{"id":421437,"date":"2026-04-28T10:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421437\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:03:13","slug":"siobhan-cleary-on-composing-canto-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421437\/","title":{"rendered":"Siobh\u00e1n Cleary on composing Canto \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Siobh\u00e1n Cleary<\/a>\u2019s new orchestral Canto began life in early 2023 through a request from National Symphony Orchestra Ireland<\/a> for \u201ca five-minute opener\u201d. <\/p>\n

The notice was too short, the composer says \u2013 and, apart from that, she didn\u2019t want to do that kind of piece. \u201cI said what I would really like is a concerto-type thing.\u201d Her first choice for solo instrument was cello. But the orchestra already had a cello-concerto commission in train, so she chose violin instead.<\/p>\n

National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, she says, \u201chave been probably the most supportive organisation of my work. They perform my early work, they commission me and they repeat the works. But it was still 17 years since I had got a commission from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that time I would have come up with lots and lots of different ideas in my head for orchestral pieces. I don\u2019t know if any of them have managed to get into this piece. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I was formally commissioned, in 2024, I was going through a period of bereavement. I had lost one of my sisters. I think that kind of changed everything about the writing of the piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her sister Eilish<\/a>, a doctor, died in 2024, at the age of 60. \u201cThe piece couldn\u2019t but be dedicated to her. But I think it\u2019s much more universal than that. That\u2019s what art does. It\u2019s not explicitly or intentionally about her. You could analyse where she is in it. But you could analyse where I\u2019m in it or anybody else is in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two sisters were very close. \u201cI was lucky to be the youngest sibling, which meant that I had teachers at home, and she was a born teacher. By the time I went to school she had taught me everything that I needed to know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my mother might have said, \u2018Well, yeah, now she\u2019s your baby, and you\u2019re going to have to look after it.\u2019 She took this very, very literally, and there was a time when she wanted to bring me out with her friends! She repeated this up to when she died, that she actually thought in some way that I was hers.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dr Eilish Cleary obituary: Champion of public health who gave a voice to those who didn\u2019t have oneOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The canto of the title is the 39th of the Canti by the early-19th-century Italian writer Giacomo Leopardi. \u201cI was very, very struck by the imagery of the poem,\u201d Cleary explains. \u201cIt begins on this absolutely beautiful, magical Italian evening. There\u2019s the sea, there\u2019s the forest, there\u2019s fields, there\u2019s flowers. It\u2019s so sensuous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the young woman is setting out to meet her lover. She\u2019s full of hope and anticipation, and the sounds of the village life and any other human life have been kind of stilled.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like the piece seeps into you the longer you have with it<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Siobh\u00e1n Cleary<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like the beginning of a fairy tale or a myth. But, Leopardi being Leopardi, this doesn\u2019t last that long. There\u2019s a huge, terrifying storm that just tosses her about. She pulls herself together to try and go home, to turn back. And she\u2019s turned to stone. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe imagery of that just wouldn\u2019t leave me. It grew and grew and grew until it did become a piece. I had a form and a structure that came from that poem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary likens composition to a journey. \u201cIf you\u2019re driving to somewhere you\u2019re not familiar with, you would have looked at a map, and you would have seen the towns you would have had to pass through. It\u2019s a bit like that with a piece. You kind of see where the stages are, what the structure is.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the bits in between, when you have the indicator on, when you change gear, when you use the clutch, hit the brake, you\u2019re not aware of these unless you\u2019re a very new driver.<\/p>\n

It is really touchingly beautiful<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Darragh Morgan, on Canto\u2019s long opening line and storm section<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the journey you don\u2019t recall what those things were. But those are the things you\u2019re always asked about. Even in academia, the things you\u2019re asked about are the most uninteresting things about the piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary\u2019s musical approach is not pictorial in the detailed manner of Richard Strauss but more on the lines of the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt, whose best-known orchestral work, Les Pr\u00e9ludes, was named after a poem by his friend Alphonse de Lamartine.<\/p>\n

\"SiobhánSiobh\u00e1n Cleary\u2019s Canto, with Darragh Morgan, will be performed at the National Concert Hall. Photograph: Marcus Maschwitz <\/p>\n

The turning into stone in Leopardi\u2019s poem, the composer says, \u201cis just one very pithy line. And I suppose that\u2019s where language has its limitations, whereas music moves temporarily much differently. So the turning-to-stone section takes over a good bit of the piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we talk the premiere, at the National Concert Hall<\/a>, is still a month away, and communication between the participants has been via Zoom. The Belfast violinist Darragh Morgan<\/a>, is, says Cleary, \u201cvery collaborative. He had some suggestions about balance with the orchestra. Changing registers and things. There were a handful of moments where things didn\u2019t sit easy under his fingers, and he helped me change them. But in essence everything is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s speciality is new music, and he likes to get to work on the scores as far in advance as possible. Canto arrived three months before the premiere. <\/p>\n

\"Australian-BritishAustralian-British conductor Jessica Cottis. Photograph: Kaupo Kikkas <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the piece seeps into you the longer you have with it,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m only part of Siobh\u00e1n\u2019s piece, just the violinist. There\u2019s a whole orchestra, too. The challenge is how do you put together a piece that you\u2019ve been steeped in for three months with an orchestra that only have two or three days to prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thrill of his career, Morgan says, is \u201cnot just the playing of this brilliant live, visceral new music, it\u2019s more the connections with composers. I really enjoy their company.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo whether it\u2019s people like the minimalists Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Arvo P\u00e4rt, or the hard-core Europeans, all of them have presented to me a new landscape of what the violin could or should sound like. And it\u2019s so different always.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long time since he realised that he could \u201cnever go back to playing what people would describe as a meat-and-two-veg concert any more\u201d.<\/p>\n

He enthuses about Canto\u2019s long opening line and the storm section, \u201cvery turbulent material, but which releases this unbelievable melody, so heartfelt. It is really touchingly beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Morgan has played it for the composer, but \u201cwe also have to bring a whole new world to it. The orchestra will cut into that canvas, which is going to be different and difficult. Jessica\u201d \u2013 the Australian-British conductor Jessica Cottis \u2013 \u201cwill be looking at the piece differently, because she sees the scope of canvas. I\u2019m looking at it just in detail, even though I\u2019m hearing everything else in my head, imaginationwise\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cottis, who is chief conductor and artistic director of Canberra Symphony Orchestra, sees part of her broader role as being \u201creally proactive about shaping classical music as a living art form.\u201d Her orchestra commissions about five works a year, with the aim of \u201ccreating a diverse body of new music, but it\u2019s also building long-term processes with composers and new music and really investing in an art form that is absolutely crucial\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange thing to say, but it\u2019s like when you read Shakespeare. It\u2019s wonderful<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Jessica Cottis<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Cottis says, \u201cI look at a new score and I think, Yeah, that looks fun; this will be wonderful. And sometimes I look at a new score and I think, I actually can\u2019t wait to get this in front of the musicians. And this is one of these scores.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a strange thing to say, but it\u2019s like when you read Shakespeare. It\u2019s wonderful. But it doesn\u2019t come fully alive until that Shakespeare, those lines are actually spoken. For me, this is a piece like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0New National Concert Hall boss: \u2018I hope to be here for the grand reopening\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She enthuses about the entire, \u201chugely eclectic\u201d programme. \u201cIt will really work. We\u2019ve got Grieg\u2019s Holberg Suite, very stylised, and then go into this new violin concerto, which will be, I think, such a beautiful shock after the Grieg. You know, a very different way to hear sounds within time. And then there\u2019s Tchaikovsky\u2019s Fourth Symphony. Quite a programme. It\u2019ll be quite a journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

From another perspective entirely, Cleary says, \u201cThe night of the premiere is really hard on a composer. It\u2019s a very vulnerable time. You\u2019re exposing yourself to all these people, and maybe people who are going to criticise it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nicest part of the process for me is when I\u2019m working with the musicians, the rehearsal, and it\u2019s just me and them. It\u2019s a really beautiful, beautiful time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siobh\u00e1n Cleary\u2019s Canto, with Darragh Morgan, will be performed as part of NSOI: Jessica Cottis Conducts, at the National Concert Hall<\/a>, in Dublin, on Friday, May 8th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Siobh\u00e1n Cleary\u2019s new orchestral Canto began life in early 2023 through a request from National Symphony Orchestra Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[184470,93,61,60,122577,116442,184469],"class_list":["post-421437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-darragh-morgan","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-national-symphony-orchestra","tag-national-concert-hall","tag-siobhan-cleary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}