haha)
R.V.B. - (Haha) Your mediums look pretty good to me.
J.P. - I've got away with it.
R.V.B. - (Hahaha) Can you describe the surroundings of the island that you live on?
J.P. - It is one of the most stunningly beautiful and varied landscapes in the world... and I've seen a fair bit of the world. I've seen a lot of people who've come from other parts of the world, and none of them disagree. Simple reasons for that, the island of Skye - where I live on the northwest of Scotland - is geologically one of the most complex small areas you can get. As a consequence, many geologists come here. On the one hand, the rock that's immediately under my feet, is Jurassic sandy limestone. In the upper northwest of the island, they've discovered a lot of dinosaurs. Some of them are species that are unique to the island. Then we have Moine Thrust, which is highly metamorphic rocks, that were pushed over to part of the island. They are very hard and twisted. Then we have the tertiary igneous, which comes in three different forms... both black granite gabbro, red granite and in basalt - sheets of it. Never mind a small window of precambrian - at one point, and a certain amount of tertiary and limestone. From this, the shapes of the mountains are very different. The shape of the coastline is very dramatic. There are many cliffs. The one thing that we don't have a lot of is sandy bays. We have a few but not many. The weather is exceedingly volatile and as a consequence, the light conditions and the clouds are magnificent. The place is always being renewed. But it's demanding... it's cold... it's wet... it's windy... a lot of the time. It's a tough environment to live in throughout the year.
R.V.B. - You seem to make the best of the conditions because I see that you and your wife are crofters.
J.P. - That's correct.
R.V.B. - You share the responsibilities of common land with the community to cultivate food?
J.P. - To a degree. A crofter owns a small piece of "in by land" as we call it, where the animals will be kept in the winter. The crofter is in charge of that, but in the summer, the animals go out into the common grazing area. There we share a bull that we hire from the Department of Agriculture. People share a great deal. There's a certain amount of barter that goes on here. Tools are shared... expertise is shared. It's a community that looks after each other.
R.V.B. - Do you get to the island via ferry and bridge?
J.P. - There is a bridge, and that's the normal way now. It initially had the highest tolls of any bridge in Europe, but the Scottish government got rid of all the bridge tolls in Scotland. The bridge is now free. It's a very elegant bridge. Fortunately it was designed by the engineers and not by the architects. Nearly always, the engineers do a better job. It's elegant, simple and has a quite steep arch. It mirrors the shapes of some of the mountains but doesn't intrude on the skyline. We're very pleased with the bridge.
R.V.B. - My brother-in-law is a bridge engineer.
J.P. - Well he needs to see the new Queensferry crossing of the river Forth. I think it's one of the most beautiful objects that I have ever seen.
R.V.B. - So your musical world... what drew you into that world.
J.P. - My mother played the piano. When I was a little boy, I sang a lot of Scottish and Irish traditional songs... with my mother accompanying me. My sister took up the flute and became a professional flautist. My brother played the trombone. My father, who was a philosopher and taught English Literature, loved to listen. He loved classical music. We were very much a classical music family. I went to orchestral concerts with my parents from a very early age. I was used to listening to things that required a long attention span. I was listening to symphonies and concertos right from the age of six... onwards.
R.V.B. - Where did you see these concerts?
J.P. - This was in Glasgow. In the old days there was St. Andrews hall. It was perhaps the most beautiful 19th century acoustic in the world. It was even better than the Concertgebouw. It burnt down - sadly - when I was a music student. They never rebuilt it.
R.V.B. - Well at least you got to see some performances there.
J.P - I heard many performances there. It was a case of hearing it. It was such a good hall. Not only did it blend the symphony orchestra in the way that 19th Century orchestration requires, but you would also get top line soloists in there. They would get to sing for an audience of two and a half thousand. They could be heard - more or less everywhere - equally well.
R.V.B. - What instrument did you take up as a child?
J.P. - I was taken to piano lessons at the age of four. I love the piano and I'd love to play it much better than I do, but cello is what I took up. I eventually became a professional cellist and taught cello for a while. This was a long time ago when the standards of cello playing were much lower than they are now. I couldn't cut the mustard now.
R.V.B. - You took these lessons through grade school and continued through college?
J.P. - I started playing the cello at the age of 12 at Fettes College, which was a private boarding school n Edinburgh. When I was there, it was a very good one.
R.V.B. - How did you enjoy your time at Fettes?
J.P. - A lot. There were a lot of school plays. There was a lot of emphasis on literature, drama, art and music. I found outlets for it all at the school. I had encouragement and a very good starting. This was from 1955 to 1960. It wasn't all that long from rationing, from the second World War. We were fed extremely well. There was all sorts of exercise, whether it was rugby, running or in the gym. We were very well prepared. The one thing I was not prepared for was women. It was an all male school. The only women I knew were family and that doesn't count.
R.V.B. - Well you know... you get started a little late. Better late than never. (Haha)
J.P. - Very late! I never enjoyed the 60's as one should have done... the way my generation in the States did.
R.V.B. - Well you can't say that you went down the wrong path because you received a great education, and it paid off in the long run.
J.P. - Yes it did! I got a very good education. Then I went on to The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. It's now called The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
R.V.B. - I see that you studied under Sir Michael Tippett... Dr. Frank Spedding... as well as Dr. Hans Gal. How did they impact you as far as your music?
J.P. - When I was at college, Frank Spedding basically gave me my head. I was full of ideas... I was full of energy, and I was putting them down. Needless to say, I was trying to run before I could walk. He allowed me to do that - instead of stifling me. Now and again, he would try and draw in the reins and tell me "You do need to develop your contrapuntal technique a bit, here and there. "I did listen, and then he fixed me up to go to Tippett. I went privately to Tippett. I had approximately six lessons with him. They were half day lessons. I would arrive there in time for lunch and he would teach me in the afternoon. I have to say, he was not really a teacher.
He was an inspiring presence and a very interesting man - with an extremely interesting mind - but occasionally his thinking was somewhat convoluted. Following his train of thought was not always easy but that wasn't my fault. He was a complicated thinker... what went on in his head, was his own world. But it was a very interesting world. At that time he had been composing the Concerto for Orchestra, which is one of the most revolutionary pieces of the 20th Century. It was very little understood or appreciated for what it achieved. The first movement is a mosaic like structure - with each group of instruments given its own gestures - but in a much more complex and complete symphonic way... for instance, than the Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which is also very clever, and also gives each instrument its say. With Tippett, groups of instruments have their say. It has different parts and different pieces of music for each instrument - that which he has composed. They eventually all blend together in a wonderful mosaic like structure. It's a structure like nothing I've ever seen... except looking at a mosaic on walls in the Middle East. This was back in 1960. It's much more revolutionary than anything else Stockhausen was doing.
R.V.B. - That was certainly an experimental time period.
J.P. - Yes it was, but actually I can remember Aloys Kontarsky doing forearm smashes in Klavierstuck 11. The Steinway was ravaged. Had I known, the American, Cowell, had already done it. He had been doing it since 1910.
R.V.B. - They called it tone clusters.
J.P. - That was the fancy name given to it but he did do forearm smashes as well. He wrote himself, that he couldn't always get all the notes on the one hand. He had to use his forearm. It's an interesting technique and it created an interesting sound. Bartok imitated it, and actually wrote to him to ask permission.
R.V.B. - You followed in your father's footsteps and also got an English Literature degree.
J.P. - Yes. That was a little later in life. For a while, partly because of the very experimental time in music, and composition - which was not my thing - commissions began to dry up for my kind of music... I was doing freelance. It turned out cheaper for me to become a student, than struggle on. I was able to get a grant to be a full time student at the university... from the Carnegie Trust. I didn't really fit in with the music department but I fit in very well with the English department. I ended up full time with them and eventually getting a PhD.
R.V.B. - Now that you have all of this information and schooling in your head and under your belt, it's time to go out and practice it. What was your plan?
J.P. - My plan after schooling was that I was going to be the greatest composer since Beethoven... of course.
R.V.B. - (Haha)
J.P. - (Haha) I did initially have a lot of work in my 20's. There are works from that period that I would own up to, and those which I wouldn't. One or two of them are on the CDs of my music. When the commissions began to dry up, I became interested academically on my PhD work. I was also writing poetry and radio plays. I had been writing poetry since childhood.
R.V.B. - You have a new poetry book out, correct?
J.P. - Yes I do. It's my 4th book and it's got many poems collected from the first three in it.
R.V.B. - Now your travels at this time... you're in your 20's... beginning your composing career... did you travel abroad at this time to see any concert halls on the Mainland of Europe?
J.P. - No I didn't. The first time I went abroad from seriously being a graduated music student and full time composer, was when I, my first wife, and two children went to Italy for five months. She, to study with Luigi Dallapiccola, and me to compose an opera... which I never did compose. I ended up writing my first book of poetry and radio play. I also started stone carving, because we were near Carrara. We stayed in Pietrasanta. I met a great American friend there, Charles Wells. He was a very fine sculptor who sadly died recently. He led me into a little bit of stone carving. It's a hobby of mine. Italy was transformational for us - not particularly for musical experiences, but because of the culture of the people. Their readiness to love art... their wonderful cookery... just the culture of where we were. I do remember very particularly, with Dallapiccola and his wife, taking myself and my first wife to the opera in Florence. It was Busoni's Arlecchino and Malipiero Torneo Notturno. I absolutely loved the Malipiero. I wasn't fond of the Busoni. I've never forgotten being introduced to Malipiero's daughter in the interval. It was a formal introduction and she was quite a formal stately woman. When you realize that you have these connections, that you've met the offspring of a composer who is much neglected, and greatly to be admired. These things stay with you. They make out to be figures that would be otherwise remote to you - imaginary - that you've got no right to be with them. As it were, they make them real.
R.V.B. - You seem to take that idea of composers who are neglected and bring them to the forefront. Some of your plays and books have done that. Such as John Clerk and John Thomson.
J.P. - Yes. Those are the ones that are mentioned on the net. I've done a huge amount for lots of other composers. Six of them feature poems to them. Although I've never met them, I have them in my poetry collection.
R.V.B. - Can you give me an example of some of them?
J.P. - Mackenzie, MacCunn, Wallace, Hopekirk... who died in America and was a very famous American pianist. There's two Americans who have been the real scholars of her work. I have a great admiration for McEwen in particular. He was a very thoughtful man. I wrote a biography about Erik Chisholm but I never actually met him. I know his daughters very well. William Kinloch, who was a spy. Myself, and another Scot, subsidized a CD of Kinloch's virginal music... dating from the 1580's. It's absolutely wonderful stuff. Some of it every bit as good as Byrd. There's many of them.
R,V,B, - Scotland's music history... you're obviously an expert on it. What drove you to collect this information for your radio series and the book that you came out with?
J.P. - I had been doing a certain amount of radio broadcasting. Glasgow was going to be the European city of culture in 1990. The BBC radio station was very alive in Scotland, in those days. They wanted to do something special. They came to me to ask if I had any ideas and I said "How about the history of Scotland in sound?" They turned around and said "No, we want the history of Scottish music." So myself and a producer named Martin Dalby - a fellow composer who is the same age as me - got together and said "OK, we'll do 26, 30 minute programs." 26 being half a year... so it fits in with the schedules. The head of BBC Radio Scotland, Neil Fraser, at the time, said "No, no... I want 90 minute programs." I said "OK, we'll have a 30 minute program and a 60 minute concert." He said "No, no, no... I want a 90 minute program crafted from start to finish, and no news and no interruptions." It was an amazing opportunity but it was a frightening challenge. I had never heard of a 90 minute radio program. Have you ever heard of one?
R.V.B. - Not really.
J.P. - Not one that's crafted as opposed to talk-a-longs. These were crafted programs.
R.V.B. - That's a lot of information for one program.
J.P. - We started working on it and reached the mid to late 19th Century at about program 23. We realized that the 20th Century wasn't going to get a look in. So Martin went to the head of radio BBC at the time and said "Look... we need more programs." Instead of telling him to go and bugger off, which would have been the natural thing to do, he said "How many more do you need?" Martin said "We need another six." He said "Alright, that's fine." That is utterly amazing Because you've got to understand, that radio operated to schedules. These schedules are defined by the quarters of the year. So adding on six programs was eating into the next quarter of the year. He said "That's what I want... that's what you need... it's going to happen." So we got 30, 90 minute programs. Then they said "Why don't we make a book out of it."
I said "That would be fantastic. The one rule about the book is that it has to look good." This subject has no street cred' whatsoever. It's got to look fantastic. If people pick up this book they have to say "Wow!" They did a wonderful job with it... Mainstream Publishing. The design, layout, illustrations... two color sections. It was beautifully produced and made a huge impact at the time.
R.V.B. - I'm sure it still sets the standard.
J.P. - Yes it does. They made a subsequent edition. Then I did a series of 50 1/2 hour programs in 2007. These were completely differently structured. The first year was 1992 so during those years we had the growth of the CD. With the growth of the CD, a huge amount of new repertoire became available... including Scottish music. That was partly an outcome of the first radio series. People realized there was good stuff there but not good enough recordings of it.
R.V.B. - Can you give me a little example of some of the research that you did? Did you have to go out in the field at all to get some of this information for the programs?
J.P. - (Hahaha) I also became a music archeologist. I actually did go out in the field - literally - to strike rock gongs. These are naturally resonant rocks... and record them. I included them on a very early program, on prehistoric music... music from the stone age and bronze age. I also made recordings in the field of traditional singers, including Duncan Williamson... singing ballads. Some of which can be dated to the medieval period. Certainly in their style and manner... medieval. Of course, a major part of the research was going into libraries and digging out manuscripts and listening to the old existing recordings. It's not as though I were in a complete vacuum... I was persuading people to do something about it. Martin Dalby was wonderful. For instance, I was looking into the works of James Oswald, who was a wonderful 18th century miniaturist. His first publication in 1740 in Edinburgh, has Scottish airs arranged in two parts. There was also a Masonic anthem in the collection. I thought "This is really interesting. What is a 1740 Masonic anthem like?" It's for three male voices and continuo. I discovered this a couple of days before we went to record the program... in which this would have a natural place. I came in to record the program on a Sunday morning, where we did two, three hour sessions. Martin - who was very patient - said "What have you got for me John?" I said "I have 3/4 of the program but there is a couple of gaps here, and one of them is this Masonic anthem... which I would really like to have done." Most sensible producers would have said "John... you were supposed to have a script this morning and we're recording the whole thing today. How could I operate like this?" Instead, he said "What are the forces involved?" I said "Three male voices and one harpsichord." He said "I think we can tuck that into a session at the end of next week. We'll leave a space for it." A total 'can do' world. It was still a really great world broadcasting radio station. All the facilities were there... the willingness was there... the studio staff was there - the sound engineers... the editors... the orchestra - you name it. They could call upon anyone and anything, and they did.
R.V.B. - That is fantastic cooperation.
J.P. - It was, and I was very lucky. I did manage to get on with people too. The stuff that I was digging up was fascinating. Some of it was tiny. It might be some silly little thing. For instance, we shot a piper on radio. How do you shoot and drown a piper. It's a lot cheaper to do on radio than television. We had to get the right sound of a gunshot. The piper had to be playing away. The scene was a battle across the banks of the river Clyde. The piper was playing an insolent tune to the opposition, so they shot him as he was in full view. And he rolled down the banks - still attempting to play - until he fell into the river and drowned. We had the piper... suddenly he got shot and he'd stop playing. He'd hit the bag so a squeal would come out of the pipes. He'd hit as though he was rolling down the bank. After four attempts, and a half an hour of fits and giggles of making the sound of pipes filling with water, we got our 30 seconds of radio.
R.V.B. - That sounded like fun.
J.P. - It was. That was probably the most expensive bit in terms of man hours, short of a symphony orchestra... which I got them to make one or two special recordings.
R.V.B. - That's a very special program series to be proud of. It set a standard which will probably live on forever and it's a great thing to be associated with.
J.P. - I got an awful lot of appreciation for it, and I got a lot of work out of it. It has taken me round the world... lecturing. I received a lot of praise for the work. It's not as though I am going to my grave with nobody appreciating what I did because they did appreciate it.
R.V.B. - You've done a wide variety of compositions: orchestral, chamber music, vocal music, choral music and theater as well. Did you get inspired in different way to go in these different directions?
J.P. - I've never planned a career. I'm not a career composer. I'm a lover of music. I've accepted work, whenever it's been offered. On occasions, I've done work that I wasn't successful in completing. I remember I was asked to write a double concerto for bassoon and horn. I did start it off and I had high hopes for it, but it just didn't work out for me. I don't know why I found the balance of the two instruments too hard to satisfy. But for the most part, I've met every single challenge of composition. Whether it's been opera or prehistoric instruments, or whatever.
R.V.B. - For the most part, you stayed with tonal music?
J.P. - I stayed with it wholly. First of all, I was brought up with classical music up to the early 20th century. My parents didn't go much beyond Debussy. It wasn't until I was in my teens, that I got into the world of Bartok and Berg... in particular. Bartok was very much tonal and these days Berg sounds tonal also. Traditional music meant so much to me... and traditional melody. I simply can't divorce myself from that. I have occasionally done exercises in 12 note technique but to me, this was an artificial academic approach to music. It really wasn't any different from being told to write a fugue in the style of Bach. Then being told you hadn't done it well... which was inevitable. (Haha) I can't think of a worse way of teaching because you're guaranteed to discourage the student. It's the same thing with doing Bach choral harmonizations. As soon as you did anything different, you were told it was wrong. Then when you look at Bach... you look at Riemenschneider collection of Bach choral harmonizations, you'll realize that he broke the so called rules frequently. It's just that they didn't tell you that. The other thing they didn't tell you is the reason why the harmonies are the way they are. It's because they go with specific verses of the text. Riemenschneider was the source book that they used. Riemenschneider has selected particular harmonizations for particular verses of particular hymns. If you don't follow the German text and relate it to the harmonizations, you're missing half the point. Nobody ever told us there were words to these things... oh heavens no.
R.V.B. - I read somewhere that in a Bach chorus, each part harmony part is only sung by one person and not by many in a chorus?
J.P. - I see. That is possible. It would depend on the circumstances... how many singers he had.
R.V.B. - It's just a theory that I read. Some people believe it and some don't.
J.P. - It makes no difference to the nature of the harmonization. The harmonization is dictated by the words.
R.V.B. - You were involved with the reconstruction of an iron age instrument.
J.P. - That's correct. I've been involved in the reconstruction of several instruments of which the carnyx was one. That's the most famous one. A fragment of one was in the museums of Edinburgh. I saw it there and I was absolutely intrigued. There was no attempted reconstruction or not even a drawing of what it might have been. There was only the bell end (the head end) of the instrument. But through the one remaining family whisky company in the world - the Grant family - I managed to get 2,000£ out of them, towards the reconstruction. The National Museums of Scotland came up with the remaining 4,000. The instrument was reconstructed. I said it belongs to The National Museums of Scotland, on the terms that you let it out for performance. That way, you get my 2,000 as it were, of my input. They said "Fine." It was out so frequently for performance, they had to commission another one. The result was two carnyxes. There's a third one being made now.
R.V.B. - You say there were no drawings of it, and I saw on the internet a picture of a battle with three soldiers playing them. I guess it was to deter the other combatants?
J.P. - Let me correct you on that. It's not a battle that you are looking at. You are looking at the Gundestrup bowl. There are three players of the carnyx, who are at the back of the procession.
R.V.B. - Yes. It looked like it was two levels.
J.P. - Yes... that's correct. It is not a battle but we don't know exactly what it is. Whether it a healing ceremony, a sacrifice, a religious or social ceremony. If you take the bottom level, at the back are three carnyx players holding their instruments up. In front of them are a group of soldiers. There's no question that they are soldiers, they have spears and shields. On their spear tips they are holding up a long tree trunk, which has some branches coming out of it. That occupies the whole bottom level... at the end of which is a figure that is at least twice as tall as all the other figures, holding a smaller figure upside down over a cauldron. Whether he's about to boil him alive or whether he's about to save him, we do not know. Or whether he is transporting from this life to the next, we do not know. In the upper level, and going in the opposite direction... are horsemen with animal crested helmets. What that signifies, we don't know. The horses might represent transporting one to another life or they may represent military strength. There's no doubt a military element in this, but it is not a battle.
R.V.B. - You had mentioned that there were no drawings of the carnyxes. How did you reproduce them?
J.P. - Not in the museum. At that time, there was no complete carnyx anywhere in Europe. There were bits of carnyxes and there were one or two complete carnyxes on Roman coins. There was a drawing of an English carnyx that had been lost.
R.V.B. - So you made the blueprints from the various items that were available to you?
J.P. - That is correct. Fraser Hunter was the archeologist involved in this. He did his PhD on the carnyx. He is now one of the senior curators at the National Museum of Scotland. John Kenny put in his wonderful expertise as a player of the instrument. John Creed was the craftsman who had the outstanding skills... a mixture of being a smith and a jeweler. Both of those skills were required. Some of the repoussé work is down to less than half a millimeter in thickness. It's crucial to keep the thing light so it can be held up... and also vibrant. His workmanship was absolutely stunning.
R.V.B. - I saw the video of the construction on Youtube. It was fascinating to watch. Can you give me an example of some other historic instruments that you worked on?
J.P. - I initiated the reconstruction of the 9thc AD triple pipes (long before Barnaby Brown who has none-the-less done excellent work), also reconstruction of early (8th and 9th centuries AD) Celtic hand bells (both iron and bronze), also the 9th-century AD River Erne 'horn' which I did myself and wrote up for the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. I was also involved in the reconstruction of the Loughnashade trumpet and the Ardbrinn trumpet, though these were primarily the work of Simon O'Dwyer and the craftsman John Creed. They date from c.200 BC. The High Pasture Cave bridge find (c.500 BC) is not - and cannot seriously be a reconstruction (other than of the bridge itself, but we have nothing that is demonstrably part of the instrument). That hasn't stopped people from claiming to have made reconstructions. Jumpers onto band-wagons who care nothing for scholarship. Dr. Graeme Lawson is the lead music archaeologist on this one, with myself as his second. Our report is currently being prepared for publication by Oxbow as part of the total site report. It is proper scholarship.
R.V.B. - At present... you're still working with a variety of subjects. Do you find time to enjoy yourself? Do you have any other hobbies? Do you take walks?
J.P. - I take walks. I used to rock climb. I've certainly done a great deal of climbing in my life. I did a lot of hill walking, camping and fishing as well. I keep a small fishing boat. A 13ft open boat. In the summer, we set out crab pots to catch our own crab and fish. Of course we don't go out this time of year because it's extremely cold. It's wet and windy.
R.V.B. - In retrospect, what are you proud about with your place in music?
J.P. - There are one or two compositions that I not only stand by, but I think I could not have made better. I don't think anybody else could have made those particular pieces any better. I am proud of those. They are ones that I would go back to my teachers and say "Look... I managed this. Did I pay attention to you... did I learn anything from you?" I would be confident that they would say "Yes.... that was well done. That shows a lot of craftsmanship... it's got feeling and it's got personality." I've never been a terrific one for the pursuit of originality. There is nothing new under the sun... as the philosopher Ecclesiastes said some 3000 years ago. Striving after novelty has never been my thing. I've occasionally arrived at it through unusual instruments and the demands that they make. But for the most part you could say that I haven't expanded the technical horizons of music at all. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's very easy to say "'So and so' sounds like 'So and so'." Actually 'So and so' has just simply written a lovely piece of music. To hell with who it sounds like. The whole business of this competition, in terms of identifying influences, annoys the hell out of me. No matter how clever you are, it's possible to mistake late Haydn for early Beethoven... or Mozart for middle period Haydn... these mistakes can be made. The fact of the matter is that these people composed in similar idioms. In Handel's time, they borrowed heavily from each other. It was absolutely normal. The school of Mantegna, doesn't mean to say that the painting is worthless. The school of Brahms... well you could say that Frederic Lamond - a wonderful pianist and also in his early days, a fine composer - he was a devotee of Brahms, and you can hear it in his music. it doesn't mean to say that the music itself isn't beautiful... just because Brahms had an influence on it. What's wrong with that?
R.V.B. - Everybody influences everybody else.
J.P. - Exactly. The need to make your mark by novelty... by some new gimmick... I can't be bothered with.
R.V.B. - It still goes on today, in all genres... just to get noticed. Even act in an unusual way to get noticed. It's not necessarily the right way to go.
J.P. - No it isn't. What one needs is a basic technique. Now of course, it is all so easy. You have electronic instruments and means by composing at a computer where you can hear what you're doing, as you go along. But also, the standard of classical musicianship is so incredibly high, you can write really badly for instruments, and the musicians will still make it sound bearable.
R.V.B. - Earlier in our conversation you mentioned stone carving. Do you still have some of your pieces and do you still do it today?
J.P. - Yes. I still have some and I still do a little here and there.
R.V.B. - What's with the Loch Ness monster?
J.P. - (Hahaha) It's an excellent tourist trade. I absolutely believe in it. I believe in fairies and the Loch Ness monster. People believe in angels. I don't believe they have any in a museum? (Haha)
R.V.B. - If they did, they'd put it right next to Big Foot.
J.P. - I'm sure Nessie is there.
R.V.B. - Thank you very much for taking this time with me
J.P. - I've had a lot of fun. Cheers!
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
This interview may not be reproduced in any part or form without permission from this site.
For more information on Dr. John Purser visit his website www.johnpurser.net
Over 10,000 records, CD's, Cassette tapes, 8 track tapes. Click here to see Records for sale by musicguy247
More Records, CD's and tapes on Discogs under Bertberner. Click here to view products https://www.discogs.com/seller/bertberner/profile
Click the tabs on the right for vintage Concert Tee Shirts and collectable music related books
For more information on this site contact Robvonb247(at)gmail(dot)com
Comments