The Composer Is Dead

The SF Symphony is playing "TCID" for another run. Don't you feel like a dead composer, getting repeat performances like them Brahmses and Tchaikovskies?

Nathaniel: Sometimes I start to feel like a dead composer but then I have to pay the Visa bill and realize I'm still too broke to be truly dead. The sad thing is that all Brahms and Tchaikovsky's music is in the public domain so they're not making any money now either, even though everyone's playing and recording their stuff all the time. This infuriates my wife. Classical composers enjoy a brief window of profitability, which begins at death and ends seventy years later. If your music's really slow to catch on, even your heirs are screwed.

TCID is a murder story for kids. Lemony Snicket sold quite a few books with somewhat grim stories for children. What is it that kids enjoy about death and stuff?

Nathaniel: Personally, I think what has attracted people to The Composer is Dead is the lush orchestral writing, the impeccable sense of pacing, the flawless counterpoint and, especially, the duet for tuba and harp. The death thing is just a detail of the libretto, which, as everyone knows, is of minor importance. No one cares who wrote the libretto to Madame Butterfly and no one had a clue what the story was until they started using supertitiles, which, in my opinion, only detract from the experience. The same goes for The Composer is Dead. I'm convinced that this piece would be played all over the world to great acclaim if the libretto were by Bob Roberts and it told the story of three happy kittens. I'm sure you agree.

For the grown-ups, we saw your "soaPOPera" ZipperZ. What is it that grown ups enjoy about sex and stuff? Just kidding. More seriously, the common thread that I see is some pervasive irony through these pieces, as if neither love nor death should be treated too seriously. Is that the way you look at things? Or do we just have such a narrow view of your oeuvre since that and Junkestra are the only pieces we’ve heard?

Nathaniel: Since you've asked me a serious question this time, I'll give you a serious answer. The Composer is Dead is ironic, no doubt about it. It practically denies my own existence. At the same time, though, a lot of the music is downright earnest. For instance, there's a funeral march at the end of The Composer is Dead that's made up of 13 excerpts of music about death by great dead composers. If I had just wanted to be ironic, that would have been easy: distort everything and make it sound decayed and decadent. But what I really wanted was to create a tribute, so I used each of the excerpts in its original key and its original orchestration -- which is to say exactly the same notes played by exactly the same instruments as in the originals, with nothing changed or added -- a bit like the art restorer who patches a masterwork with grey rather than attempt to reproduce the master's hand. It took a lot of extra time and effort and wasn't intended to be ironic or even funny, though it certainly is when you add Mr. Snicket's words. For me, it was an almost religious experience to be handling these things. As for Zipperz and Junkstra, they're not intended to be ironic in the slightest, though I can see how you might think they were. Zipperz is full of pop grooves and I can see how these might seem to be used ironically. A lot of "serious" composers do use pop music that way but I use it in the way Brahms used waltzes: for pleasure, not as social commentary. Junkestra's not ironic either. It's the best music I could make with what I had.

What's the next project keeping you busy nowadays?

Nathaniel: I'm working on two pieces that have nothing to do with death, sex, or garbage. One is a piano trio (violin, cello, and piano) for The Lee Trio, three amazing sisters who grew up here and now tour all over creation. The second is a set of songs for Frederica von Stade's farewell. She wrote the words and they're wonderful.

You played with the SFSYO, and then, a few years later, you had them perform with junk. Did you have such a bad time there?

Nathaniel: The SFSYO was what made me a composer. The experience was completely inspiring and they also arranged for my first professional commision (on the SF Symphony's New and Unusual Music Series). They performed a piece of mine called Out of the Everywhere a few years back, with Edwin Outwater conducting, and it was literally one of the best performances of any work of mine I have ever heard. I used kids from the YO for Junkestra because they have amazing skills and enough time on their hands to really sink their teeth into something. Sharp, sharp teeth.

Are you still performing the violin, where, how?

Nathaniel: I do break it out occasionally. From time to time, I do a show created by Liz Prior Runnicles that features Mozart's letters as well as his music. I play Mozart, which is strange as you can imagine. I read his letters and also play a bit of fiddle, which is fun. Generally, though, I only play with my kids, both violinists, my wife, a beginning cellist, and our downstairs neighbors, aged 8 and 10, who have been learning clarinet and electric guitar.

What other SF Bay Area composers we should be aware of, and why?

Nathaniel: We went to a reading at the Make Out Room the other night (Writers with Drinks) and I was amazed at the sheer variety of what was on offer: from zombie sci-fi to transgender memoir to historical fiction, all of it engaging and deeply personal. I'm not a critic -- or an expert -- so I wouldn't venture to say one thing was better than another, but I would venture to say that I got a strong sense of who these people were from what they made. The music scene is like that too these days. Unlike twenty years ago, when everyone was expected to belong to one -ism or the other, now it's pretty much a free-for-all. My local composer friends are all working in wildly different areas, from tonal opera (David Conte) to highly abstract instrumental works (Kurt Rohde), from DJ-infused classical (Mason Bates) to classically-infused pop (Sam Bass of Loop!Station). Not that these categories limit any of them to continue on one track or another. As Debussy once famously said: Pleasure is the law. That wasn't the case when Debussy was around but it seems to be now, at least in this hedonistic town.