Patrick Ayrton, composer & harpsichordist

Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

The most significant influences on my musical life and career are rooted less in composition itself and more in performance and improvisation. For most of my career, I have been a harpsichordist, organist, and conductor, and since an early age improvisation has been a central part of my musical practice, something very natural for Baroque musicians. I have also been teaching improvisation at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague for over 30 years. Composing is a more recent development for me, having emerged only about a decade ago. At some point, I felt the need to “crystallise” ideas, to capture on paper some of the spontaneous creations that until then had only existed in the moment. In that sense, my improvisational background has been the strongest influence on my composing, since the dividing line between the two is very thin and often blurred. Rather than being guided by specific composers or schools, my work as a composer grows directly out of a lifetime of improvising, listening, and shaping music in real time.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Composing is still a relatively new chapter in my life, so it’s not easy to pinpoint “greatest challenges” in the traditional sense. But I can say that writing Astrophil & Stella, a collection of 16 pieces in Elizabethan and Jacobean style for my recently released recording, was a particularly significant challenge. It required me to translate my long experience as a performer and improviser into a coherent, fully notated work, while also capturing the spirit of a historical style in a way that still felt personal and authentic.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?

No commission yet received yet! Well, that is if I don’t count two songs I was asked to compose for, respectively, a soprano and a tenor, on French poetry, and in 20thC (fort half) French style. My very first compositions!

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

I don’t have my own orchestra, so bringing a project to life means carefully assembling the right musicians. For Astrophil & Stella, I needed a singer who could truly enter the world of 17th-century poetry and bring my songs to life with depth and meaning. This was not an easy task, but I was fortunate to work with soprano Lauren Lodge-Campbell, who added a magical dimension to the music. It was also a challenge to form an ensemble of handpicked freelance period instrumentalists. In this respect, I was greatly helped by my daughter Louise, a gifted Paris-based Baroque violinist, who played an important role in bringing together the right group of musicians for the project.

Of which works are you most proud?

I am very self-critical, but have to admit that I am happy with, and proud of Astrophil & Stella. It was quite a trek since the very first blank page three years ago, up to the release on 5 September.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I would describe my compositional language as rooted in the Baroque style. In that period, musicians learned to express themselves through the musical “language” of their time, studying rules and recipes much as one would follow a cookbook. They relied on treatises on counterpoint and manuals on thorough-bass, which provided the essential tools for writing music. My own approach is very similar: I use these same tools, which I find to be stable, unfailing, beautiful, and timeless—much like the fundamental laws of physics that govern the universe. For me, composing in old style is like cooking a dish following an Elizabethan recipe.

How do you work?

I don’t have any particular form of organisation where writing is concerned. To start with, I don’t compose every day, but period-wise. Most of my music is text-based, so I spend a lot of time looking for poems or prose which inspire me. I use simple tools: the Musescore notation program, a MacBook, and a flimsy little midi keyboard, that’s it. Ideas come and go, sketches end up in the rubbish, others lead to something viable. If I start a session, I will spend probably the whole day, even if I don’t write more than 20 bars. It takes ages, sometimes, for things to shape and make sense.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Success is simply the joy of having moved my audiences, either in performance or through my compositions. If someone says to me “your playing (or your song) moved me deeply, or made my day, or made me infinitely happy”, this means that my goal has been successfully reached.

What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?

Compose a lot, as regularly as possible, and – this is hugely important – spend an immense amount of time analysing music which has proceeded you, works from all periods of music history, even putting some pieces “under the microscope”, as it were, to actually see how they are made, at “molecular level’. By knowing well many forms of compositional processes, you’ll discover which ones inspire you the most, and that will help you create your own language. Nobody invents anything: we all REINVENT, just as molecules break down eternally to create new objects.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

I am a staunch supporter of quality music education in the most pragmatic sense, that is supporting as much as possible, in schools, the making of music, through singing, learning instruments of every type, and the discovery of how classical music is not a dead language, but a living and buoyant one, which needs to be celebrated just as much as folk, jazz, rock and pop. After all, any classical piece was modern in its time. We have to rekindle that modernity, and whatever piece we sing or play, be it Bach, Mozart, Schumann or Stravinsky, must have that excitement of a fresh loaf of bread coming out of the oven. We all have a great instrument in us, the voice, and it’s free. We can all sing, even when one thinks (actually has been told, probably mistakingly) that one sings out of tune and has no sense of rhythm. It is through the experience of singing and playing classical music with others, at a young age, that one will more often than not develop interest and fondness for classical music.

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about but you think we should be?

Many classical orchestral, or session, musicians are underpaid. Many conductors and soloists are overpaid. We need to fix this imbalance. It’s a massive subject: the elephant in the room!

What do you enjoy doing most?

Going for a long walk in the wilderness.

Astrophil & Stella is the latest recording from Patrick Ayrton, released by VOCES8 Records. Stream & download here

Watch the video for Ouverture here: