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Maria Nockin interviewed Daniel Catán in his Los Angeles apartment in September 2004. Maria Nockin: Do you come from a musical family? Daniel CATÁN: They were reasonably musical. My father loved music, particularly singing. He often sang well known arias and popular songs and he wanted us children to learn to play piano so that we could accompany him. Actually, for me there was a joy in music right from the beginning. Nockin: Where were you born? CATÁN: I was born of Jewish parents in Mexico City. Many people don't realize that there is a Jewish community there. Actually, quite a few Jewish people came from Europe and settled there. One of my parents came from the south of Russia and the other came from Spain. In Mexico cultural life has always fluctuated widely. There have been times when there were great musical events including grand opera with wonderful singers, and then there have also been years when the cultural life was very poor. The time in which I grew up was good for the arts. The atmosphere was cosmopolitan and culture was at a very high level.
Nockin: When did you begin to study music? CATÁN: The piano arrived at my home fairly early. It was mainly for my brother who is five years older than I. When he was eight my parents got it so that he could take lessons. I was only three at that time, but I took to that piano like a fish to water. As a result, I have had lessons from rather early on. For a while, I felt that piano was all that music offered to me, but at a certain point I decided that I did not want to be a pianist. That coincided with a broadening of my horizons when I left school. It was then that I realized that there could be much more for me than just playing the piano. I first thought of being a composer and a conductor. Of course, in the beginning everyone is very ambitious and wants to be everything! Soon I realized that composing was enough to keep me busy for my whole life.
Nockin: What instruments have you studied besides piano? CATÁN: A composer has to study a little bit about wind instruments and a bit about strings. You have to know a certain amount about the technical capabilities of each instrument, but I would not say that I know how to play them. Nockin: How old were you when you first went abroad? CATÁN: I was thirteen when I went to study in England and I stayed there for about 13 years. While there, I went to high school and to the University of Sussex. After that I attended the University of Southampton which had a wonderful music professor, Peter Evans. He wrote the book on Benjamin Britten. He was a great guy. From there I traveled to the United States and Princeton University.
Nockin: When did you begin composing? CATÁN: I started composing very young, playing around with pop songs. I really decided that I wanted to write music when I was seventeen and at the university. It was then that I started taking lessons in composition and trying to understand how it works. Nockin: Did your teachers have any influence on your work? CATÁN: I was fortunate enough to have very good teachers who corrected my work and pointed out directions without being prescriptive or telling me what kind of music to write. My teachers at Princeton, in particular, were quite wonderful in that sense. Many people are frightened when they realize that I studied with Princeton's Milton Babbitt. Actually, he was incredibly open minded and helpful. Mozart's music continues to influence me. His operas are always an inspiration. The way he characterizes different personalities through music is just the most wonderful thing. The two big twentieth century influences for me are Igor Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. People point out echoes of Puccini and Debussy in my music and they, too, are there, but I think the others are much stronger. I adore Strauss!
Nockin: What was the first piece you had performed? CATÁN: One starts with chamber pieces that can be played by your friends. Eventually, I wrote an orchestral work that was performed by the Princeton Orchestra when I was a graduate student. It was a wonderful, exciting experience and it helped me to consolidate my goals. After that, I moved back to Mexico for a while where I wrote pieces that were played by the Mexico City Orchestra.
Nockin: How much influence does the libretto and the librettist have on your composition? CATÁN: My first attempt at opera was not very successful because I really did not know what a librettist should do. Encuentro en el ocaso was not published. Rappacini's Daughter is my second opera. After that experience, I learned to be very careful in selecting a librettist. Now I establish a good relationship with the writer so I can guide his work so that it fits my needs. It is a difficult relationship because you are asking him to write words to music that is not there yet. I'm fairly clear as to what kind of piece I want. Frequently, I have the subject and some other things worked out beforehand so that by the time I approach a librettist, I have the shape of the project in mind. Then I ask him to apply his creativity to that project. Some people love that way of working and others say, "Well, you seem to have solved most of it, so why not do it yourself?" Nockin: Have you ever written your own lyrics? CATÁN: No, I haven't because the art of writing dialogue, especially in those moments that demand poetry, require someone skilled in those crafts. I can write essays but I'm not very good at writing those things.
Nockin: How did you decide on the sound that Salsipuedes would have? CATÁN: In the new opera, I have tried to combine the music of the Caribbean with the traditional opera format. The island music is driven by its rhythms and that is a very attractive proposition that I began to explore in Florencia en el Amazonas. If you listen to that, you will find some passages with exotic rhythms. I wanted to explore that further in my next work so I put myself through something of a percussion course. When I studied Latin percussion instruments, I found an incredible wealth of riches. That is when the project got off the ground. Combining the traditions of Caribbean music with the European symphony orchestra has been the dream of classically trained composers like Amadeo Roldan and Garcia Caturla from Cuba. Both of them died young so their music never reached the highest level of accomplishment, but that was their goal. That desire has remained in the hearts of many musicians. Salsipuedes represents a new attempt to bring the two genres together.
Nockin: Do you hear the orchestration of your piece in your mind when you sit at the piano? CATÁN: Yes, I try to work everything out carefully so that I don't make mistakes. I have worked very hard on my orchestration for Salispuedes. On the whole it came out very well the first time the orchestra played it. I'm very proud of that. I have opted for a very particular sound for my new opera. The orchestra is made up of wind and percussion instruments with some basses and no violins or violas. Instead of those strings I have used five clarinets, so it's a very reedy, wind-like piece combined with percussion. Nockin: How much can you change your piece in rehearsal? CATÁN: You really can't make too many changes then because by that time the musicians have learned the score. Ideally, the piece should be tested before it gets to that stage. I test my pieces with singers, for example, before I commit them to the final version. I have a lot of singer friends. I give them the compositions and they sing them for me. It is at that time that I do my corrections. With Salsipuedes I've had the good fortune of running through it with the piano a couple of times so that I can see how the continuity works. That piece has been well tested.
Nockin: Do you ever write anything to English words? CATÁN: I am writing something in English now. It is a piece for unaccompanied chorus and timpani. English is a difficult language to write for, so I have not done that in a long time, but I am now enjoying it hugely. Nockin: What took you to Japan? CATÁN: I wanted to get a scholarship so that I could write Rappacini's Daughter. It had been difficult to make ends meet in Mexico and I only had one day a week to write music there. Most of the time I have to have a job in order to subsidize my 'habit'. I usually have a full time teaching position as well as trying to work full time at composing. I wanted to focus on writing an opera so I applied for scholarships in various places. At that time I came across some Japanese music that I thought was absolutely breathtaking, so I thought, "Why not try for something in Japan?" Going to Japan turned out to be one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. The play that I used for Rappacini's Daughter was heavily influenced by Japanese Noh plays, so it made sense to explore that in the music.
Nockin: How did you come to write Florencia in el Amazonas? CATÁN: When I finished my second opera, there was a certain type of writing that I wanted to pursue and that was the sound of the garden in Rappacini's Daughter. At the same time I was looking at the works of the writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, searching for a story. Somehow his works and the music I wanted to explore led me to the Amazon River journey and the destination eventually became the theater at Manaus. That is how that opera was put together. My new opera, Salsipuedes, will have its world premiere on October 29 at Houston Grand Opera, and it will also be recorded. It's a comedy with a twist, set in the Caribbean, and I am in hopes that it will appeal to a wide cross section of the public. Nockin: Thank you and good luck with your new opera.
© Maria Nockin 27 October 2004 Maria Nockin grew up in New York. Born of a German Jewish/British/Bahamian family, She enjoyed a thorough-going musical upbringing, inspired by family friends like the violinist Mischa Elman, pianist Alexander Siloti, and soprano Grete Stückgold. Eventually concentrating on vocal studies, she became a soloist in New York churches, worked for the Metropolitan Opera Guild and later became a public high school teacher. Moving to Arizona in 1993, she started a new career as a music journalist contributing reviews and articles to Opera Japonica and other print and web publications. At her ranchito in the desert near Casa Grande, she paints watercolors and keeps two cats called Figaro and Siegfried. |
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