Music for Piano and Organ: an interview with composer Ronald Hannah
Creativity without form is chaos. Whether it be a painter’s canvas or a musical structure, limits and form provide the framework which allows the mind to understand and appreciate a piece of art. This truth, sadly, is one that too many composers ignore at their peril. The result? A collection of sounds that often leave listeners bewildered, irritated, and (sometimes) convinced they never want to listen to contemporary classical music again.
When I discovered the piano music of composer Ronald Hannah, one of the first things I appreciated about his music was his masterful understanding and use of the power of classical forms. In the hands of a lesser composer, these strict boundaries could be dull and dated. Not so with Hannah. He understands that rather than stifling his creativity, recognizable classical forms allows him to wander freely, employing his own brand of “dissonant poly-tonality” with Romanticism and (in his keyboard music), a love of the music of Erik Satie.
It works. These audience-friendly pieces are both recognizable and fresh. They’re a testament to the power of what can be done within guidelines handed down from the composers of the past. These suites, composed over the course of Hannah’s long career, were written from head and heart. They embrace both his musical and personal journeys. And they celebrate the power of music which (in Hannah’s own words) has the ability to “encourage a tired world.” It is an honor to feature Ronald Hannah and his music on No Dead Guys.
When did you first become interested in music and at what age did you start writing your own compositions?
I was a late starter. I recall saying, “Mom, I hate practicing. I want to quit.” And she would answer, “OK, quit.” But then I’d soon be back at the piano so something was there, unrecognized by me, pushing me along. My younger brothers also declared they wanted to quit, got the same answer, and all but the youngest, did quit. My piano lessons stopped at about grade 8, but I would still feel a strong urge, a physical need, to play favorite pieces from time to time.
What I disliked most about piano lessons was sight reading. I wasn’t very good at it, and I’m still not. One teacher realized that rather than reading, I was observing what he had demonstrated and duplicating that—so it seems I had a good ear. In Junior High School I joined the band. I had no idea what I wanted to play, but the school had a clarinet available. So I became a clarinetist, eventually playing bass clarinet in a university symphonic wind ensemble. As a result, you will find prominent bass clarinet parts in many of my orchestral compositions.
One summer day, in my mid-teens, I was feeling restless but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. Visit friends? No. Go to a movie? No. What? So I sat and concentrated and was very surprised to realize I wanted to write a piece of music (or was it a poem? - both happened at one time or another). The result of the musical event was a couple of piano pieces reminiscent of Chopin, but with less formal coherence than in the master’s works. Various pieces followed, including an attempted clarinet quartet, but I realized sorely that I had no clue how to develop my ideas. I knew I needed instruction, and I had to make a choice between becoming a composer and making a living. Following studies, I did become a music teacher in a school system, but that was just to pay the bills. I resented the time it took from my writing.
In addition to undergraduate and graduate degrees in composition, you hold a degree in Chemistry. Tell me why you pursued both music and science.
Music moved me more and more. I had various summer jobs as a student and I purchased a stereo set which occupied a prized corner of my room. I purchased classical LPs and loved listening to Peer Gynt, Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Unfinished, etc., etc.—the usual beginner stuff. But in my room I also had a microscope and various pages of mathematical scribblings. I built model airplanes and collected stamps. I was, and remain, curious about everything. I still sit down and puzzle my way through Calculus theorems.
A childhood chemistry set pushed me further in the direction of the sciences. What better than to combine what interested me with a career choice? During my B.Sc. days I worked one summer at a nickel mine, in the lab, and I even interviewed with Dow Chemical. That was during the Vietnam war, however, and Dow was said to be manufacturing napalm and other horrors, so I was having real doubts about going further. Finally the decision came to study music more seriously. My dream became to have my own laboratory with a good sound system built in.
I’m intrigued by your wanderlust, which led you to backpack all over Asia as well as teach English in multiple countries. What compelled you to travel so much and how has your exposure to so many cultures influenced your compositions?
Curiosity. I had always wanted to see the world, to understand what it was made of both physically and culturally. My first marriage came to a bumpy end and I hooked up with a partner who had already spent many years wandering herself. With practically no money we set off to places where the living is cheaper. A job offer in China appeared first, and for 5 more years after our contracts were over we wandered, living from our backpacks, WWOOFing, camping out, hitchhiking, even sleeping rough (that was on a beach in New Zealand—paradise!) We came to consider $10 per night expensive.
Musically, the result of all that was exposure to a wonderful variety of sounds: Chinese classical opera (one aria from which brought my partner to tears though we understood not a word); suona horn, pipa, gu zheng, and various Uighur instruments in Xinjiang and Naxi dances in Yunnan provinces; Guatemalan tunes played on homemade xylophones; Laotian shen; Vietnamese unpronounceable instruments whose haunting sounds still resonate; Balinese gamelan, the list goes on. I even met a Colombian bassoonist, but that sound was not new to me!
Among my works you will thus find Symphony #1, consisting entirely of Chinese folk melodies, a suite for solo erhu and a duet for erhu and gu zheng, quotations of Armenian tunes inhabit various works, references to Aboriginal rhythms, an Ivory Coast tune (though I have not yet visited Africa), a Comanche riding song, a Croatian folksong, all feature here and there. Here is a link to a web page listing the literary and cultural influences that have motivated me over the years.
Choral works, chamber music, song cycles, orchestral pieces, two ballets, four operas and (of course) piano pieces—your catalogue of musical compositions seems as broad as your life interests and your travels. Of over 100 works in your catalogue, which pieces are you most fond of and why?
Before I set out wandering the world, I sang with a wonderful chorus in Canada. It was a pure joy to sing 1st tenor, and I wrote several pieces for the group, which they performed. One work stands out for me— 4 Canons for 3 Voices —a study in canonic form—canon at the unison, canon in inversion, canon at the 5th, and at the 2nd. The classical forms, like canon, have survived because they work. I studied those forms, mastered them, and now can use them in my own unique fashion that probably would have bemused Bach and other Dead Guys.
Staying with choral music, the choir once teamed up with a youth group and a children’s choir, and I was asked to write something for the end of the program that would bring them all together. Here is the result, called “Of Youth and Time”—a good study in strophic romantic/chromatic writing, oh, and two pianos as well.
Instrumentally, I often listen to a pair of my own keyboard suites: Dances for Camille, and Suite for Elan, but these are portraits of my own daughters so I suppose I’m biased. I also keep going back to hear the second-last movement of the “5 Variations on a Theme of Violet Archer”, which is an atonal fugue. However, the work of which I am most proud is a historically-driven orchestral work entitled “Fantasia on Interesting Times”. It’s too involved to detail here, but do visit the link to read about it and hear a fairly realistic MIDI version. The 30 years’ war never really ended.
One of the things I find most attractive in your music is how you fearlessly draw from so many different musical influences yet still maintain such a strong grounding in structure and counterpoint. Do you find that familiar forms help audiences relate better to your self-described “dissonant pan-tonality”?
Yes, of course. To repeat: classical forms have lasted because they work. Each artist, in whatever field, puts his or her (or their) personal stamp on those forms and perhaps tries to stretch them—I do too. Many composers/visual artists/theatre directors today stretch them too far though, and they break, the results becoming simply self-indulgent or reliant upon empty shock value to jolt an audience. I admire and encourage those brave enough to invent new forms, but I caution them and I require of them to have a solid background in the classics so that they know that what they have produced is truly new. I cringe when some self-professed “sound artist” calls him/her/theyself a “composer” and produces something he/she/they claim has “never been heard before.” These days, many of these supposedly new sounds are simply internet-culled orchestral-sounding triads that the composer/compiler has strung together over a pounding 4/4 drum sound. Very primitive stuff. If our composer/compiler has a bit of theoretical background, sometimes a string of incomprehensible sonic and rhythmic patterns appear also, possibly derived from some arcane mathematical formulation. My wife and I (herself an operatic soprano and theatre director) refer to the school of “bleeps and bloops” when speaking of these cacophonous creations. When I wax modern she flatters me by saying my bleeps and bloops actually make sense!
But even those with classical training can become derailed. A recent work came to my attention in this regard: a piece for harpsichord describing a tapestry. A fine idea, but I think the composer must have the ability to see colors in music. I do not, and the chaotic and monotonous melodic lines that I presume represent threads in the tapestry mean nothing to me but a half-hour of boredom. Maybe I need synesthesia lessons! Another composer recently described a new work as deliberately unplayable and not constrained by any ideas of ‘style’. I’m not sure what that means. Is not abandoning the idea of “Style” itself a style? Some friends played it, seeming not to recognize the irony. Yes, do experiment and come up with novel things, but remember how many failures usually precede any great invention, and how many materials had to be tried, for instance, before tungsten was finally employed in a light bulb.
Congratulations on the release of your 2023 album, Ronald Hannah: Music for Piano and Organ. What prompted you to create this recording and what has the response been to it thus far?
I have thought for many years that I should get my works properly recorded and released. At last I have begun to do so, after building up my bank account and finding professional players who are willing and who like my stuff. My earlier album, Ronald Hannah Chamber Music was the first, and here in Austria fine musicians are plentiful. Both contain works performed by Canadian and Austrian musicians (I am Canadian, btw), and I have found that some radio stations prefer a physical CD in hand while others like digital downloads. I have made both available to them, and have been getting airplay in many countries. Reviewers have said encouraging things too, and even compared my music to everything from Schumann to Bartok, to Ives, to Danny Elfman(!), and my friends who have listened all express great pleasure (well, sometimes puzzlement too).
Tell me about your decision to intersperse your organ preludes between the piano tracks. Why did you feel this was the best way to showcase the music you’ve written for both instruments?
The Organ Preludes actually appeared in the 90’s on an album produced by others, and in sequential order, and I really wanted to have them on my current CD too. Around the time of that earlier recording, a friend had put out her own separate album of piano works interspersed with individual movements from a contemporary harpsichord suite. I liked the idea and copied it. The organ tracks nicely indicate that the piano suite above is concluded and the next is soon to begin.
One of the many things I enjoyed about this album is how it charts your progression as a composer from 1975 to present day. How do you feel your music has expanded and grown over the course of your career?
I don’t think my music has really changed that much. What has changed is my confidence. I now know pretty well what effect a given chord or distribution of voices in a choir or orchestra, say, is going to have, and I can control the levels of dramatic tension I seek. You can’t do something for 50 years without it becoming second nature. Even so, I still go through times of self-doubt….
References to the music of Erik Satie show up in many of your piano pieces. Why has his music been such an inspiration for you?
Satie’s music has always held a special place in my regard. It can be simple and limpid, deceptively so, and haunting in ways that few other composers can match. I wrote a Gymnopédie-style movement as the 2nd of my Five Variations on a Theme of Violet Archer. Violet was my first composition professor, and she introduced me to him, for which I am most grateful.
My favorite work on this album is your work for 2 pianos, “Dances for Camille.” In much the same way as Samuel Barber in Souvenirs and John Corgigliano in Gazebo Dances, you never let old dance forms slide into tepid sentimentality. Tell me about how you use of rhythm and structure to provide familiarity in atonal sections.
There are few outright atonal sections in the “Dances for Camille,” I would say. I might rather label them “polytonal.” In these I simply establish a contrasting pattern in each piano and let them play together and clash as they will. These moments are short, they build tension, and they sit between regions of clearer harmony, however chromatic. I regard them simply as bridges. It’s all very “classical”! And as to familiarity, the last movement - Tarantella - starts off as a simple dance in quick 6/8 time and clear harmonies, but before it can become derivative and sentimental, it turns into a full-blown fugue without losing any of its dance impetus. Music lovers will recognize and enjoy the unusual structure, I think, and I am proud of that movement.
Thank you for writing a work for 4-hands! As with your other works, “Domestic Dialogues” is an audience pleaser that contains musical innovation within meticulously crafted form. What were some of the challenges (and joys) of composing for two pianists sharing a keyboard?
The biggest problem, since I was writing something for both my wife and myself to play together, was keeping out of each others’ way. Maybe that applies to life itself. At several points we had to work out how to finish a phrase while preparing to move a hand, or even just a finger, quickly out of the other’s way. I wanted to paint a picture of a happy life together, but which is not without its frictions. In the first movement I deliberately wrote notes for each player that lie well within the other’s range. A certain gymnastic ability is required at those points as we reach across one another. And listen for the huge “mistake” in the last movement. In a little bit of theatre, the players look at each other in dismay and press on to the end. It gets a laugh every time!
Another favorite of mine is your recently composed “Suite 75.” In it I hear how the ideas of your earlier compositions have flowered into maturity in this work. How do you feel that being in your 70s has allowed you to compose from both the heart and the head?
I think I have always composed from both heart and head. Of course at the beginning, without instruction, it was mostly from the heart, disorganized, passionate but without direction. My years of musical study and experience steadied me and allowed me to find that balance between the two. Still, when I listen to my own recent works and compare them to earlier, even student, pieces, I find they have much the same appeal to me, so I’m not sure if being of an age made that much difference, except in confidence which I mentioned earlier.
Do you offer sheet music for the tracks featured on this recording? If so, where might we purchase it?
I do indeed. Interested people may request scores from me via my website. I don’t charge money for them, but I do request that they tell me of any performances. I maintain a Performances page on my website. They may also be obtained from the Canadian Music Centre, and Performer’s Edition has published my choral work, “Ruri, Ruri”. The CMC charges a fee for scores and CDs. I do not, but I am not averse to a contribution!
This recording may include piano music composed over a lifetime, but you write in your liner notes that you plan to “continue to write, travel, enjoy life,” and that you’re even contemplating another CD. What can you tell us about the music you plan to release in the future?
Being married to one of Vienna’s most respected singing teachers, I have access to many fine singers, some of whom perform with the Vienna State Opera and have already performed and even commissioned music from me.This year I am planning to record vocal works, and - and it is a big “and” - one or two orchestral pieces. Again, that bank balance thing looms large.
One of the most beautiful things I read in your liner notes is that you wish to create a new CD “to encourage a tired world.” What do you feel music brings to humanity that can’t be found in other art forms?
I think the arts in general, not just music, are vital to our survival. When the cave is warmed by a nice fire, when the hunt has been successful and food is plentiful, what is the first thing we do? We start to decorate: we paint wall pictures and put designs on pottery and on our clothing and on our bodies.We tell stories.We are all artists as we sit by the fire banging sticks together, dancing and singing.The arts alone reflect who we really are.
What advice can you offer young composers who wish to create a career in music?
Follow your heart but do not neglect your head. Be aware that it takes time to write a piece of music, sometimes a long time, and that time cuts into other activities and can even damage a relationship. I know that when I am not writing, I am restless and dissatisfied. Above all learn your craft. Be thoroughly conversant with harmony, counterpoint, musical form, music history, the orchestra, the voice, music of other cultures, and learn as many instruments and styles as you can so that you can write fluently for anything. Perform as much as you can, formally or casually. Do what you must do - write and keep writing. Realise that it will consume you and probably not bring much money unless you are very lucky or go into the commercial side of the trade, which I abhor and refuse to do. Write.
Ronald Hannah (b. 1945) has resided much of his life in Western Canada, though he has also taught English in China and has backpacked much of SE Asia, Australia and South America (he wrote an opera in Guatemala based on the tragic history of that country). At present he finds himself in Austria. He is married to singer and director, Andrea Mellis. He is a pianist and clarinettist, and holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in composition from the University of Alberta, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. As a music student his teachers were Violet Archer, Manus Sasonkin and Malcolm Forsyth.
He taught music in public schools for several years after receiving a Diploma in Education. At his website (https://ronhannah.com) visitors can sample many of his pieces of music and read his lively descriptions of same. His wide-ranging interests include travel, astronomy, biography, history, wine, philosophy - you name it. He was the founding president of the Edmonton Composers’ Concert Society (now called New Music Edmonton).
His works have been performed in Canada and internationally, and his 2021 CD of Chamber Music is receiving positive reviews and broadcasts worldwide. A second album, this time of music for piano and organ is now also available. Recently, various works such as “Star Songs” for soprano and string quartet, and a number of song cycles for voice and piano were performed in Vienna, and one of his 5 Preludes for Organ was chosen for the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music. In 2017, his opera, “The Illuminator”, based on the life of St. Gregory of Armenia, was premiered in Yerevan, as was his “Adagio for String Orchestra”. His choral work, “Ruri, Ruri” winner of the composer competition at the Uncommon Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska (2019), was also performed by the Vokalensemble Hilpoltstein, in Nuremberg in 2022. This work is now published by Performer’s Edition.
His catalogue includes over one hundred works: choral, chamber, song cycles, orchestral, two ballets and four operas. He prefers texts and stories that express the human condition in a vivid and honest manner, and that are colourful in language and irreverent in tone. His music tends toward the conservative, written in a style that he describes as "dissonant pan-tonality”, but alongside a broad Romantic streak, elements of the atonal, of textural writing, of minimalism, and of randomness can also be found, with the unending intention of being understood and appreciated by an audience.
He has received commissions from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Alberta Choral Federation, the Anahit Foundation (Yerevan, Armenia), and many groups and individuals. He is a member of SOCAN, an affiliate composer with the Canadian Music Centre, and a member of the Austrian Composers Association.