Michel van der Aa: interview about new clarinet concerto

(April 2014)

The title of your new clarinet concerto is Hysteresis. What is this?
The easiest way to explain hysteresis is the idea of material having memory. There are examples of matter being affected by a magnetic field, so the change is carried forward in time. And hysteresis also happens in electronics, biology and economics. The simplest way to visualise it in physical terms is when an elastic band is stretched a number of times. It becomes deformed, so that it has lost the full memory of its original shape.

Where do you observe hysteresis in music?
In musical tradition you could think about how the same material in a recapitulation is perceived differently to when first heard in the exposition, because of the memory of the intervening journey. The timeline alters everything. But I’m more interested in transformations that relate to my work with electronics and sound editing. The title was prompted late in the composition of the concerto as a way to summarise many of the processes in the piece, and the relationship between digital and acoustic material.

How do you explore memory in the new piece?
As musical material undergoes transformation, the core DNA is remembered but its outward sound is altered. This act of memory – sometimes faulty, sometimes creative – is a key ingredient in a lot of my works. The soundtrack can retain an electronic residue of what the instrumentalists have played, like a faint handprint. But it can also work backwards in time, so that the soundtrack provides a premonition of the musical material appearing later in the piece. For instance, the clicks of old gramophone discs, heard faintly at the opening of the work, take on a full life within the ensemble later on.

What are the materials on the soundtrack?
There are a number of elements moving in and out of audibility. Sounds drawn from the solo clarinet and the ensemble are treated and transformed, for example so that single notes become chords, sometimes frozen in time. There are physical effects, almost noise, that make you think of the mechanical workings of a sound carrier, rather like the cassette player in Memo and Here [in circles]. But as well as these subtle manipulations, I’ve also used material designed with my analogue modular synthesiser, heard in its raw condition for the first time in my music, particularly in the shorter second movement, where a sequence provides energy that ultimately drives the full ensemble.

This is your first work with clarinet in the spotlight. What have you discovered about the instrument?
I like the versatility of the clarinet and the way it can move freely between genres, such as jazz, world and classical. It can be a melody instrument, but it is also good at rapid virtuosic figuration. When it plays sustained notes it is very close to a pure sine wave, which makes it perfect for mixing and manipulation. So, as well as bridging different musical genres, the clarinet is also a bridge between the analogue and digital domains.