Note
When I composed the suite It takes a long time to become a good composer in 2010, I was thinking about Robert Schumann. The piece is an attempt to fuse some of his more radical structural ideas (the telescoping, nesting doll forms of pieces like Carnaval and Kreisleriana) with a pared-down, anti-virtuosic piano language derived from Copland and Stravinsky. The resulting music is, in some ways, less committed to structural rigor than anything I’ve written. I didn’t compose it with an overall through-line or process in mind. Instead, its developmental engine comes from its odd cocktail of jump-cuts and stylistic references jostling against each other.
The core of the piece is its long central movement, Everything is an onion, which gradually surrounds a somber passacaglia with buzzing activity before dismantling it (fittingly) into layers. As the piece progresses, it moves generally from the idea of music as “material”—small, abstract chunks of harmony, texture, or figurations—to music as melody, and, finally, song. The effect is a gradual de-tensioning of the structure, a progressively freer interrelation of materials, like falling asleep directly into a strange dream.
An extended interview about the piece with Nate Bachhuber can be read here.→
Listen
Timo Andres: It takes a long time to become a good composer
recorded live 5/29/12 at Le Poisson Rouge
performers Timo Andres, piano
Purchase
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It takes a long time to become a good composer score, print edition
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It takes a long time to become a good composer score, PDF edition
29 pages, 9×12 format.
