The
Idyll
For some time now, I have been looking for a new starting
point for my work. I want that starting point to be a bit like a dial on an
instrument which is turned down all the way to zero. I wish to start from the
beginning again.
You can use everything you know about music as a kind of helping hand, helping
to pull you up atop a wall, so that you can see out into a landscape, and see
what everyone else is doing. The word idyll doesn't describe what happens when
we imagine a peaceful landscape, it describes what happens when we free ourselves
enough to use our imagination.
What I mean is: I don't want to use my knowledge of music in order to see all
the musics of the world laid out there. I want that knowledge to push me forward
until I find my own, personal version of what music is.
Rousseau fascinates me when he writes about nature and society. He is not trying
to say that one is good and the other is evil. He is talking about things that
have developed of their own accord and things that have been shaped. That difference
is what is driving me forward as a composer right now.
Wolfgang Suppan, edited and translated by Stephen Ferguson