Questioning and Listening

By nicky swett

Clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester talks about building personal and group concepts for new pieces and preparing for performance challenges in music of Dean, Connesson, Ran, and Crumb.

Nicky Swett: Are there any marked differences in how you get ready for a contemporary concert compared to performances of more standard repertoire?

Jose Franch-Ballester: One of the crucial things in our preparation is to create a mental concept. For a lot of the standard repertoire, that concept is already there. You’ve done it so many times. It’s been growing in the subconscious. When you go into new music, even if you have performed the pieces, you are actively learning and asking questions. The technique of learning the piece could be a little challenging, but not as challenging as looking at the score and asking “Why is this thing like this? What are they trying to accomplish?” You start finding hidden cues in the score that give you creativity, and then you work on the technique to create it.

NS: How do you build a shared concept when you come together for rehearsal?

JFB: Flexibility is extremely important, and also curiosity. We come into a realization that a concept is working or that we need to change it. It’s a process: you go on your own at the beginning and then once you get to rehearsal, you go collectively. You keep learning and opening each others’ eyes. The beautiful thing about music is that you have conceptions, but also you are listening to what everybody is doing in the moment and you’re reacting to that.

NS: Paul Dean’s Suite for Clarinet and Cello includes an effective use of clarinet “multiphonics.” Can you explain how a clarinet can produce two notes at the same time and what effect it has in this context?

JFB: How we make them is that we use different fingerings so we create mistakes—tonal mistakes—on the clarinet. An extra note comes out because of using the wrong fingers, but that’s the right thing to do on the multiphonic! They create this kind of spooky, eerie sound. It’s so different in various octaves of the clarinet and at different dynamic levels. A multiphonic playing fortissimo in a high range could sound brutal. The multiphonic [in the third movement of Dean’s Suite], which is extremely soft, creates this color, this space, that the music needs. It is complementing the airy colors of the cello, so it’s stunning.

NS: In Guillaume Connesson’s Techno-Parade, clarinet and flute are in rhythmic unison a lot of the time. How to you lock in for a run of a composition like this?

JFB: In this piece there are a lot of layers. You got the piano doing “bum, bum, bum, tee-dum, dum, dum,” very rhythmically, and that is giving you a pulse. The flute uses a lot of effects like blowing very quick and creating these wild accents. Then the tricky part is when the clarinet is melodic, playing very long notes on top. If you’re too free, you lose it, so you need to constantly feel that heartbeat inside of you and create those gestures around it.

NS: In Shulamit Ran’s Mirage, the flutist switches from the low alto flute to high piccolo to standard flute. How does it feel to have a partner who is constantly changing instruments while you stay on the same one?

JFB: In this piece, it’s so intricate between the flute and the clarinet. One of the things I’m experimenting with is creating different timbres when the flute is playing. The kind of sound that the flute makes at the very opening of the piece sounds like a folk instrument. The clarinet perhaps could sound more like that, too. As clarinet players, we create those effects not only with the air and support or vibrato, but by using my tongue touching the reed. Maybe I can do more of that to go with the sound that the flute is using in each part.

NS: George Crumb often includes theatrical elements in his chamber music compositions. In Eleven Echoes of Autumn, the clarinet stands and plays into the piano’s strings. What effect does this have on the sound, and how does this staging impact the arc of the piece?

JFB: When the clarinet goes into the piano and points the bell towards the strings of the piano and the piano player opens those strings, it creates an incredible resonance, an echo, which goes so well with the title of the piece. It's a magical, spooky, mystical sound. The first times I was doing it, going to the piano was like a whole reset that I had to get used to. I even had little scores in the piano, so when I was doing this I could read my music. You think, “Where should I go? Where should I aim? How should I walk from my music stand to the piano? How can I make this more theatrical? How long should I play?” But when you get used to it, and you turn your back to the audience, go into the piano, and create those sounds that become so intimate, you’re in your own zone. I kind of love it. It grows on you. Once you start regulating everything, magic happens, and it goes from being awkward to being a transformative moment.

NS: Crumb’s scores are visually striking. This piece includes some of his famous circular designs, in which players follow the score around a loop on the page rather than left to right. What is it like to read in the round?

JFB: I love the spiral scores. I remember the first time I played this piece, when I started practicing it, I didn’t know how to play it. I started writing arrows, saying “this connects here, this goes here because it goes on a different path.” I’m looking at my score as I’m speaking to you and it’s all annotated with colors and arrows and all those things: “go here, go there.” [My part] takes such a unique path throughout the whole piece, and that path is interconnecting with everybody, creating a loop with one instrument that then goes again. It took me a little bit to understand that, but then I had the same feeling as me playing into the piano: it becomes very easy, very intuitive. It makes you be there in the moment in a different way.