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