“I am most interested in new music – the one that was made yesterday and will be played today. And my music is also the one that will be written only tomorrow, and tomorrow I will also listen to it. So my music can be very different,” in the program “My Music ” says this year’s jubilee – composer, Jāzepa Vītola, professor of the Composition Department of the Latvian Academy of Music Selga Mence.
We are talking about the music that Selga Mence understands as his music, the music he heard and sang in his childhood, the hits of his teenage years, the pains of creativity, the feelings of the Song Festival and, of course, the music chosen especially for this program.
Ilga Auguste: It is often the case with composers that by the concept of “my music” they most often mean the compositions they created themselves, but this time it is not a story about the music you composed, but about works that at some point in your life have caught your ears, memory and also in the heart, causing thoughts to return to them from time to time, perhaps reliving some important moment of life. I have no doubt that you have many more such special compositions than we can cover in the program, so I want to ask you, have you had to think for a long time, who would be your musical companions, with whom you will take a little bit of life today?
Selga Mence: When preparing for the program, I think a lot about what and how. I already clearly knew that in the program “Mana muzika” the guests talk about their near and dear music.
And then I started thinking: what is my music? Maybe it’s the music I deal with the most on a daily basis in my work at the Music Academy? Maybe it’s the pieces I show my students that we listen to and analyze together?
It is the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, they are classical and romantic compositions that I teach students to play and analyze. Maybe it’s my music that plays around me the most every day?
But maybe my music is the feelings I feel when observing nature, listening to the noises and silence of nature, smelling smells, reading poetry, observing art, reflecting on life? These are all my thoughts, feelings, which are not yet music, but later become such, and then it really becomes the music I wrote.
But maybe my music is what I listen to at concerts? At concerts, I mostly listen to classics, I listen to Internet recordings. But it is also music that has just been made.
I am most interested in new music – that which was made yesterday and will be played today. And my music is also something that will be written only tomorrow, and tomorrow I will also listen to it. So my music can be very different.
And then I thought: I will move on to the historical-biographical aspect and think about what I have listened to in each period of my life, what I liked the most at that particular moment and what were the guiding stars both in my life path and in my musical path – such reference points that were important to me.
And we start with the first reference point – the Latvian folk song “Dark night, green grass” performed by Emils Melngail.
In fact, there could be any folk song that symbolizes the importance of the Latvian folk song in my life. I have been singing a lot since I was a child – in the past, people used to sing many folk songs, which today may have been forgotten. Further, the folk song has accompanied me, both creating decorations and reading songs – loving them and then perhaps putting them into original music. So the song “Dark night, green grass” is a symbol of my love for the Latvian folk song.
More in the audio recording.
Selga Mence’s selection of music:
“Dark night, green grass” arranged by Emilis Melngailis / Riga Chamber Choir Ave Sol, 1999
Emīls Dārziņš – “Mūžam zili” / VAK “Latvija” men’s group led by Māras Sirmās
Imants Kalniņš – “Beta’s song” / Ieva Akuratere (voice and guitar), Leon Sējāns (guitar), Juris Kulakovs (keyboards), 1988
Pēteris Plakidis – Music for piano, timpani and string orchestra / Pēteris Plakidis (piano), Elhonons Joffe (tympani) and LNSO string group conducted by Romuald Kalsons, 1972
Pauls Dambis – “Blows, blows, mother of the wind” from the cycle “Songs of the Sea” / Riga Chamber Choir Ave Sol, conductor Imants Kokars, 1972
Gioacchino Rossini – Cinderella’s aria from the opera “Cinderella” / Elīna Garanča, LNSO and conductor Aleksandrs Viļumanis, 2001, from the album Arie Favorite
Song by Bob Thiel and George Weiss What a wonderful world In a song by Lewis Armstrong
George Crumb – Makrokosmos II, Rain Death Variations (Pisces), “Two Suns” (Gemini) / Rahele Kio Avasa (piano)
John Tavener – Svyati for cello and choir / Marta Sudraba (cello) and the choir “Until…” conducted by Māras Sirmā
Latvijas Radio invites you to express your opinion about what you heard in the program and supports discussions among listeners, however, reserves the right to delete comments that violate the boundaries of respectful attitude and ethical behavior.
2023-10-25 17:17:54
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