Interview with composer Otomar Kvěch

What situation or circumstances incited you to write Requiem temporalem?

Everyone knows the feeling: a beautiful sunny day, a trip to the countryside, pleasant sunshine, friends, larking around, a relaxed atmosphere. And then the journey back to professional obligations, the return to the "ordinary day", it's not always a particularly uplifting experience.

It was quite a while ago. It was during a moment like this, returning to grey reality after a really wonderful day out, when I stepped into the icy water of "normal" life, that the idea for a new composition, a future requiem, came to me, clear as day. I gradually searched for the texts I would need for it and I thought about the way I would shape the music. I wasn't in any hurry. The conception was such that I actually wasn't holding out any hope that the work would be performed at some point. I wrote it purely driven by some kind of inner stimulus, a kind of compulsion to capture some thought; the process took a full seventeen years.

Much of the megalomanic conception was abandoned as time went on. I originally intended the work to be performed in a cathedral or big church, where a large orchestra with one vocal soloist would perform by the altar, and then two chamber orchestras would be playing in the side aisles - each with a chamber choir; in addition there would be a small choir in the organ loft with an organist, and behind the scenes a string orchestra with a female choir. In the end, the chamber orchestras became wind quintets - woodwind and brass, the string orchestra ended up as a string quartet, and the number of singers was also scaled down. The spatial effects would naturally disappear with a concert hall performance. I finally finished my Requiem in all its details when I realised there was a chance that the work could be performed.

Could you characterise your musical style?

For years I've been labelled as a conservative composer and I can't say that I've always been happy about that - it has pejorative undertones in artistic circles. An exhibition was held in Prague recently by young artists entitled "Normal Painting". As the name of the exhibition suggests, their work could very easily have been branded traditional, retrograde and conservative. The young artists' comments about this were analogous to mine. They didn't state that they were alone. They said: we know that our view isn't the only possible one, but we are here, too, and we aren't inferior. Fine art has essentially broken up into several "codes" existing in parallel.

I would rather see my compositional style assessed from this point of view as well. I have my reasons why I write music the way I do. My inner musical "whims" are stronger than my fear that the ugly word "conservative" will hover above my work. What's more, there are also supporting arguments for my vision: the performance of music has always come by a different route, different from the pious wishes of avantgarde composers and their apologists. We won't find out much from books about the work of composers like Rachmaninov or Respighi - and, if we do, it's more likely to be something negative. But their music is appreciated and performed in concert and in recording studios to this day. Conversely, music which, for advocates of the avantgarde, is the only kind which deserves to be performed as truly current and worthwhile music, does not find its way to the concert hall, even many years after it was written, in the way that, say, works by Shostakovich or Britten do - i.e. musicians want to feel they are playing this music willingly, with the sense that they are investing their efforts into creating something wonderful and meaningful, not that they are some kind of slaves for a person who keeps trying to achieve something but generally finds nothing, or someone who writes unusual pieces, not because he has something meaningful to say but because he wants to be original and truly avantgarde at all costs. In my opinion, originality stems from the quest for new substance, not the desire to captivate my audience.

I'm aware that my music will never be performed at festivals of experimental music or at venues which, according to some, are prestigious for living composers. But perhaps my music can stand up there - at least as a little, imperfect sibling - alongside names which mean the most to me: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Shostakovich...

How do you see the performers of your work? What role do you ascribe to them?

The role of an important ally. I'm certainly not one of those who would condemn the performer to the role of a passive executor of the composer's whims. The voice of the musician, particularly someone well-versed and one hundred percent accomplished in his field, is important to me. For me, there isn't a more trustworthy critic than the practical musician. Whenever I hear a player object to a given passage, saying that it's "awkward to play", I consider another solution. A musician's objection - "this part is a bit strange" - will make me think more about this specific area. Not that this implies weakness on the part of the writer. If a musician tried to interfere with my professional objectives, or I see that he has not understood what is required of him, I will defend myself. Come to that, I'm one of those composers who continually seek better solutions for his intended conception. I also revise my works, even after their premieres, I tighten up my original ideas and look for the optimal resolution. It's nothing to be ashamed of - Mahler, Dvořák, Beethoven and others did this as well.

I mention the performers, among other things, because I'm glad that my Requiem has been placed in the hands of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. It's a very flexible orchestra, accustomed to rehearsing works quickly which, in the case of a brand new work, is a great advantage; they're able to pull everything together on the concert platform in a top-quality performance. It's called the "red light syndrome", which refers to the years of experience orchestral players who often work in the studio have - they give it everything they've got just at the right moment, when the red light comes on in the recording studio and when they perform before an audience in the evening. The orchestra is full of excellent players, which is why we entrusted some of them with the chamber music parts as well.

And it's also great that I have a good relationship with the orchestral players on a personal level. I've worked with them for many years within Czech Radio. I've been an editor for their broadcasts for almost twenty years, I studied with many of the musicians, we meet in the corridors and we're friends. When you have personal contact on this level, discussing certain issues with the players when rehearsing the work is much easier, even if things get a little heated at times.

Have you any idea what it will be like for you, taking your place in the audience in the Rudolfinum's Dvořák Hall on 16 March?

Composers are particularly vain individuals who, in some kind of unhinged state, when they believe that everyone is extremely curious about their work, produce a score and then force it on the world - on the organisers, the players and the audience. But, underneath it all, he's quite anxious. What will the players and singers think of my work? How will it go down in the concert hall? Won't the initial suspense gradually wear off during the performance, a sign of which is more people coughing, shifting about in their seats or even some of them leaving the hall? What will it be like for me, listening to my own work? It'll probably be the same as it always is - I generally suffer when I'm listening to my own works. ("How come I made this section so long? It seemed fine with the piano at home!" "I have to work out a different instrumentation for this passage!") The performance in the hall is the real "test drive with passengers". Except that, this time, in view of the sheer extent of the work, everything will be bigger and more powerful.