About Philip Goddard's music — notes by the composer
The idiom is modal and not in any of the fashionable 'modernistic' atonal or highly discordant styles, though in the odd work there are the odd excursions into atonality as part of the musical narrative. That doesn't imply any judgment upon such styles but is a simple statement of fact. Other composers whose sound world overlaps with that of mine include Vaughan Williams (particularly in his more elemental aspect), Nielsen, Sibelius (later works), Holmboe, Tubin, Holst (in The Planets and Egdon Heath), and Jehan Alain. Despite this, listeners to my works find a strong individual voice and neither an eclectic hotchpotch of styles nor a second-rate imitation of other composers.
The modal characteristics of my music often impart upon it an other-worldly nature and sometimes, as in part of Sunrise on Ama Dablam and Clarity of a Mountain Sunrise, an intriguing and mystifying impression of great antiquity as though it had been composed an extremely long time ago — too long ago indeed to have been composed on Earth.
Something of a dichotomy can be found in my music — wilderness inspired works on the one hand and works apparently based on overtly 'spiritual' topics on the other.
Overall, my compositions tend towards the contemplative and what many people would call 'spiritual', and contain less bustling activity than in many composers' oeuvres; the emphasis is on the colour and 'resonances' of the modality and harmonic relationships rather than rhythm. On the other hand, I'm not really a member of what one might call the 'New Simplicity' or 'Spiritual Simplicity' school of composers, for much of the visionary quality in my music is achieved through a certain complexity — even in such an austere work as Clarity of a Mountain Sunrise.
The basic elements tend to be simple enough — usually shortish motifs that are repeated a lot, but these are commonly built up into larger structures, much as in late Sibelius symphonies but with more polyphony. A particular case in point is my 7th Symphony (Ancient Cry for Freedom), which (unusually for my work) will remind some listeners of Arvo Pärt in the initial austere sonorities and modal lines of the mantra chant, but the resemblance vanishes as soon as the canonic structures build up into great edifices of rapturous sound.
It may sound off-putting that a certain complexity of sound is often one of my compositional hallmarks. This is not, however, the complexity of impenetrability. Rather, it's the complexity you might observe in the form of a great cathedral or mountain. You don't have to examine or understand that complexity; you just allow the music to work its magic upon you. Visions of what people may ill-advisedly interpret as 'the infinite' can be opened up both by extreme simplicity and by a sensitive handling of complexity.
However, the problem with extreme simplicity is that it's generally ungrounding for both listener and performer(s), and mentally restricting and awareness-dulling. So, a cogent, directly communicating reasonable degree of complexity makes for a much healthier and more satisfying listening experience.
My approach to form is neither orthodox nor way-out in the modernistic sense, so that those who listen to new music with the intention of criticizing will find plenty of grist for their negative ego-trips. Like Sibelius in his later important works I've allowed the starting material and its potentialities to shape the form and character of each work, rather than any preconceived or traditional or currently fashionable plan. This certainly doesn't mean that my work is deficient in form — only that there is an ongoing freshness of approach that's in keeping with the vision of each work.
Some people complain that they have trouble with the form of one or other of my symphonies, when what they really need to be doing is listening with open minds and open hearts to the music and so to allow themselves to enjoy experiencing something new, rather than negatively judging the works for having different shapes from the symphonies they already know. To such people I'd also say, if it helps, forget the word 'symphony' in the title, if that is really their bone of contention. Just let the music take you on a journey…!
Symphonies 7–10
I composed each these works without a thought of calling them symphonies. It was only in late 2004 during some 'soul searching' and deeper thought about the nature and true origin of my various works that I concluded that it would make best sense for me to be bold and take the unorthodox step of classifying and renaming such works as symphonies.
Actually we already have many precedents for classifying a wide range of works with bewilderingly different approaches to content, form and structure as symphonies, and indeed if you look at what has been called symphonies in the 20th Century, letting go of the common attachment to the 'classical' or romantic symphonic traditions (which were not the ancient, set-in-stone traditions that many people fondly imagined, but simply transient traditions established over the odd century or two), then you'd find that my choral symphonies 7–10 all sit more comfortably within the 'symphony' designation than many 20th Century 'symphonies'.
In classifying a work as a symphony I've considered carefully its substantial nature, sense of structure and the presence of an abstract and coherent musical 'argument' or 'story' irrespective of whether the work has some non-musical associations in addition. Clearly the flow of the musical 'argument' in these four symphonies is constrained by the use of juxtaposed contrasting blocks of material, but it is there and in fact strong, the total effect of each symphony becoming thus much more than that of the sum of its parts.
Buddhist imagery does not mean Buddhist works!
Nobody — absolutely nobody — is shut out! A number of my later works use Buddhist imagery, texts and mantras. It needs to be understood that these are all works of universal intent, and indeed are not what they may at first appear to be.
A complication arose over my use of such material in my works, for, subsequent to my composing them I found out the hard way what really underlies the various 'spiritual' and mystical traditions. It's NOT wholesome in the slightest, and I want no truck with it! In fact my involvement in 'spirituality' and 'healing' turned out to have been progressively ungrounding me and weakening my non-physical aspects, and in late 2003 'all hell broke loose' for me in all too literal a way, because all that ungrounding and weakening of my whole being had opened me sufficiently to the garbage to enable it to set out to destroy me.
My quite desperate shenanigans with the garbage over the following few years at least provided me with the observations that eventually enabled me to put together an effective working model of what the garbage really is, how it functions, and — most importantly — how to clear oneself of and immunize oneself against its interferences and attacks.
For further details and explanation please see Exit 'spirituality' — Enter 'clear-mindedness' and The 'forces of darkness' ('astral beings') — My own tough experiences.
The mantras used in the works are actually used in a way quite at variance from their traditional use for 'spiritual' or devotional purposes. I've used them as building blocks for larger, symphonic, types of structure — and now I want to draw attention to this, and away from any notion that the 'spirituality' elements in my works represent any worthwhile sort of 'reality'. Rather, the works are better and more healthily seen as 'spirituality-busters', in which some portrayals of 'spirituality' and 'spiritual practice' are actually trampled over or 'exploded' in order to draw our awareness back to the healthy and uplifting simplicity and purity of nature itself in the physical 'here and now'.
As already noted, in symphonies 7 to 10 and in certain other works I use repeated mantras. In various Eastern traditions seemingly endless repetition of mantras is considered a highly desirable thing to do, as it functions like very intensive use of meditation in stilling the mind and opening up what are misguidedly interpreted as 'high spiritual connections'. However, such practices used regularly can be highly problematical.
What they're really doing to a person's awareness is ungrounding it (so making the person more inclined to open to the astral non-reality and thus to the garbage) and putting blinkers on it so that various personal issues that really need to be cleared are just covered up. Indeed, my understanding now is that the chanting of mantras has been encouraged in various traditions actually by the garbage for this very reason.
You can no doubt understand, therefore, that I have no plans to use mantras again in any music or other artistic composition.
As regards the option for me to discard all my mantra based works, there does appear to be quite a strong case for that. However, if all music works that were based on religious words or texts (such as the Roman Catholic Mass in its various forms) were discarded, we would have lost an absolutely huge body of actually very beautiful and awareness enhancing music. (ALL religion is actually 'of the dark side', as I explain in Exit Spirituality — Enter Clear-Mindedness.)
So, as already noted, on balance I'm not suppressing any of my music, but I just caution that listeners let go of any religious, 'spiritual' or devotional associations of the mantras and see them simply as musical building blocks that are being used by a genuine creative force. If they are listened to with that clear understanding, they should cause minimal harm.
What needs discarding isn't the music but the religions and other traditions that are diverting us away from genuine self-actualization / self-realization and clarity of mind and of being, and instead are covertly inveigling us into the clutches of the garbage, where control, fear and unawareness are the order of the day.
Prior to my organ works, nearly all my compositions had required orchestral forces and
most required a double choir as well. It has often been put to me that I ought to compose
for small forces such as string quartets to increase my chances of getting performances. I
sympathize with that view, but, to quote one Igor Stravinsky, My
art is like a nose: it just is
. I composed, not for the sake of composing, nor
out of an ambition for personal fame, but solely because these fantastic creative manifestations kept
insisting on channelling through me and demanding representation to the world in whatever
form was dictated by the content.
As my musical vision is 'cosmic' and elemental rather than intimate, I rarely had cause to write for small forces, though I did my best to respond positively to any requests for small-scale works for specific instrumentalists or to formal commissions. That this isn't just empty words is demonstrated by my having composed the very substantial work The Seen and the Unseen for two saxophones and piano in response to Paul Wehage asking me for something for the saxophone, and similarly Nordic Wilderness Journey for the virtuoso saxophonist Jay Easton.
What are the works about?
Here lies an area of popular misconception, perhaps fuelled by the titles I give to my works and indeed to every movement, which bring in supposedly non-musical images. In fact I don't decide to compose a work 'about' one particular thing or another. The Great Wilderness, for example, isn't 'about' the Scottish Highlands, nor 'about' the particular mountains or aspects of wilderness that have been the images upon which each movement of that work grew.
If you really want to know what that work is 'about', the only way to do so is through listening to the music, which will tell you in its own non-verbal language. The nature painting is only a framework for something beyond words and ordinary concepts. I saw a newsgroup post in which it was claimed that my organ-and-tuba work The Unknown was about the Composer's own 'spiritual path'. With all due respect to the well intentioned person who posted that, that is a very narrow view that misses the main point and vision of the music.
I do use images and particular subjects often as a starting point or framework for the composition process, but all the works — even those with an apparently very clearly defined subject such as the Flapping Duck works, Golgotha to Rozabal or Et in Arcadia Ego, use their respective subjects merely as a framework or platform from which a broader vision is presented. My Third Symphony isn't 'about' me personally, nor is it an expression of my emotions, even though, without my bidding, it certainly reflects strong experiences that I've been in touch with, and it will at times have an emotive quality for the listener.
It's inevitable that any artist's works, however objective and cosmic in their vision, will at times contain various reflections of their creator's outlook and life experience. These can have great value if they are presented in a universal, symbolic form, which many people can relate to. They have much less universal value if the artistic creations are limited in their view to portraying or 'expressing' the relatively insignificant experiences and emotions of one transient person.
How best to perform my works
ALL my works are in their own ways 'elemental' rather than any sort of 'romantic' utterance. That even includes the Fantasy Variations, which does have a seemingly 'romantic' sound-world. That means that for a conductor / performer to ensure a truly 'faithful' performance of any of the works, (s)he needs to keep to an absolute minimum any expressive tempo variations that aren't in the score. The works, each in their own way, even when they appear superficially to be slow and at least potentially expressive, have a lot of drive and flow and general sense of forward motion. To sully that with a lot of drawing extra attention to expressive details would considerably degrade it.
Note, however, that I'm not stipulating that there must be no added expressive tempo variation at all, because the most deeply aware conductors / performers would tune into the composer's own intentions and seek to be faithful to those, even where that might mean slightly departing from the odd score marking (or lack of marking). Such individuals would seek thus to be a 'transparent' vehicle for the composer's vision and not try to fit the music into some sort of personal agenda of their own, as all too many do.
To be honest, I deplore the way that a high proportion of conductors maul / disfigure even true, overtly romantic or Romantic works generally by using excessive tempo variations. When one does that, the music fails to flow properly, wallowing in various details, taking attention away from the overall form and direction of flow. It draws attention to the conductor, away from the composer's original utterance.
Concert pianists too are particularly guilty of that heinous disfigurement of the compositions they are making out to be 'performing' — indeed no matter whether or not they are 'romantic' works. Most members of an audience may love to hear it that way, but that's because they have so little understanding of how much more effective the work would be if only the performer(s) enabled it to speak / sing for itself without heavy 'interpretation'.
Influences from other composers
Inevitably music reviewers of / commentators on my works seek to explain away the effectiveness of various or all of my works by seeing various subjectively perceived resemblances and immediately concluding that they represent 'influences', and thus tacitly believing that the particular works, and my oeuvre overall, and indeed I as a composer, are the lesser through having those supposed influences.
What such people really tell us is more about their own limited understanding of how creativity works, and usually also about those individuals' own issues about seeking to pose as having some sort of superiority over those who have what those critic people don't have — at least in as great a measure.
If you really want to get a better understanding about how music and art more generally 'ticks' in the creation process, and how wide of the mark is much artistic review, comment and criticism, please see my distinctly educational essay Musical Influences on Philip Goddard's Music & Literary Works. — And of course, if you have a sufficiently flexible and open mind, you'd also gain there some understanding of how my works actually came about, and the irrelevance and unhelpfulness of the concept of 'influences' upon my music, at least in any sense that's normally meant by that sneaky and confusing word 'influence'.