Maya Homburger

Die Musik ist also keineswegs frei von weltlichen Tugenden, nur steht die Bescheidenheit und Intensität, die Maya Homburger als Interpretatorin für Bachs Musik aufbringt, in keinem Gegensatz zu der handwerklichen Perfektion, mit der sie Flageoletts zelebriert, auf Grundtöne zurückkommt, Härtegrade im Strich differenziert, leises Ausschwingen aushört und abwartet, Tempovariationen gestaltet, Verzierungsmaterial anbringt. Es herrscht tiefer Ernst, rückhaltlose Hingebung, äußerste Aufmerksamkeit und sogar, bei hellem Licht betrachtet, eine beträchtliche Freiheit im Detail und ein stetes Voranschreiten und Weiterkommen. So zwingend und magnetisch ist Maya Homburgers Art, Bach zu spielen, dass man sich gar nicht vorstellen mag, diese Musik anders zu hören.

Und dann hört man sie ganz anders. Die selbe Musikerin, das selbe Instrument, gut drei Jahrhunderte später in der Böblinger Stadtkirche, und eine Komposition von Barry Guy für Violine solo. Das Stück heißt "Aglais" und löst sich vom barocken Linienwerk, ohne es vergessen zu machen. Es geht spieltechnisch mehrere große Schritte weiter, aber das kann man drei Jahrhunderte später schließlich auch erwarten. Klanglich und harmonisch werden viele neue Türen aufgestoßen, von überall zugleich strömt neues Licht in die musiklische Raumzeit hinein. Keinen Augenblick kokettiert Barry Guy als Komponist mit der alten Musik.

Vor allem das Klangbild ist es, das dafür sorgt, dass die Distanz zwischen Barock und Gegenwart nicht ins Ungehörige wächst: die unüberhörbare Tatsache, dass diese Musik von der gleichen Musikerin mit dem gleichen Instrument und mit der gleichen Haltung gespielt wird. Weil nach der Sonata a-Moll BWV 1003 eben nicht gleich die Partita d-Moll BWV 1003 kommt, sondern erst noch Barry Guys luftig-angespanntes "Aglais", steht seine Musik merkwürdig fremdkörperhaft und zugleich verbindend im Bach'schen Kontext wie eine Brücke.

Die CD ist der zweite Teil einer Trilogie; im ersten standen Bachs Sonate in g-Moll BWV 1001 und die Partita in b-Moll 1002 vor und hinter Guys "Inachis", der dritte Teil wird seiner Komposition "Lysandra" gewidmet sein. Es handelt sich dabei um Schmetterlinge, deren Biotop Dürers wohlgestaltetes Rasenstück sein könnte.

The music is by no means free of worldly virtues but the modesty and the intensity which Maya Homburger generates as an interpreter of Bach's music, stands in no contradiction to the technical perfection with which she revels in the harmonics, returns to the fundamentals, distinguishes between the different bow pressures, allows sounds to die away softly and pauses, creates variations in tempo, adds embellishments. There is a profound earnestness, dedication without reserve, extreme concentration and even, in the cold light of day, considerable freedom of detail and a constant progression and advancement. Maya Homburger's way of playing Bach is so stringent and magnetic that one cannot even imagine any other way of listening to this music.

And then you do hear it altogether different. The same musician, the same instrument, a good three centuries later in the Parish church of Böblingen, a Barry Guy composition for solo violin. The piece is called "Aglais" and breaks away from the baroque lines without losing sight of them. Technically it moves forwards in several big steps but, after all, this is what you can expect three centuries later. A number of new doors are thrust open regarding sounds and harmonies, new light instantly pours into the musical space from all sides. At no point does Barry Guy, as the composer, just flirt with the 'ancient' music.

More than anything else, it is the sound which makes sure that the distance between the Baroque and Present does not become untoward: the unmistakable fact that this music is played by the same musician on the same instrument, with the same approach. And exactly because the Sonata A Minor BWV 1003 is not directly followed by the Partita D Minor BWV 1003, but by Barry Guy's airily agitated "Aglais", his music stands as something alien and, at the same time, in the context of Bach, as an interlinking bridge.

The CD is the second part of a trilogy; the first part presented Bach's Sonata in G Minor BWV 1001 and the Partita in B minor 1002 before and after Guy's "Inachis", the third part will be dedicated to his composition "Lysandra". It is about butterflies whose biotope might well be Durer's well-shaped turf.

In keinem Stück der Musikliteratur wird die Geige so oft absichtlich verstimmt (Scordatura) wie in den Rosenkranzsonaten. Wie begegnen sie dieser Herausforderung?

Homburger: Der Herausforderung des Umstimmens begegne ich mit sechsverschiedenen Barockgeigen. Darunter befinden sich historische Instrumente von Antonio dalla Costa, Thomas Perry, Samuel Thompson und Ventapane. Eine der Barockgeigen stammt von dem Zürcher Geigenbauer Rudolf Isler. Sie wurde aus 2000 Jahre altem Weisstannenholz, das im Weinberg «Tschäpperli» bei Aesch gefunden wurde, gefertigt. Und gerade hat mir netterweise der Diessenhofer Geigenbauer Martin Kuhn eine von ihm gebaute Barockgeige zur Verfügung gestellt. Darauf werde ich die «Auferstehungssonate XI» mit gekreuzten Saiten spielen. Die D-Saite ist nun an der Stelle der A-Saite und umgekehrt, was eine ganz andere Resonanz und Spielweise ergibt.

Was machen die im wahrsten Sinne verrückten Saiten der Geige mit unseren Hörgewohnheiten?

Homburger: Das Klangbild der Violine ist emotional packend. Biber entwickelt eine selten gehörte Vielfalt an musika- lischen Bildern. Volksmusik und tanz- artige Arien sind in dramatische Szenen gebaut. Das hat etwas Opernhaftes. Ich denke, dass es viele Leute ansprechen wird. Für mich ist es dabei nicht mehr möglich, mit meinen «normalen» Instinkten zu spielen. Sie müssen sich vorstellen, das Notenbild hat oft keine Relation mehr zum Gehörten. Ich interpretiere eine Griffschrift und nicht die Noten, die ich sehe.

2006 erschienen die Rosenkranzsonaten mit der von ihnen gegründeten Camerata Kilkenny auf ihrem eigenen Label Maya Recordings. Seit zwanzig Jahren dokumentieren sie damit zahlreiche Musikprojekte aus dem Konzertalltag ihres Lebenspartners, dem Komponisten und Kontrabassisten Barry Guy, und sich. Wird jetzt gefeiert?

Homburger: Ja, wir veranstalten ein Maya-Recordings-Festival und feiern ein ganzes Wochenende im Theater am Gleis in Winterthur als Co-Produktion zusammen mit Musica Aperta. Zwölf Musiker aus acht verschiedenen Ländern werden in Winterthur zusammen kommen. Neben Bach werden einige Kompositionen von Barry Guy und freie Improvisationen aufgeführt. Wir haben drei der besten Trios aus der Improvisationsszene eingeladen und auch Spezialisten aus der historischen Musikszene. Freie Improvisation und Barock sind sich sehr nahe. Biber hätte seine Freude an dieser Musik gehabt. Einer unserer grössten Sponsoren ist «culture ireland». Obwohl es den Iren im Moment wirtschaftlich so schlecht geht, unterstützen sie weiterhin die Kultur. Das finde ich toll!

Bis auf das Biber-Entree sind alles Kompositionen von Barry Guy, die im Lauf der letzten paar Jahre durch die Inspiration von Maya Homburgers Barockgeige entstanden sind. Ein typisches ECM-Konzept-Album, das musikalische Sinn- und Gehalt-Bezüge quer durch die Stücke zieht und daraus ein eigenes Ganzes macht.

Eine zweite ECM-CD brachte das ungleiche Paar – das auch privat ein Paar ist – zusammen mit dem Tenor John Potter, einer der Stimmen des Hilliard-Ensembles. Zusammen mit dem Saxophon und der Bassklarinette von John Surman und der Laute von Stephen Stubbs suchten sie neue Klänge für die tränenreichen Lieder des englischen Renaissance-Melancholikers John Dowland: «In darkness let me dwell». Eine wunderschön elegische Platte, nach dem bewährten Muster der Gregorianik-Arrangements von Jan Garbarek und dem Hilliard-Ensemble. Da ist Mayas Barockgeige in ihrem ureigenen Element. Barrys Bass dagegen erhält neben dem Saxophon und der Bassklarinette weniger solistische Präsenz.

Treffpunkt Gardiner
Es sind diese Alte-Musik–Sphären, welche das Geigen-Bass-Paar 1988 zusammengebracht haben. Maya – geboren und aufgewachsen in Zürich – ging 1986 nach einigen Jahren als Orchestergeigerin in der Camerata Bern nach England und spielte in den Barockorchestern von John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock und Christopher Hogwood.

Und Barry Guy, der überall mitmischte, wo in London neue Musikstrukturen ausprobiert wurden, was sich in einer weitgefächerten Diskographie von über 80 Plattentiteln niederschlug, kaufte sich eines Tages auch einen barocken Kontrabass und bewarb sich bei Hogwoods «Academy of Ancient Music». Die Londoner Early-Music-Ensembles der ersten Stunde trugen alle verschiedene Namen und waren mit den bekannten Dirigentennamen Gardiner, Norrington, Hogwood und Pinnock verknüpft. Die Musiker aber kamen alle aus demselben Pool. Erst mit dem zunehmenden Erfolg, als die Tourneen immer länger und die Plattenaufträge immer zahlreicher wurden, bildeten sich geschlossenere Ensembles heraus. «Man konnte sich nicht in dieser Szene bewegen, ohne nach kurzer Zeit mit all diesen Leuten gespielt zu haben», erzählt Maya, und Barry ergänzt: «Eine zeitlang waren wir wie eine Recording-machine: Ins Studio, rotes Licht an, Haydn-Sinfonie ab.»

Das hat sich geändert, die goldenen Zeiten der Alten Musik, als jede Plattenfirma von jedem Originalklang-Dirigenten den gesamten Beethoven haben wollte, sind vorbei. Gardiners grosses Bach-Projekt, die Gesamtaufnahme der Kantaten auf seiner Jahr-2000-Jubiläums-Tournee ist zusammengeschrumpft in eine vergleichsweise mickrige 12CD-Edition, die teilweise sogar auf alte Aufnahmen zurückgreift. Aber die Konzerttournee rollt wie vorgesehen, und einen Abschnitt davon machen auch Maya und Barry mit, darunter natürlich das Heimspiel in Zürich während der Zürcher Festspiele.

Initiation mit Biber
1979 kam Maya Homburger bei einem Meisterkurs in Bern mit der Barockgeige in Kontakt – und verliebte sich auf den ersten Ton in die besonderen Klangfarben dieses Instruments. Sie ging daraufhin zu Eduard Melkus nach Wien, der sie einführte in den Kosmos der Biber'schen «Rosenkranzsonaten». Seither gehören diese gleichermassen virtuosen wie mystischen Sonaten, in denen Biber mit den vielfältigsten Skordaturen (Umstimmen der Saiten) experimentiert, neben den Geigenwerken von Bach und Telemann zu Mayas ständigen Begleitern. Und die Chancen stehen gut, dass Mayas nächste ECM-Platte diesen Biber-Sonaten gewidmet sein wird.

Die oft puristische Haltung der sogenannten Historischen Aufführungspraxis, welche dem Original so nahe wie möglich kommen möchte, steht bei Maya Homburgers Barockgeigenspiel nicht im Vordergrund. Vielmehr sind es die besonderen Klangfarben, die Maya fasziniert haben: «Ich verstehe mich nicht als eine Barockgeigerin, die auch noch moderne Musik spielt. Da die Barockgeige eine geringere Saitenspannung hat, verfügt sie über mehr Obertöne als eine moderne Geige. Mit unorthodoxen Spieltechniken, Ponticello-Klängen (Streichen nahe beim Steg), verschiedenen Artikulationen usw. lassen sich weitere Klänge kreieren, die eine moderne Geige nicht kennt. Der Steg einer Barockgeige ist so konstruiert, dass die oberen Saiten von den unteren sehr verschieden klingen und dadurch eine Polyphonie entstehen kann. Das Ziel ist gerade nicht, wie bei einer modernen Geige, über den gesamten Tonumfang hindurch dieselbe Sattheit des Klangs zu erzeugen.»

Knacknuss Improvisation
Eine Faszination, die Barry Guy teilt. Und die ihn inspirierte, für diese unorthodoxe Instrumentenkombination zu komponieren. Fast ein Verrat an den Idealen der Frei-improvisierenden Szene? Barry winkt ab. Wer so vielseitig ist wie er, kennt keine Berührungsängste. «Um komplexe Musik zu spielen, ist die freie Improvisation die geeignetere Form. Wenn Interpreten komplexe Partituren lesen, klingt das meistens sehr gequält. In den ausnotierten Teilen komme ich beim London Jazz Composers Orchestra, das mit grossartigen Improvisatoren besetzt ist, mit einfachen kompositorischen Mitteln zu den schönsten Resultaten». Das London Jazz Composers Orchestra hatte er anfang der 70er Jahre mitbegründet und mit vielfältigen musikalischen Anregungen hartnäckig am Leben erhalten.

Maya spielt bei diesen Big Band-Projekten nicht mit: «Im Kopf kenne ich die Mechanismen, schliesslich habe ich oft genug zugehört. Aber die Finger machen zuwenig schnell mit.» Sofort wirft Barry ein: «Die Zeiten ändern sich: Maya hat soeben in Vancouver das erste Mal in einer improvisierenden Big Band mitgespielt.» Und wie war's? «Es war erst mal in einer Probe, ohne Publikum. Ein Cellist fehlte, also habe ich versucht, einzuspringen. Und es war wunderbar, ich fühlte mich grossartig. Ich bin allerdings an die Grenzen meiner Barockvioline geraten, weil du mit diesen Leuten in einen so hohen Energielevel hineinkommst, dass du extrem laut spielst. Natürlich hatten wir Mikrophone, aber dennoch: Meine Darm-G-Saite gibt da einfach zuwenig her.»

Vorerst bleibt sie bei der kleinen Besetzung. Seit sie zusammen mit Barry ein Duo bildet, treten sie immer öfter auch zusammen auf. Der Anstoss kam vom Jazz-Festival in Rive de Gier, das Maya 1994 zu einem Telemann-Solorezital einlud. Maya dachte zuerst an ein Missverständnis. Aber die Organisatoren hatten die Einladung durchaus ernst gemeint. Maya schlug vor, Telemanns Musik mit Improvisationen von Barry Guy zu verbinden. Damit war der Grundstein für viele weitere gemeinsame Auftritte gelegt. Und nicht nur Barry Guy komponierte für diese ungewöhnliche Besetzung: Bei Buxton Orr und Giles Swayne bestellten sie Werke, Roger Marsh komponierte für ihr Duo und Terry Riley hat es für 2001 versprochen.

Dabei stellt sich ein besonderes Problem: Die Barockvioline ist einen halben Ton tiefer gestimmt. Entweder spielt also der Bass oder die Geige in entlegenen Tonarten: «Nicht alle Komponisten, die für unser Duo geschrieben haben, sind gleichermassen geschickt mit diesem Problem umgegangen», schmunzelt Barry. «Ich persönlich empfinde diesen Halbton-Unterschied als sehr anregend und fruchtbar.» Warum nimmt er denn nicht seinen barocken Kontrabass für die Auftritte mit Maya? «Die Darmsaiten sind dicker und reagieren viel langsamer. Ich improvisiere ja sehr viel an unseren Konzerten und viele Dinge, die ich machen möchte lassen sich mit dem Barock-Kontrabass nicht hervorbringen.» Also bleibt der fünfsätzige Gasparo da Salo-Bass von 1560 den Ensemblestücken mit Gardiner und Co. vorbehalten und kommt auf Gardiners Bach-Kantaten-Tournee zum Einsatz: «Hauptsächlich, weil wir nicht zu lange voneinander getrennt sein möchten, suchen wir uns schon die Projekte aus, die wir zusammen machen können.» Und mit auf der Tournee ist auch der Cembalist Malcolm Proud. «Mit Barry und Malcolm zusammen zu musizieren, ist immer wunderbar. Wir sind eine kleine Kilkenny-Mafia.»

In Kilkenny, zwei Stunden südlich von Dublin, haben sich Maya und Barry eigenhändig ein Haus gebaut, inklusive einem kleinen Konzertsaal, der so etwas wie der musikalische Treffpunkt der Region geworden ist. Aber auch die vielen Musikerfreunde aus aller Welt machen hier Station und hin und wieder – wie letzten März – veranstalten Maya und Barry ihr eigenenes Festival. «Es ist ein gutes Publikum, das auch die improvisierte Musik schätzen gelernt hat, was für diese Leute ja auch etwas Neues ist.» Und dass es immer mal wieder ein paar neue Klänge in Kilkenny gibt, dafür werden Maya und Barry mit Sicherheit sorgen.

Diskographie:
– «Ceremony», Werke von Barry Guy und Biber (ECM 1643)
– «In Darkness let me dwell», Werke von John Dowland. Mit John Potter, Stephen Stubbs, John Surman (ECM 1697)

Maya Homburger:
– Zwölf Fantasien für Solovioline von Telemann (Maya Recordings, in der Schweiz bei Musikvertrieb)
– Bach: Sechs Sonaten für Violine und Cembalo. Mit Malcolm Proud (Maya Recordings)

Weitere CDs
– (siehe allgemeine Diskographie etc.)

A selection of these Barry Guys was interviewed by Barra O Seaghda. After a time they were joined by Maya Homburger to discuss the couple's current and future projects. They are currently based in a house near Thomastown in Kilkenny while conversion work continues on their own future residence.

Maya Homburger brings analytical clarity and intense commitment to her music as well as her other activities. Her recording with Malcolm Proud of the Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord is among the works she and Barry Guy have issued on their own Maya Recordings label.

Graph: You said once that you could imagine the cumbersome double bass as tiny as a grain of sand – a mind-boggling notion. Could you unboggle it?

BG: The double bass is seen as an unwieldy instrument, generally expected to thump along below the other instruments. A long time ago when I was at music college, there was a point when problems to do with its size and how to get around it and the articulations needed to make it sound were facing me. I found that playing improvised music gradually helped me to get over those barriers, some of them caused by learning the instrument from manuals. The other thing that affected me was playing with dancers – the London Contemporary Dance Theatre – on stage. It seemed to me that they could do almost impossible things. I could see the preparation for a movement, the muscles working. It had to do with the rhythm of preparation and accomplishment. The energy was all channelled into the very moment of creation.

These two things gradually came together to make me aware that the playing of the double bass was no longer something to be negotiated. The instrument didn't exist- it was a voice only, a communicator. The more I rid myself of this idea of a large unwieldy resonating box, the clearer the ideas would become. The holding and articulation of the bow, the ends of the fingertips, creativity, the sound concept – all these things finally came down to a tiny contact point, a little grain of sand. It's like black holes, which contain huge amounts of energy to be harnessed.

Graph: You employ all kinds of techniques in your playing, including the use of sticks, mallets, brushes and other objects. The effect can be quite theatrical. Are you aware of that or is it a side-issue?

BG: It is a side-issue, but on the other hand performance is performance. I've been involved in quite a lot of theatrical work, which I enjoyed very much. In 'Valentine', a piece originally written by Jacob Druckman for the Joffrey Ballet, I dressed up in a red leotard and looked sexually rather ambiguous, with lipstick and slicked-back hair. The piece had a new dimension on the concert stage. So I'm aware of the possibilities of theatre. In reality, one has to apply a certain complex technique to pull sounds out of the instrument. You're so conscious of the function of these things – they're not just add-ons.

All of this started about twenty years ago when I was playing with a drummer friend, Tony Oxley – who was apt to throw a stick at you if he didn't like what you were playing. On this occasion, he simply let it go by mistake. I saw it flying through the air, caught it and immediately hit the strings and various other bits of the instrument with it. That was my first acquisition for what I call my surgeon's kit.

Graph: I've seen you play with the sax-player Evan Parker. There was a striking contrast between you. Though his music can be incredibly gripping, his physical presence is in-turned, almost still. You're beside him –

BG: Yes, like one of those things you see in the backs of cars nodding and jogging around ... Evan's way of playing is concentrated in the lungs and fingers and tongue-articulations. To respond to your implied question of whether to move or not to move, I find I need to keep the body in motion so that energies can be precisely tuned to the situation. It's like a kestrel hovering and quivering until the sudden dive to land on the prey – the sound in my case.

Graph: As a composer, you work with your own LJCO (London Jazz Composers Orchestra) and with contemporary ensembles or orchestras. Have these always run in parallel and how do the differences work out?

BG: There was a time up to 1992 when the two areas were completely independent. If I was writing for string quartet or orchestra, there was one way of working. If I was working with improvising soloists, the music was cut around the people. That said, even with straight ensembles, I like to have full knowledge of the chemistry of the group. Organisationally or compositionally, there were strategies that could work for either area.

Since '92, a way of using graphics has crept into some of my scores, and also the idea of concentrating the musical language on one page or two at most.

This all started with my love for painting. I was commissioned by the Scottish painter Alan Davie, who is also a jazz player, to write a piece that would be one of a series of events for a big retrospective he was having in Glasgow. He wanted a piece for himself as soloist, on piano, plus ensemble – but straight, not Evan Parker and the usual suspects. And he didn't wish to read music, either. After digging deep into the possibilities, it occurred to me that, as he used a lot of sign language and ethnic symbols in his paintings, we could set up a series of these with their own hierarchy, from the notated through to the non-notated or suggested. I could set up about thirty possibilities that could be injected into his music as he played. But how could I get all this onto one page? Under each sign, I could have systems to be presented to the players – solos, layers, polyphonies ... So along with flash-cards that suggested a type of music to be negotiated, I would have a modifier, using my five fingers to guide the players to the musical subdivisions, from totally written music through to complete freedom.

That piece was called 'Bird Gong Game', after a series of Bird Gong paintings. All kinds of things have grown out of that. It's changed my composing life – I've become very interested in the way graphics and the presentation of scores affect the music.

Graph: You've played with people like Parker and Paul Lytton for decades now. Is that about trust, or reinforcing each other's creativity?

BG: It's both. By being together such a long time, you encourage unity and moving forward to explore ideas and musical refinements. Once you've got your partners, you never have failure really, just varying degrees of euphoria.

Even if there are doubts about the progression of the music, which is very rare, you know how to get yourself out of a hole if you take a wrong turn.

Playing with new partners, you can have some miraculous moments but also some dreadfully difficult negotiations. That's also to do with the way people listen. I've played with some people with no social graces – you're on the stand listening to someone hogging the whole space.

Graph: There's a phrase somewhere about playing the silences. Watching you with Parker, I see players listening as intently as they play.

BG: Of course we listen for every parameter of the ongoing music, reading the implications and strategies – silences as well as pitches. It's an incredibly wonderful process of music-making.

Graph: Regarding improvisation, do you know at the moment of playing that what you're producing will stand up to repeated listening or will be worth issuing as a recording?

BG: There's a sense of knowledge, of the way the voices have come together. You know when it's right. If I'm playing with Crispell and Hemingway, or with the Parker trio, and we're not using any written music, what you're listening to is the signatures of three people, three voices coming together. and the moment when that comes right is the most intense, enriching experience.

Graph: In the title piece of Sensology, you and the pianist Paul Plimley start very intensely and then a beautiful slow space opens up. And Bill Dixon played very slow on Vade Mecum. In general, though, is there a tendency for improvised music to go for high speeds, or does it depend on the musicians?

BG: It's very much to do with the musicians. I happen to work with a lot of high-speed musicians. With Bill Dixon, quite often he was slow and William Parker, Tony Oxley and I were fast – rattling away down below while Bill would be rhapsodising above us.

With Evan Parker, we both work really fast. I suppose the music has its own momentum, built up over many years of communication and understanding. We hear all the details as they're happening. It's not just the ears. The body, if you like, is like a huge receptor, so you feel the energies as much as hearing them. So sometimes the intention is there before the note and you don't even know about it. It's not a matter of playing and wondering what to do next.

I've often thought, though, that even when it's fast, there's a sense in which it can also be slow. Think of different strata of activity. I sometimes think of these great arcs of movement. If you swing your arm around for the big arc; then if you swing your arm just from the elbow to your fingertips, it's a smaller arc; while if you bend your hand from the wrist you've got something smaller again. What's happening at the end of a finger might be one of your fastest phrases, but all sitting on top of the huge dimension. It's not just a matter of speed going horizontally, there are implications for the whole structure. It's got to have an architecture.

Graph: Is there a political dimension to improvised music for you? I'm thinking of the way you work with a community of artists and the idea of being untrammelled ...

BG: I think there is a political dimension. There is a sense of community, of collective dynamism. Interestingly enough, it's got to do with the individual as well as the collective, because to make these advances the individual has to work hard for the needs of all. I like this music because it breaks the rules. This music in some ways irritates the status quo and questions are always being asked. On the other hand, because we've been at this so long, we've become the new establishment, whether we like it or not. But this music was never really wanted anyway. The irritation is still there, but now we're seen as the last of the dinosaurs ... The closed mind is a sad and dangerous thing.

Graph: I see there's now a Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. How do you find working in that area?

BG: I like it. The interesting thing with that ensemble is that it's all real time. In the old days, to a great extent, electronics had to be predetermined, with lots of studio manipulation. Now everything is so sophisticated and there's a new generation of brains behind them – thinking about music rather than just the technical process – so we're all working together to the same end: synthesising the acoustic and the electronic. It's an intriguing process because it has a lot of the functions of normal improvisation but there's a treatment person at the end of the line, and you're not always sure how you're going to come out. You know what you've just played, but what you hear might be completely fragmented or turned upside-down.

Graph: You have to get to know the program almost as you'd get to know another player ...

BG: Yes, you have to know what it's capable of. Obviously the programs are infinite, but in the EPEAE we discuss what we're going to do, the relative densities for instance. That's necessary because the machines can set up huge arrays of sounds and articulations. If that gets out of control, you lose what you set out to accomplish. So we might discuss elongated notes or cut-offs or different envelope-shapes. I find it very exciting.

Graph: Moving to another subject entirely – what place does Xenakis have in your musical life? You play one of his pieces at least.

BG: I've been a great admirer of Xenakis for years. I like his methods, his association with architecture – because architecture is my pet subject in a way, and I've got more books about architecture than about music. I like the way he's found of expressing music through mathematics and architecture. If you take it as he intends it, it can be revelatory. It's a very special way of composing, not to everyone's taste but very exciting. It's highly sophisticated but raw at the same time. I like that polarity.

He wrote a piece for double bass called 'Theraps'. I'd never heard anybody play it. We had a correspondence for six months or so. I met up with him after I'd been learning it for a while and played the piece for him. He thought I was joking. Then we had a rational discussion of the techniques he'd deployed in the notation. Basically, I'd taken a wrong approach. I suggested there were ways he could have expressed the music in a fundamentally clearer way, but he took no notice of that. Anyway, he sent me packing and said to come back in six months.

Then I gave a performance that he attended and he came up to me afterwards and said, 'You make the best performance of my piece ever.' When I asked for a programme note, he told me to write one myself. So then I worked hard to to understand the piece's structure and what I was getting out of it. When I sent it to him, he used it as a preface to the score. It's a fine piece of music – quite a headache, and a finger-buster, but once you've taken it on board it's a joy to play.

Graph: There are other composers whose sense of architecture appeals to you.

BG: Monteverdi is one of my all-time favourites. I find that man's sense of architecture, structure and sonority extraordinary. Remember, I spent three years working in an architect's office, not knowing very much about music. When I gave up all that and went to music college, I had no idea there was so much beautiful music in the world. I arrived at it in a strange way – not starting by learning about Mozart and Beethoven but coming from jazz, improvised music, Xenakis, Stravinsky, Penderecki, and John Cage and the 1950s American avant-garde. But to get down to seriously studying Beethoven, and then going back and discovering Gabrieli, Monteverdi and all these other wonderful early composers, and then of course travelling the other way... – it's been a wonderful journey.

[ Maya Homburger joined in at this point ]

Graph: You've just brought out an ECM CD together. When you met, I suppose early and contemporary music were completely separate areas for you?

BG: We met eleven years ago when we were both in the Academy of Ancient Music. What's been happening over the years has been that Maya, as well as pursuing her own career as a soloist and chamber-musician, has been managing my life as well – organising for the LJCO and other activities.

Graph: Did it come as a surprise to you, Maya, to find yourself both involved in contemporary music and running things?

MH: Well, before, I'd even had a prejudice against it, after some things I'd been involved in in Switzerland. But I got totally hooked on Barry's music, the LJCO and his own compositions. It had far more appeal than some so-called straight contemporary music because there was far more freedom in it, it was more idiomatic and player-oriented. It became a kind of mission to promote it.

Graph: In the music you play together, are you evolving towards improvisation?

MH: I'm still not at all a free improviser, as Barry and Evan are. It's like a language they speak and it would take me years to learn it. However, Barry has given me a lot of material but lets me handle it in a very free way. So that has freed me up a lot and ultimately will probably lead me to improvise fully. Listening to improvisers has changed my approach to baroque as well. And with Barry's music, I play it almost as if I were inventing it.

BG: The early instruments have totally different colours which I love as a composer. They're more like voices, actually.

MH: And you play them like voices. If you really go down that avenue, you play them rhetorically – which suits contemporary music as well. In a lot of contemporary music, I don't find they're searching for that rhetoric. They're playing the notes and following the instructions of the composer, who can never write out all the rhetorical or spoken aspects of the music. That's where baroque and contemporary fully meet.

BG: I have to find a way of documenting this music, a notation, that makes sense. Not over-writing – you have to trust the musicians. In our duo, I'm freer, but I can give myself some shorthand. And because Maya understands how the music is meant to go, I can write for her in quite a free way and she will come up with interesting solutions.

MH: Especially in tempo, in tempo variations, and different uses of rubato and accelerando, it becomes freer and freer, and we allow ourselves to go slightly out of sync.

It's very exciting and good for the audience as well because you can never settle back, you're constantly surprised. You could never notate it exactly. Obviously someone like Ferneyhough tries to notate this kind of thing. But we arrive at a similar result in rehearsals or concerts – out of the joy and excitement of music rather than trying to work out the time mathematically.

BG: To use a phrase of Maya's, we have musical stretching in our duos. We like to make our concerts refreshing and to give people an interesting journey.

MH: I call it musical stretching because literally the different musics hit the body in different areas and what I don't like is when people settle back for a bit of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' or familiar repertoire or a modern concert, and everything hits them at a specific emotional or body level. What we like to do is, as with the tempo, to destabilise things slightly. I might even finish a piece of Biber and Barry comes in with an improvisation and the last two notes overlap, and the body goes, Oh, where's this going to affect me now? People might not know for three pieces in a row where it's going next. I find it energises rather than just entertains.

Graph: Talking of journeys, how did you end up here in Kilkenny?

MH: Malcolm Proud visited us in England and was very enthusiastic about Barry's music, which he'd never heard before. When Malcolm told Susan Proud about it, she invited Barry on trust to come and give a solo recital in St Canice's in 1992. The response was very good. It was a revelation to us. We met lovely people and fell in love with the place. Of course, it was during Arts Week ...

Graph: You didn't realise what it would be like in January.

BG: Yes, a variable feast of weather here – but it wasn't only the occasion of Arts Week thrilled us. We decided to bring the big band over to rehearse and the whole arrangement went really well.

MH: And the concert, too. People came from Galway and Belfast ... So we did more and more projects in Ireland after that and we were getting more and more dispirited about living in England, from a cultural point of view ...

BG: And from a political point of view as well.

MH: Now that we've come over, we're finding that some things are not at all better while others are. It was a bit of a shock, for example, to find out what needs to be done from an ecological point of view.

Graph: Will the fact that you're here pull more musicians towards Ireland?

BG: We hope so. Marilyn Crispell and Evan Parker have been here ...

MH: And Mats Gustafsson and Raymond Strid came to the Sligo Contemporary Music festival and that was a revelation to some people. We don't mind if it's a small number, so long as it really captures the audience's imagination. On the negative side, we've had some shocks regarding the contemporary scene.

BG: I thought things were looking up when After the Rain was to be played by the NSO. But when I went to the rehearsal, things were so bad that I couldn't bring myself to go to the performance. There were so many things to correct in the rhythm, pitching, musicality ...

It's a shame because it's all about rehearsal time. It was getting only an hour and a quarter or so, and even after doing several performances with the City of London Symphonia (who knew the piece inside out) we would always give it three hours. It does a dis-service to contemporary music to play pieces like this badly. If you're going to win the hearts and minds of people, you've got to present the music at its best.

MH: It's quite widespread. Before people have done the work on themselves to become quality instrumentalists, they adopt this horrible professional attitude and do things on the quick.

Graph: Have you got any projects currently?

MH: Well, we'd like to start our own festival, which – surprise! – would involve early and contemporary music. This year I've managed to put together a series of four concerts at Kilmainham – with the Hilliard, my trio, trio plus tenor and harp, and Evan Parker and Maggie Nicols ... We'll call it Now and Then. We'd also like to have people over here, with a kind of house premiere and then a series of concerts around the country. It could involve recording, or become the basis for the festival. But it takes a lot of work – sponsorship, the Arts Council ...

Graph: It takes time for people to believe you're committed.

MH: What's difficult with funding is that there seems to be this government rule where you're only told about you're funding in that year. It makes booking really difficult, or a big risk. I suppose that could be changed – it's really about ease of accounting.

We'll be doing more tours in this country in the future. We hope to be able to form a Kilkenny-based group, too. We have Malcolm Proud, Siobhan Armstrong, John Elwes, Sarah Cunningham is not too far ...

Funnily enough, the fact that we're living here has been an added attraction with promoters abroad and with interviewers ... They tend to think it's very romantic and creative to be here.

BG: We've certainly made a lot of friends of artists and writers and musicians. It's a great feeling to be part of a community like that, whereas when we lived in England we didn't really feel part of anything, other than being professional musicians. It means our social life has picked up – a mixture of joys and headaches.