An interview with Derek Brookes

Your string quartet is based on Japanese haiku and two woodblock prints from Utagawa Hiroshige’s “100 Famous Views of Edo” series. What drew you to these works and how did it inform your composition?

At the time, I was exploring the possibilities of expressing joy in musical terms. One idea was to write music that was inspired by poems or images that in some way embodied or evoked this emotion. So I started by looking more closely at the qualities of joy. I found that one key feature is its ephemeral, elusive, transient nature. And yet it is not entirely random: joy tends to arise in situations such as falling in love, witnessing a sunset, making a discovery, receiving a gift, the birth of a child, playfulness, and so on. There seems to be an underlying connection between all these situations, though it is hard to define exactly. We can at least say that joy is usually evoked by (and perhaps reveals) what it is that we value and cherish in life, no matter how small or commonplace.

Reflecting on these qualities led me to ‘haiku’, an aphoristic form of Japanese poetry. It turned out to be just what I was looking for. A haiku has been called ‘the poem of a single breath’: each consists of a mere 17 syllables, ordered in a 5-7-5 structure. Haiku are designed to have the force of immediacy, a ‘lightning flash’ of insight which can illuminate the essence or value of something in the world, no matter how (seemingly) insignificant or familiar. They reflect the view that life can only be lived in the ‘now’, and that a lack of attention to the present moment can result in a kind of squandering of one’s life. Each haiku is open-ended‚ with little or no resolution. Yet it will hint of connections with the past and what is yet to come. Indeed, there is often an underlying continuity or cyclical pattern within any collection of these poems.

Given all these close parallels, I selected 12 stunningly beautiful haiku to serve as the inspiration for the first two movements of this piece. To give one example:

cool clear water
and fireflies that vanish
that is all there is  (Chiyo-ni)

What emerged was a sequence of 12 condensed, discrete ‘moments’ of music. Each ‘moment’ was inspired by the imagery, structure and mood of the corresponding haiku. But there are also connections across the sequence. For instance, the first 8 haiku represent 2 complete cycles of the seasons. The next 4 each focus on a winged animal (a chick, woodpecker, sparrow and a firefly). Musical themes are also occasionally restated, especially where there is a connected subject, such as fireflies.  

For the final movement I decided to use images as my ‘source’ for the expression of joy. In keeping with the Japanese aesthetic, I selected two woodblock prints from Utagawa Hiroshige’s “100 Famous Views of Edo” (1857). The first print is of an eagle, as it prepares to dive for prey in the wintry marshes below. The second portrays a starlit sky, with fishing boats gently rocking in the port and Tsukudajima Island lying silent in the distance.  I then asked the simple question ‘what do I see?’ After attending closely to every aspect of the images, the dramatic and emotive aspects of the images seemed to come to life in my imagination and I was especially aware of the joy that I felt in this encounter, in response to the sheer beauty of the woodprints. I started composing by ear, guided only by my reflection on ‘what I was seeing’, my emotional responses and my sense of the ‘inner logic’ of the music itself.

Your work was chosen by Flinders Quartet for the 2018 Composer Development Program. What did you enjoy about this experience and how does it feel to have the work performed again by Flinders Quartet?

There was so much that I enjoyed about the Composer Development Program, but two things stand out for me. First, it is notoriously difficult for ‘emerging’ composers to obtain performance opportunities, especially from professional musicians. So just being selected to participate in the Program was an incredible boost of encouragement.  

Second, there is always uncertainty about whether the vision that one has for a new composition can be fully realised in a performance - especially if the work is unusual or complex. As a result, it’s tempting to take fewer creative or technical risks. I decided not to take the less risky path in writing this piece, but I was also increasingly doubtful about finding a string quartet who would be willing (and able) to take it on. So one of the most rewarding aspects of the Composer Development Program was that I was given the rare experience of hearing all that I had hoped for, and more. This was due to the time allocated for rehearsals, the expert guidance and insight of Stuart Greenbaum, and the Flinders Quartet’s artistic sensibility, attention to detail and exceptional technical skills.

When I heard that the Flinders Quartet were going to perform the work again in their 2020 program, I was absolutely thrilled and so grateful for this amazing opportunity. (I have to pinch myself whenever I look at the program!)

What do you enjoy about writing for the string quartet as an ensemble and did you experience any challenges in writing this work?

This was my first experience writing for a string quartet. I quickly discovered why so many composers write for this kind of ensemble. For one thing, it has an enormous range of emotional expression: the string quartet can be as majestic, bold or fiercely passionate as an orchestra in full swing, and yet also capable of astonishing intimacy and tenderness. So I found that writing for a string quartet opened up new creative and expressive possibilities and I loved every minute of it.

There were of course, a number of challenges. To take just one: I wanted each musical ‘moment’ in the first two movements to embody the 5-7-5 structure of haiku. So I used simple applications such as the number of beats (5/8 - 7/8 - 5/8) or bars (5 bars - 7 bars - 5 bars). Initially I was concerned that this might be too controlling or restrictive from a creative point of view. But what took me by surprise was that, far from inhibiting my ideas, these structures forced me to ‘think outside of the box’ and become even more imaginative - which is perhaps how it also feels to write haiku.  

Flinders Quartet will perform Derek Brookes’ String Quartet No. 1 in the first concert program (March) of the 2020 20th anniversary season.