Which factors inspire you when creating music?
I can be inspired by all kinds of factors when making music. They may be very random, and it’s almost impossible to predict where the impulse will come from. It can be just something you hear, some unusual timbre, it can be some rhythms, folklore rhythms in some composition. These are various impulses. The landscape of nature inspires me very often, of course; I have a whole series of works, the Great Silk Road cycle. For instance, there are of course different landscapes, pictures of nature and some phenomena, like a mirage and an oasis. These are all, of course, works that are inspired by the pictures of the landscape of nature and as if in response to the feelings and some impression of a person from these images of nature.
What topics or ideas do you usually use in your compositions?
Of course, that depends on what the goal is. When you pick a genre, an instrument, a category of writing, an orchestra, a particular instrument. There can be a wide variety of topics. The topics are sometimes dictated by some anniversary date, for example, or by the life and work of some great person, scientist, poet. For instance, I have always been genuinely interested in the fate and tragic death of the poet Imadeddin Nasimi, to whom several of my works are dedicated: in particular the great Passion of Nasimi. In addition of course, the theme e.g. Schwindende Schönheit, vanishing beauties. I am always very impressed by some very valuable memorial monuments, manuscript museums. Palmyra in particular, the disappearing Palmyra. Baghdad, the hero of 1001 nights, the city that used to be beautiful. In total, all these things make on any probably thinking and feeling person, including me. All of these things I recreate in my imagination. Some of them I’ve seen, some of them I’ve only watched on television, in films. Their destruction, of course, causes extraordinary sadness, pain and well, somewhere resentment how one could raise a hand on such values.
What are the composition techniques or methods you prefer to use to convey your musical ideas?
At the time of my life, in the 1960s and 70s years, we were studying at the Conservatoire in postgraduate studies, we went to music and special music schools. In particular, I went to a school for particularly gifted children in Baku. It was called so, and it was subordinated to the Uzeyir Hajibeyov Conservatory: State Conservatory. From six years old we received education there. The education was of very high quality, as in the whole former Soviet Union, and this is recognised by everyone. And there were no barriers for us. That is, we could use any technique at the right moment in the right quality. Of Course, we went through classicism in particular, myself as a pianist we performed the entire programme that was supposed to be performed at school at the conservatoire. Starting with the well-tempered Bach clavier and variations of the Evening Sonata by Alban Berg, numerous pieces for piano by Arnold Schonberg. I was first performer of Macrocosmos 2 for amplified piano by George Crumb. Études of various durations and intensities by Olivier Messiah, then Sonata Interlude by John Cage. All this was in my fingers. It is not mentioned that many then Soviet composers who were forbidden I also performed Sofia Gubaidulina’s big Sonata, Shchedrin’s three-part Sonata – very difficult by the way, the work of Silvestrov, Vasks and my colleagues Azerbaijani composers. So all of these techniques and methods were reflected in my own work. As a matter of fact, my years of study at the Conservatoire meant that from the sixty-fifth to the seventy-second year I was very fond of pianism. I worked a lot with romantic music and took part even in contests at the republican and Transcaucasus level. And all of this, of course, had its reflection in my own creative work. Currently, if we talk mainly about aleatoric, scriptwriting, these methods, I often use them, especially in orchestral music. I used to be more interested in chamber instrumental music, which of course was facilitated by my thirty-year collaboration with the American quartet Kronos Quartet. Now I am more attracted to the symphony orchestra, and I am already writing large works in the oratorio genre and therefore symphonic music. For example, one of the most recent works is Overcoming, which the Bamberg Symphoniker under Lahav Shani performed in Bamberg and Dortmund. Nagillar was a commission from the Lucerne Festival. Of Course, the composer’s tasks here are different. This piece was commissioned in 2005, and it was performed at an evening there called Shaherazade. Rimsky Korsiakov, Debussy and finally, performed by Susanna Mälkki Swiss Orchestra, my work Nagillar.
How are current trends and technologies influencing your creative process?
There are different tasks here, of course, there are pictorial moments, perhaps impressionism somewhere, aleatoric techniques played a great role, instrumental timbres. I am very fascinated by playing timbres with the means of the European orchestra. I am trying, whether I succeed or fail, it is not for me to judge. But in any case, I am trying to convey some timbres of national folklore instruments so that the flavour of the Orient can be felt by the listeners. Of course, these fairy-tale images dictate their palette of colours and techniques of orchestral orchestration, and of course, it can’t all be said that there is a certain method, a certain technique. Depending on the piece, its theme, its challenges to the composer, you start to turn to different techniques. But of course, in modern orchestral music there are plenty of new techniques; in particular I, for example, in the work Nizami Cosmology, and for example in the opera Intizar I use electronic sounds. That is, electronic sounds are added to the orchestra. Sounds can be of different properties, they can be inspired by some sounds of nature, and on the other hand, it is the inner world of the characters that are portrayed by these sounds. That is, the modern composer is not limited in methods and technologies. So huge is the Plast that has been developed by composers for so many centuries since the 13th century when Peratin first wrote his name under his work; that is, the composer first appeared officially. Look at how many centuries have passed and what methods, what techniques, what innovations have been incorporated into compositional music.