The silences - David Lumsdaine
[A.F.] "… So are you suggesting that, at one very simple level, every listener makes his or her own piece?”
[D.L.] “Oh absolutely, yes. That’s always been important to me, that my idea of a piece does not dominate it either for the performer or the listener. My program notes, for instance, are usually pretty open.”
[A.F.] “But the difficulty of perceiving music in a non-linear manner is that music does exist in time. I mean the seconds tick by, and unless you, as the composer, choose to make something come back again, then it’s gone.”
[D.L.] “Now, wait a moment. Let’s think of painting. A painter works at the surface of a canvas. Similarly a performer must work in time, taking one breath after another, and, as you say, the seconds tick by. But one of the most magical things about painting for me is that, when you stand in front of a rich painting, you see the surface, but then the surface disappears. The painting transcends its surface. And any kind of rich music, for me, has to transcend that ticking. Time — whatever time is — is the material of music. It’s the material of all rhythmic ideas; it’s the basis of all pitch ideas. Time — our perception of time. And the whole point for me is to transcend it. And that’s why I get so bored with so much minimal music, which insist upon being so many little ticking clocks. The most important thing in music for me is the silences.”