Entrevista con José Luis Turina / Interview with José Luis Turina

Published in issue No. 8 of the magazine Doce Notas, Preliminares (2001)

By Gloria Collado


Question: What were you doing in 1982?
Answer: At that time, I was working as a teacher of Harmony, Counterpoint and Composition at the Professional Conservatory of Music in Cuenca, where I was also the secretary and later the director before moving on to teach at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid starting in 1985. That was my immersion in the world of teaching, to which I am still connected (albeit under very different circumstances today, as the Artistic Director of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain). From a creative point of view, my activity as a composer had only been going on for a few years (four, to be exact), and it was precisely in 1982 when my first significant premiere took place: the chamber opera Ligazón, based on the first act of Valle-Inclán's Retablo de la avaricia, la lujuria y la muerte. That premiere, which took place in Cuenca, was an invaluable experience for me, especially in everything related to the complex music-text relationship, which from that moment on I subjected to deep reflection that kept me away from vocal composition for nearly ten years. That year, as well as the years immediately before and after, is part of an intense period of taking positions, both human and aesthetic.

Q: Did your last name influence your decision to become a composer?
A: To be honest, becoming a composer was not part of my plans when I began my musical studies, which I started quite late, almost at the age of 18. At that time, my ambition was to become a violinist, but I undoubtedly chose an instrument that was not ideal to begin studying at such an advanced age. I barely managed to complete six courses, and age and harsh reality began to steer my interests in another direction, that of composition, which had attracted me since the beginning of my studies. When it came time to take the decisive step, the importance of my last name in my career never crossed my mind, and I didn’t begin to think about its significance until the first critiques of my early works emerged, which inevitably emphasized this aspect. It confused me a bit at the time, but rather than discouraging me, it motivated me to make an effort to try and shift the attention of the public and specialists toward my music and away from my family circumstances, which are irrelevant in this context. Now, as frequently as back then, my grandfather is often mentioned when talking about me, but the initial mistrust, which I suppose is inevitable in the presence of a known last name, no longer exists. I am very proud of my heritage. Some, in identical circumstances, adopt a different "stage name." That’s not my case, nor do I believe it is necessary to go to such extremes.

Q: In the early 1980s, there began to be a sense of freedom in artistic trends. Do you think that benefited you in any way?
A: As I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of my career as a composer were quite late, taking place in the late '70s. Due to my age, this was the result of the late vocation I referred to in my answer to the previous question. But that is crucial in my case, or at least it seems so to me, because my "official" entry into the world of composition occurred when the members of the generation to which I chronologically belong (Guerrero, Encinar, Aracil, Riviere, Fernández Guerra...) had already been working in that field for years and had digested all the consequences of the total serialism that inspired the previous decades. Although they are my contemporaries, I have always felt little connection with them, despite having excellent relationships with all of them. Naturally, the members of the next generation are too young, in relation to me, for me to consider myself one of them. So, in a way, I have always had a sense of being a "Steppenwolf" of my generation, which, although it has caused me some disappointments to some extent, has also allowed me to enjoy great aesthetic and creative independence from the very beginning. In that sense, the freedom of trends you refer to in your question, which is entirely true, was not something I experienced as true freedom from previous constraints, but as the natural state in which I was going to be able to operate, and from which I have tried to benefit as much as possible, since it allowed me (like everyone else) not to channel my aesthetic goal in a single, determined direction, as was imposed in previous years, but in many different directions, which is obviously much more gratifying because it allows for a variety of artistic interests, as is the case for me.

Q: Do you think the term "postmodernity" reflected a positive reality in those years?
A: I believe that what has been called postmodernity has been a sort of "humanization of art," to use Ortega's term, which is, in turn, a logical consequence of the previous dehumanization. The history of art, like that of any other human activity or endeavor, is one of pendulum swings between opposing tendencies, which in art oscillate between emotion and reason. It's like the classic generational conflict: young people must oppose their elders, and the provocation that this entails is often achieved by adopting attitudes radically opposed to those learned, which are thus entirely excluded. But the most curious aspect of the postmodern phenomenon is that the presence of one tendency does not exclude the other, as has happened at other times in history. In the '60s, thought was as monolithically inclined toward reason as it was toward emotion in the 19th century. Now, both tendencies coexist peacefully -for the moment- in the works of musical and visual artists whose work clearly leans toward one or the other, and it is even possible (and here I include myself) that in the catalog of a single artist, both extremes may be present, sometimes even within the same work. Referring to my music, which I know best and can speak about most accurately, this is particularly evident in my two most recent works: the string quartet Clémisos y Sustalos, which was recently premiered with great success in Madrid by the Tokyo Quartet, is a very radical work, without concessions, which pleasantly surprised critics and the public because they probably didn’t expect something like this after my previous major premiere, the opera D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona), which premiered at the Gran Teatro del Liceo last October, and in which the interplay with tradition is constant. But it has a dramaturgical purpose there because that interplay is at the heart of the conflict between the present and the nostalgia for a past time, which is what Don Quixote symbolizes, trapped in a future society very different from his own, and for which he is a monster due to his anachronism, because he is "infected with time". An opera as aesthetically disparate as D.Q. would have been unthinkable 25 years ago, but now it is acceptable, both for the Liceo and for the creators of its staging, La Fura dels Baus, who are not exactly known for their dedication to classical theater. And the response has been as disparate as the music contained in the score: from enthusiasm to absolute rejection. I think all of that is great.

Q: If you were defined as postmodern, would you feel offended?
A: I think that after my response to the previous question, the answer to this one is obvious: No, not at all. In fact, I’m glad I’ve had the fortune to develop almost my entire career in a postmodern environment. I’m not at all sure that the modernist environment would have been as gratifying, but I suspect it wouldn’t have been: I’m not at all sectarian or, even less, messianic, and the doses in which those traits were present during that period would have been hard for me to tolerate.

Q: Would you agree if your musical work were defined as "eclectic" in relation to the radical trends of the decades prior to the 1980s?
A: First of all, let's clarify the term "eclectic" to see if we're all talking about the same thing. If we adhere to the strict definition, eclectic, in the strict sense, refers to the philosophical school that seeks to reconcile doctrines that seem better or more plausible, even if they come from different systems. In a figurative sense, it refers to a way of judging or acting that adopts an intermediate position rather than following extreme or well-defined solutions. As you can see, there's a significant qualitative decline from the first meaning to the second, which has been further aggravated by the recent and subtle introduction of an ideological nuance whereby eclecticism is associated with conservative thought, "right-wing" so to speak, while "synthesis" and its derivatives (which originally referred to the composition of a whole by the sum of its parts, and not necessarily the best parts) are reserved for progressive, "left-wing" thinking, in a similar way to how the terms "erudite" and "intellectual" have evolved. So, answering the question now, I would agree if my musical work were defined as "eclectic" in relation to the radical trends prior to the 1980s only if the term referred to the strict sense of the word, and not to the other meanings, which imply either superficiality or an evident pejorative connotation. In any case, regardless of how I'm labeled, my primary aesthetic concern is not so much about creating a more or less clever and suggestive cocktail of various procedures from different trends, but rather achieving the best possible balance between tradition and modernity.

Q: Do you think there is an unresolved problem with musical language, understanding musical language as something apart from individual works?
A: Wherever we place it, it's clear that the expression "musical language" is nothing more than a metaphor, due to the similarity between music and certain aspects of spoken language. Therefore, the supposed problem, if it exists, would be a metaphorical problem, which makes it impossible to solve on one hand, and extremely easy on the other. To be honest, I don't think it's a real problem; it's something we imagine because humans can't live without creating problems of this kind.
What is evident, however, is a new way of organizing musical material, radically different from previous methods, for which no code (neither morphological nor syntactical, to continue with the same metaphor) has yet been found that would give it the character of a universal language, spoken and understood by everyone who supposedly shares it, as the tonal system did, and as previous systems did.
In my view, the attempts to create a new code to replace the old one, starting from the old one, haven't been as successful as expected because they were based not on one but on several false premises: the emancipation of dissonance was one of them, being more theoretical than practical, and another was ignoring everything related to the psychology of musical perception, which is what it is, and not what one would like it to be to fit a theory, and which ultimately determines our way of understanding music.

Q: What do you think the generation that has emerged in the last twenty years has contributed to Spanish music?
A: I can only speak for myself, of course, and I'm not sure my contemporaries, with whom I've already said my general connection is only age, would agree. Over the past twenty years, we must talk about at least two generations that are now firmly established: those born around 1950, and the next generation, about ten or twelve years younger. In the first generation -my own- mostly shaped in the 1970s, the following two decades saw brutal oscillations, ranging from maximum liberalism to the most radical and intolerant positions. Some representatives of the latter didn't hesitate to launch furious diatribes, of which many composers, myself included, have often been victims, sometimes implicitly and other times explicitly.
Fortunately, that stance is now an anachronistic exception, and in that sense, I believe the greatest contribution of composers who have made their mark in this country over the last twenty years is their role in fostering a climate of respect for their colleagues' work, regardless of whether one's aesthetic line aligns with others. This is fantastic as a work environment, infinitely healthier than the atmosphere that previously existed, which was so suffocating that even someone like Benjamin Britten was considered a second-rate composer, unworthy of being in the first line of composition (for being "eclectic" in the pejorative sense I mentioned earlier). Twenty years later, Britten's importance in the history of music in the second half of the 20th century is as undeniable as the attitude of those who denigrated him for their own greater glory is ridiculous.

Q: In what way do you think the aesthetic and musical problems of twenty years ago differ from those of today?
A: In no way: they are exactly the same throughout history, but adapted to the aesthetic and stylistic particularities of each era. The fundamental problem for the artist, not just the composer, is materializing the ideal they are seeking. Since this is something that is never fully achieved, because the level of self-demand increases over the years, and consequently, the ideal being sought becomes ever more distant, there is a permanent dissatisfaction that is the true breeding ground for creativity, the battlefield where the artist struggles against material that resists, trying to bend it to their demands without breaking it or completely losing its identity. It's the trap of Art, one that we fall into time and time again.

Q: Tell us about your experience with opera.
A: After Ligazón, which I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, came La raya en el agua in 1996, fourteen years later, which wasn't an opera, but something quite different. That's why I called it a "scenic-musical spectacle," where music, dance, visual arts, theater and poetry came together. It was, however, an approach to the world of the stage, which was very helpful when I tackled D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona). The overall balance couldn't be more positive, as the experience, especially with the last two titles, has been magnificent, given that in both cases I was fortunate enough to work with a team of professionals who were as formidable as they were enthusiastic. My main concern regarding opera was that the work, into which one has invested many months, ceases to be one's own and becomes part of an undefined whole (stage directors, set designers, soloists, chorus, chorus and orchestra directors, etc.), with the accompanying loss of control over the final result. In both cases, however, there were no disappointments; the understanding with all the components was excellent, and the result far exceeded my expectations. As for D.Q., once written, rehearsed, premiered, and repeatedly heard, I feel generally satisfied with the work done. There are some points in the third act that need revision, which I plan to undertake soon in view of possible future performances. It's undoubtedly my most important work, and I believe it perfectly encapsulates my concerns and obsessions regarding the (impossible?) synthesis between tradition and modernity.

Q: Do you think operatic creation can be decisive in defining the musical aesthetics of these last two decades?
A: No, because the operatic boom is happening right now, and since it's still in full development, its role can't be very decisive from an aesthetic point of view, although that doesn't mean it doesn't have a role, but to a lesser extent than instrumental or electroacoustic creation, fields where production has been overwhelming, quantitatively speaking, with a good handful of excellent works that have indeed set aesthetic trends. Contemporary operatic creation is much smaller in quantity, for obvious reasons, and very scattered in terms of quality, for the time being.

Q: Fifteen years ago, regarding the premiere of your Concerto for violin and orchestra at the Alicante Festival, you mentioned that you felt you were at the "mezzo del camin della mia vita" (35 years), following Dante's formula. Now that you've reached 50, and given current life expectancy, don't you think you might have as much -if not more- aesthetic journey ahead as the one you leave behind? And if we allow ourselves to be optimistic and take this as a given, how do you see your tasks in this second half of your creative life? What do you think you should do, and what would you like to do?
A: I appreciate your kind wishes for creative longevity, although I don't feel as optimistic about the future. After more than twenty years in the profession, I don't feel that the initial hopes have been fulfilled to the extent I expected, although I have to acknowledge that I can't complain: my music is listened to with interest and is mostly well-received, both by the public and by instrumentalists and singers, which is essential for its survival. But the environment remains very hostile, and the social disinterest in classical music, in general, and contemporary creation, in particular, is increasing, almost alarmingly so. Just look at the minimal coverage music receives in newspapers like El País or on various radio and television channels, both public and private, with the notable exception of Radio Clásica. This is very discouraging because composing requires an immense intellectual effort, and if that doesn't correspond with its social appreciation by our contemporaries, then the enthusiasm and energy of youth fade over the years.
What appeals to me less and less is the idea of a "catalog", of the transcendence of a work entrusted to a more than doubtful, or at least highly improbable, posterity. Composers, in general, are obsessed with the need to leave a work for History. As I've grown older, this has interested me less and less, and the proof is that in recent years I've sought an alternative path, focusing on composing more useful, if not utilitarian, music for immediate use. Since I share my work as a composer with teaching, I know that many of the problems I mentioned earlier stem from inadequate education in that area, both in general education -where the presence of music is almost token, especially after the latest modifications to the minimum standards for secondary education- and in specialized education, where the presence of contemporary music is very scarce, and in some instrumental specialties, even non-existent. Additionally, the new demands in the teaching of Chamber Music, which now begins at a much lower level, mean that there is very little repertoire to choose from, especially for ensembles with little tradition. In all these areas, composers can and should engage in intense work, either through the creation of original works with a difficulty level adapted to the technical proficiency of each grade, or through transcriptions and arrangements of pieces initially composed for other instruments. All the music created in this direction has great potential because it can also allow the children and young people of today, who will be the professionals of tomorrow, to come into contact with composers while they are still in the learning phase.