a é 2 ‘ 8 Jenny Mcleod talks to Music in New Zealand Composer Jenny McLeod has had a career notable for dramatic shifts in direction. Ac- claimed internationally in her twenties and a professor at 29, she abandoned so-called ‘serious composition’ for the simple pop song a few years later. Her return in 1981 brought a flood of commissions and since then she has been one of New Zealand’s most popular and accessible composers. Now aged 46, she has changed direction yet again, with a dramatic new de- velopment in her musical language which has forced her to relinquish two major commissions. At last, she believes, we will hear her ‘true and original voice.’ She talked to Elizabeth Kerr about her career as a composer, and the musical education which preceded it: JENNY McLEOD: I had very little in early childhood. 1 remember in kindergarten when I was about four or five that on the wal of the room there was a great big stave with black things on and I knew right from the start that there Was a mystery here. The kindergarten teacher could play the piano and she knew what this secret was—so one day ‘after school I made her show me. Somehow I got to the bottom of the mystery of reading the notes and it just came really naturally. ELIZABETH KERR: And later you had piano lessons? J.M.: Oh yes, what else did one have? From old grey- hhaired sweetie pies who wanted to stick you in the competitions. E.K:: What other musical experiences did you have in your childhood? J.M.: I was mad about pipebands—I loved the drum- ming—and I always wanted to play the drum in the pipe band. Well I never got around to that but my parents did buy mea drum. My primary schooling was in Timaru and then, when in my first year at high school, we shifted up to the North Island and I went to Horowhenua College. ‘There was a composer teaching music there called Chris- topher Small and I became sort of his right hand because I could play the piano better than he could. E.K.: And were you writing any music then? J.M.: I remember arranging things for some choir competitions or something, but at this stage it never ‘occurred to me to write any music myself. I did one piece (I called it an intermezzo) that was very Brahmsy. But basically I thought serious composers were all dead. E.K.: A lot of people still think that. J.M.: Even though they're alive! It was just before I was going to come down to varsity that I first heard a record of= one of those xe Festival Overture lise that he 1, 1 think it re shock Oe he gna aE 2 TE sree vas un of your life in those J school af msc in the bigh bo! any lie was ie was aRED UP jears and my eX ime nt room al edo shut mel front very high Brow. enon, eis i ight was 1 ent 0 si but cour igh musi hee ex aay realy. The quality of ates i a Fora inging, Was, amaZi anger ge been doing in Levi Teck toNew Zealand you dat snusic ia ‘compared E-K: Whenyoucane straight to mi : " tion tat I would put off going to varsity 1. Thad ork forthe Deparment of freon the land'—there’s a horticultural re- enS sation just outside Levin and I worked there for ‘Sfour 18 months. Ir was quite fun, but I had a close friend fom the erly days in Timaru, Phillipa Hardy, who did a music degree at Canterbury and she got in touch and said the was going up to Cambridge Music School and they ‘wer all oing to camp out on the grounds and it was two tweeks of just music and did I want to come? And I said You bet!” -K.: That was the end of 1960? J.M: Yes. And that summer just blew wide the doors for ime. As fr as I was concerned Id stepped into paradise and had no intention ofeavingit. 'd planned to doaB.A. and be a teacher but by the time I got to Cambridge I thought this is going to be a music degree—to hell with ‘what they all say. I’m going to have this never-ending (Cambridge for the next few years if you don’t mind, so that was it really and then I came bowling down to Jenny McLeod, For Seow (eal) 1966 .n to the music department and ea like Freddy [Frederick Page] who was justa delight a, like Frefnet anyone lke him and he found meq ga Td necter because I had & motorbike and a leather jaae® caer coed stil smoke—and my background eet heterogeneous, Lhadn’t really had much classical nig ‘But Fred took me under huis wing in this wonder way so it was not just music it was dinners round fa [ielya Page) and fabulous food and paintings et (eNSiag all sorts of people and conversation suey gt over dreamed of—6o far away from my life in Lave’ E-K : While you were student at Victoria You conta to go to Cambridge in the summers? J.-M: Yes. They were wonderful days. I remember Raji Maconie coming out to one ofthe evening concerts topay the Webem Variations in along nightshirt with ae, Ttde cap on and sunglasses and he sit down and he lage} this Webern, without any music, and I listened tp ts ‘with my ears just popping out of my head and I he's making itup. The first time I thought itwasa jokebuy then he played it again and I could tell thatit was the same piece so I thought, no, he’s memorised it, it was written down, somebody wrote itso there wasabig question marc hhanging there. E.K.: As a student did you think of yourself as a composer? J.M.:No, never ever! In fact I still don’t think of myselfas a composer. This is something that’s always come from outside, Douglas Lilburn was our teacher in harmony in the first year and he suggested if we felt like it we eould write a litte piece over the Easter break and I thought ‘why not write a little piece’. So did and everyone seemed to lke it so I just kept on writing pieces. Sometimes they got longer and in those studént years I wrote quite alot ‘wrote the Cambridge Suite and the Little Symphony while was still a student. But I didn’t think of myself as a composer. It was just fun, you know, endless fun. E.K.: What influence did Douglas Lilburn have? J.M.: Anybody who’s ever had contact with Douglas finds ic a profound contact. It was something. about his seriousness, his commitment to what he was deingand'longet the atmosphere atthe first performance of his hhony and going around to his party after- Tealty to contemporary music that I was wards, It gave a just taken up by EK.: After your university studies you headed for Furope, How did you decide where to go? JMC, Ata later Cambridge there was an Australian cellist Jy jaan Kennedy and once he arrived with a tape of Mscloen's Quortt forthe End of Time, I was completely ited over; Obviously whoever this Messen character ew ind to get there. [found out that he was at the Paris Conservatoire and T got his piano piece Ci 1 cated lke a demon, it was really beyond me but I sort of Nitted my way through it and T performed the first Mesiaen in this country. Meanwhile Maconie went to Panis the year before I did so he sort of sussed out the round E K.: Messiaen’s class studied a different subject each year, didn't it? J.M.: Oh yes, and he had different ways of testing for the different years. The year that Robin went they were tested ty having to write FUGUES for God's sakel Anyway in the Iibrary at Vie there happened to be the standard French teat on fugue all in French, a great thick book. Well I discovered it was there and T'was shordly on my way to Europe by ship and T determined that Iwas going to get this Book out of the library by hook or by crook and a {riend of mine volunteered to pinch it for me. So he came ‘out with it under his jacket. It was six weeks by sea in those lovely old days and I thought to myself, well 'm going t0 five myself a course in the Conservatoire fugue whilst I'm ‘on this trip. Well I began to read this bloody book and my heart just sank further and further—it was unbear- ably academic, And so by about three weeks out of Auckland E.K.: You threw it over the side? JAM: You bet I did, with great gusto, To hell with it I thought, Ifthisis what T've got todo to get into Messiaen's clas Tl never get in. And wow the wonderful feeling as the book went over. As luck would have it that wasn't how hhe was testing his students that year at all Itwas aural tests ‘and they were completely appalling too. I couldn’t do any of it E.K.: Yet you gained one of the five places for foreign students. J.M.: What I did was completely immoral. Messiaen ‘would just ask people questions at random and whenever knew the answer I said it whether he asked me or not, Probably didn’t escape him. But I got in. E.K.: What was he working on in that year’s class? J.M.; It was piano music, And it was piano music right through to the twentieth century. We were always complaining that he didn’t do enough twentieth century music. Boulez was our big hero of course, and the summer after that first year, he held an intensive course in Basel ‘and we went. And then the same group went on to Cologne, to Stockhausen. And so, by the end of the two E.K.; What do you think those years in Europe gave you 45 4 composer? J.M.: It was coming to terms with the new music. Actually | never liked aot of it very much. It didn’t speak to me on «very deep level the way the Messiaen had. And even his cher pieces never hit me quite like the Quartet. But I've sways been one to meet the most difficult things head on. 'm not going to run away from them or try to circumvent ‘them or get around them, I'm a bulldozer basically. ‘ j é e f 8 5 i E ni the time of er appointment as Profesor ‘eany MeLeod ‘of Manic at Vitoria University in 1971 E.K.: Your work For Seven was written in Europe. Does i use the principles you encountered with Boulez and Stockhausen? J.M.: Stockhausen tossed out the idea of writing a piece around accelerandi and ritardandi, and basically nothing. but that, [ended up having a foreground and background tothe music; I did itall spatially, with graph paper, and I ‘worked out mathematically where the dots had to go. And then, I deliberately mystified the picture, by combining different lines in a single voice, and then differentiating them by attack. I'm sure Boulez does this sort of thing, too, and that’s probably why his lines are so damn hard to follow. And then I wanted more colour in For Seven, I didn’t want it to be so mathematical. E.K.: More instrumental colour? J.M.: Well, more colour, Ihad the lines of my accelerandi land riterdandi but then I put background music behind them, to emerge from time to time. When my French friends heard this, they would say, there’s alittle Debussy in there, you nom, coming ou from all this high seria stul E.K.: And For Seven was performed at Darmstadt? J.M.: Itwas first performed in Cologne at Stockhausen’s course. There was a big concert at the end with percus- sionist' Christoph Caskel, who said T’d expanded the ‘mallet percussion vocabulary (he couldn’t play it all at first!), cellist Siegfried Palm and pianist (Aloys Kontar- sky. And then, after I'd left Europe, Bruno Maderna did it at Darmstadt and the Berlin Festival. 've only ever heard that first Cologne performance and then I heard the performance in Louisville, Kentucky last year. That piece ‘was sort of my high European effort. It just about Killed me, it was really hard work writing it.EK.: When you came bat rh in Shy in ee xk, you were appointed straight fay to teaching job at the University I'M: Wel, I came back to a lectureship. EX: And during that time as a lecturer you wrote the JM. W Earthand Sky? Was that poles away from For ually it was not that far away. I was bsese by symmetries—Webern had enhanced this for smo—and in Barth and S symmetry plays a part on all sorisoflevels, Symmetrical chords, the whole frst piece is symmetrical in terms ofthe bar structure, in one place the melody mirors itself underneath, and so on. But it tas dif professionals to Masterton seven-year-olds. EK. There was ‘Seen othe vast forces of Earth J.M.:Ohyes, Butt school festiv ‘and Sky, ings happened to it. [was from For Seven because in Earth and Sky there’s ting but beat, beat, beat. And, of course there is this hotomy of high sophistication to utter rawness, and top a big difference of scale too from For just doing a eng av wal and no idea tha i ER: Why do you J.M.: Panty it was the kids, it did. Poetry, P'd n Earth and aa atthe Mercury theatre, March 1970 ‘Shy came up, as an opportunity. I've never felt separate from the Maori people. The mere fact that I like that to the creation poetry and that I feel the wayIfeel about Pukerua Bay. Tome Lama Maori. I don'teareifiny skin in’t the same colour. But Earth and Sky hadan effect con Maori people too. T've had Maori who were young then, saying to me, years later, how much they felt something there. E.K.: After Earth and Sky you wrote another largestale theatre piece for the Palmerston North Centennial, Unde the Sun. But you were not as happy about this work were you? J.M.: Well, you can’t repeat yourself. In my supreme cocksureness I decided if you don’t think big you'll never do anything big, and so I just sailed in. But I really didnt have the technique to cope with something that big and the players couldn't cope. I’m dissatisfied with a lot af ‘music in it, because it’s so primitive, organi and rhythmically i E.K.: Was it around this time you were appotel professor in the music department at Vict? © J.M.: The professorship came after Earth and S16, been performed and after I'd written Under the Sit 0 before it was performed. So that first year in the chat ‘was commuting to Palmerston North for E EK. veg quite remarkable for ia ly nine to be appointed to such a job, wasn't 18 JM. Yes. They were brave soul, and they BODY regretted it, E-K.: You were professor for five years? J.M.: 1971 t0 76, just about six. erom gemE.K.: And towards the end of that time you encountered the Divine Light Mission? J.M.: Itwasin 1975, For me it was a very necessary period because I had a lot of growing up to do. E.K.: Well, a lot had happened to you at a very early age. J.M.: Very fast. And a lot had happened to me at musical levels. But alot had nor happened to me at musical levels. ‘My music had gone into pop by that stage. That had Henny MeLeod rehearsing Under th Sux, Palmerston North 1971 started in Under the Sun, you see. There was a rock group in it and one night we got into a jam session. This was something I'd never done before, I'd never improvised We went on till three, four in the morning and when I came out of there I felt completely refreshed, renewed in a way, and this had some sort of message in it for me. Every time I've ever taken a shift in direction there has been a gradual sort of evolution towards that; there have always been key experiences that have pushed me. And at Earth and Sky a the Mercury theatre, March 1970 nMera rhearsal of For Seven atthe Louisville Sound Celebration, September 1987 the same time there was the dope. I'd never thought about philosophy or religion but sometimes one would have these experiences with dope that made you think there was something inside of you, that you hadn’t suspected. T began to read Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and it was almost as if knew itall in some odd way. For a long time I had the feeling that I wasn’t in need of anything from ‘outside, I wanted to keep on exploring in my own way, in the developments in linguistics and anthropology and the relationship of words and music, and semiotics. There was @ Dutch professor called Jan Pauwr, who was head of the Anthropology Department, and one year I sat in on some Anthropology seminars he was doing. We sensed there fre relationships between anthropology and music that a deep that we couldn't quite put our finger on. Feb) by inuellerual life was becoming fairly beganoinrolee a eappeng in my classroom, and I Iles behind Se yngs tat 'm sure just left everybody things dercopegop in ouch with my teachingand roe something ele, “Point where realised that J id how di JM: Well, 1 tinge Fa een in Wellington. And Fe zapped! So bingo! Ni long, and I just arming the ‘diary eID as doing Was Eee Wetder and weirder, "” “4 More. And I was ~: And eventually res Ma: Yes, Well Broce from thistime, and he wars Greenfield an working in the the university? id I were marrit ied by : Mint ay the Polytech and I had meanwhile a yearning to get out of the academic scene. I felt that I was going over the top as an intellectual. There was a vacancy at Polytech, and sol resigned my job, but it ended up that they didn’t wantthis. weird woman. . . (laughter) . . . anyway thank God they didn’t because I was in no way ready to teach popular music. So there I was suddenly without a job. Meanwhile my father was desperately ill, So I headed up to Auckland and nursed him for about two years. I was still in the Divine Light Mission. You never met such an intensely spiritual person as I was then, I was impossible to live with, E.K.: And what were you doing musically? J.M.: I was writing pop songs, just quietly on my oW2: ‘And we started a rock group. I wrote lots and lots of pop songs, words and music, and I did it for years. At first! couldn’t do it very well, it seemed awfully contrived: It wwas an incredible challenge because it was the firsttimel@ come across a style that I couldn't imitate. So then Thad start listening in new ways. There were lots of subtleties there. I hadn’t heard all these little bluesy ‘melodic turns and things that were so like what happened in Indiat music. And meanwhile P'd been taking Indian dw lessons from a wonderful guy called Balachandran a4 setting right into Indian music. ae E.K.: What were you discovering in these new direction J.M.: I found there was a whole natural and spootaneet side of myself that had got lost, or had never Beet use [had never improvised: 'd spent 0 m8) thocentrating on the written note. And I also found aural capacity ofa lot of pop musicians was one!tot better than mine. Now I'd always fancied that I was ether good at rhythms but they could pick up a rhythmic phrase by ear much quicker than T could. Bik. There was some kind of turning point in 1981, ‘wasn't there? JIM: Wel Thad just come back from eighteen months in the States. ad realy met the pirical sens head on ane « Sraity disgusted by it. 1 was being realy dragged down Boer FT just got to the point where I felt Td ty red so many dreadful things about myself I had tite cnough problems of my own, without dragging he saitse Divine Light Mission along with me. So at that point I waved bye bye. ELK.: And what replaced that for you? JEM. I got into reading. Patrick White, I remember in 4 Micular, remember reading all the things he wrote and Paya strong connection with his aesthetic philosophy. ‘had fang and New Zealand novels, Shadbolt, Maurice aE Ai poetry, Auden, Blake. It was an incredible relief Pee been thirsting desperately for this sort of conversa- sof depth that wasn’t constantly concerned with ‘what Wily relationship to God?” That was such a piddling litde attitude finally E-K.: So this represented the beginning of a new phase in yout life? JIM: Itwas independence, I suppose. And that what its ‘been, since 1981. E.K.: 1981 was when Roy Tankersley approached you to compose Childhood for the Bach Choir? J.M.: I wasn't at all keen on doing it. But Roy was fairly insistent and Ijust gave in. I’m notall that happy with that picce, or with the Dirge for Doomsday. If those pieces have ny impact it's as much to do with the words as itis with the music. E.K.: And you wrote the words too? J.M:: Yes. But for the musical language I had taken an iniive approach ‘and I didn’t fee! I could keep on doing it. E.K.: It seemed to those of us in the world you'd left that in some ways writing the Childhood songs was your return to ‘serious’ composition. J.M.: Well, it was and it wasn’t. After that I still wrote a Jot of popular music. But by writing them I'd indicated a ‘willingness to take part in that world as well as the other E.K.: And people fell upon you with enthusiasm at that point and commissions came quickly didn’t they? J.M.: Oh they did, they did! E.K.: One of these was another ‘extravaganza’ involving children, the Sunfest. J.M.: My part of that was just musical—there were gangs of hundreds of kids coming round the point to Oriental torches and things. istics could well take the shape of carols. It's a series of different pieces, not so much an integrated work. E.K.; Were you consciously trying for a popular style at this time? I remember you said once in an interview, that your ideal was a community united in diversity, and you felt it very important that you were communicating with ‘people in a language that they could understand. J.M.: I saw a composer's function, or my own function ‘anyway, at that stage, as being a binding force in society: ‘Now, it seems tome it’s the actual quality ofthe experience that is more important: it has to have some sort of profundity, some deeper meaning. E.K.: But four or five years ago, because you felt that music had to have an important social function, you tended to write entirely on commission—music for films, specific occasions . . . JLM.: Yes, Pve done that most of my life. The reason that | ‘did things by commission was that I’ve never had a strong turgeto do anything myself. It was easier to do what people ‘wanted, Butof course, you pay a price for thatattitude and after a few years I learned what the price was. E.K.: And what is it? J.M.: Well it’s the price a mother pays of just keeping on giving yourself until you run dry. I'm at the point now ‘where I just can’t give people what they want any more. E.K.: And how can you replenish your supplies? J.M: Well inevitably there come times in the life of ‘creative artist when some sort of regeneration period is necessary. You see, for more than 15 years I've been exploring the language of popular music, sensing that there was a ‘classical’ music to come into existence. Up until August last year I followed this line fairly consisten- tly, until finally, I think, in my two rock sonatas for piano T sctually achieved the classical music T had set out in (Continued on page 40)JENNY McLEOD (contavt fom ras 1°) sit of wong before. Bu tis poplar nvage NS paras of o og peve ured out nally 0 Pe. 2 0) wrod 9 ener probern 1 had to conSront Wat 677, end, Te tie potential of my ‘Chosen ANE mined exprsonolevosay anything offal dep Sy Feet at yar I was ina complete quancery 2 Complete despair—as 2 composer. complet Ses pnt that you wer ined G9 festival of contemporary muse Louisville, Kentucky t0 hhear a performance of For Seven? cara etforme 1 went to Lovin last Septem JM Fes Oe cof my wis and ironical 8 0n€of60) eral the cited world-wide o be hosted and et Se coral, wo have our music performed (and soe Beth ee ork Ties in her words tbe ri in the Neeemposersy whoa this was the last thing I fet Tike any longer! ks But in fat this tip provided you with anew starty ida’ tit? Jim: Well foxunatey, the way this life seems 10 rn Jom you're just desperately in need of something, Something comes along E.K.: And what came along? TiMi:T went to Louisville, right inthe depths of despair> eM just knew that something had to come out of this, aervise [was a goner. One of the ther composers there se peter Schat, a Dutch composer. I Knew he was some Ma of serial theorist, and was prepared to dislike his, Hind from the outset, and indeed I did start by arguing vee usly, as serialism was a complete no-no for me. But Aiewhore I listened the more I realised that he was not talking sboutseralism atall but some kind of new tonality ‘Maten, So I began to pay more attention and read some of Rie articles, and then went on to Amsterdam after I left ‘Kmerica and worked with him there for three weeks. ELK: Can you explain his “Tone Clock’ system? 11M: Basically its very simple. He's tabulated every possible form of triad—of combination of 3 notes within Fhe chromatic scale—so it’s not just the major and minor Rameau triads, it's every other possible one, of which there are 12 if you allow for inversions. He then dis ‘covered, [ mean it’s not something that he invented, he discovered thata property of all these triads was that they tach fitted in times into the chromatic scale so that all the notes were present and no one was repeated. EK: If you transpose each triad three times that gives you all the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale? J.M.: Yes, There turned out to be marvelous symmetries and chordal combinations and colours which really struck. my ear, Now with Messiaen’s lnguage there’s wonderful Colour but T never felt you could use his modes because tveryone would just say, oh that’s Messiaen. His modes ‘were too personal; and this to me seemed more imper- sonal E.K.: Basically it's a harmonic language? JLM= It works as a harmonic language . . . 2 multi- coloured one. Schat calls each of the 12 triads ‘hours’. E.K.: This is the clock aspect. JM: Yes, hours are sort of tonaities. This is just the ‘simple basis obviously and I'm developing this in all sores of directions. I'm right back into the obsession with ‘symmetry in Earth and Sky. And in fact one of the hours Td found already s the whole bass of Act 1V in Under the ‘Sun, There are all these things that tie back to where Thad ” xepped outofseriousmusic and now IfeelThavea means ey o- 4 1 ec ht 1 nd interesting Ye K: One seat, pacar in the petiod oy SeSeemeictaphw Creer vo you: And you sad 9 m6 te that you were important othe eat and by everything tha fos facing beat and that often twas the AP of a work aro a en pieces ike your film score for Te Silent that came ue mic bass is really more import than piteb 4 thee til chink dat shyt i fondameni I stil feet Hea a problems if you ike; are Hythe, Fatt that my blued with the popular languas was 1s @e velar rhythms, and finaly ended Up wrapped int gy mere so indicative that could no oe feling that ope {immediately associated with = noe use them, ig way I was now trying to escape fom, Ti world that golved any of my thythmic problems fut ok aa pitch meager need for logic i nes (Matis the eationship between “tone lock theory and tonality? $M: Well onality is merely alimited aspectot Allthe J ssibilities tat existed and have been pursued in tonality Poss ed already, are now multiplied by twelve, as i xstg theory irs much closer to Messigen’s modes FAC io what Schoenberg was doing, isn't it? Ta: Right, tis closer to Messiaen but Tm also Ending Fane eset 12 note Webern n the basis ofthe system eee our piano piece for David Farqubar’s sixtieth ELA uy concert earlier this year was your first work using the ‘tone cock’, wasn’t it? TIM Yes, the one that Margaret Nielsen played. That jwas just one set, the 9th hour, TK: Has this new direction meant some quite drastic ‘Naps as far as commissioned work is concerned? J.Mt: Well, what T have had to do is humbly to bow out ‘fom my large commitments, to pay back the Arts Couneil the two advance payments P've had for The Clio Legacy (@ major work with Witi Thimaera) and withdraw from Commission from St. Andrews-on-the-Terrace, fora large ‘work on the theme of ‘peace’. E-K-: Would you say that this is the first time in your life that you are composing through what you would call an inner necessity? J.M.: Absolutely the first time. In my litle piano music T feel at last that my own true and original voices starting (0 be heard. How it can take so long to find oneself as @ composer is a complete mystery to me. But I must say finally that regret none of the past. What Thave learned, 1 learned with the depth and conviction born of one's real experience and this cannot but serve me well. Subscribe now and be sure of a copy COMING IN DECEMBER David Farquhar’s Unicorn for Christmas Piano Music by New Zealand a ‘The Fifth Pacific Festival of the Arts Hip-Hopping in the City