Bachtrack is asking the same six questions to many composers this month as part of its focus on contemporary music. Here’s what Unsuk Chin had to say.
1. What influences are important to you and your music? Do you choose them, or do they choose you?
When I was a student I used to be influenced of various kinds of music. Nowadays, I don’t think I’m influenced by anything specific. But I constantly listen and study to very different kinds of music, of course: firstly, out of curiosity, but also because I want to make sure not to copy anything unintentionally.
2. What (if anything) do you want listeners to take away from your music?
I don’t wish to impose a certain “mode of listening” to anyone... Jukka Tiensuu, a contemporary composer from Finland whom I respect highly, even goes so far as never to speak or to write about his own music, as he is convinced that music should be able to speak for itself. In a way, I can well see his point.
3. Is there a composition of yours which you are most satisfied with? What makes it successful?
I am afraid it is impossible for me to tell as I can’t compare an opera to a piece for a specialized contemporary music ensemble or an electroacoustic work to a set of piano etudes...
4. How important is new technology to you as a composer?
On one hand, I must be old-fashioned, as my favourite composing accessories are paper, pen, ruler and eraser. Using a musical instrument (let alone a computer) during the composition process would only distract me.
However, computers and new technology have been important for my development in another ways. 20 years ago, I used to compose several works at the Electronic Music Studio of the Technical University in Berlin, and I have also been commissioned electronic music by IRCAM and WDR. That all has been a valuable and interesting experience for me. At an electronic music studio, one can look inside the sound as if with a microscope and discover many interesting new things. These findings have given me some worthwhile ideas for the use of harmony, timbre, form (or other musical parameters) in several of my non-electronic works. But the main thing is that this experience has helped me to expand my notion about music.
5. What music do you enjoy listening to?
There are constants, of course, but most of my interests change constantly. In any case, there are too many names to mention here. In principle, I am basically interested in anything that is genuinely creative – after all, there is no reason in putting up fences.
6. How is composing changing, and where do you want new music to go in the future?
Obviously, it is a very good thing that even if someone wants new music to go somewhere no one can order such a thing by decree... Today, there exists no universally valid musical grammar, of course, but within the Western musical tradition from 1650 to ca. 1900, major-minor-tonality came close to such an grammar. It was not imposed by anyone, but rather emerged logically, by “self-organisation”. Schönberg, on the contrast, was someone who changed musical paradigm by his will. His brainchild (dodecaphony) and its rebellious successor (serialism) were interesting and important innovations, but they were valid for a very short time and in a rather narrow way. Cage’s concept of chance composition was probably likewise important, but it was valid only for one piece, as it were, as a thought experiment... As regards Schönberg, I feel that he was – despite his unquestionable qualities – in many ways a surprisingly old-fashioned and insular composer. The problem with his music, as I feel it, was his inability to bridge successfully between the tradition and his radical invention. I feel that the greatest modern revolutionaries around 1910 were Debussy, Stravinsky and the early Webern (rather than Schönberg). They have really had lasting impact. As for the last decades, I think that Gérard Grisey has been someone who has really done something radically different. My notion of musical time – and of composition in general – is very different than his, but I enjoy and respect works like Vortex temporum or Les espaces acoustiques a lot.