JEF NEVE

THAT BUILDING CREAKS AND SQUEAKS, IT LIVES. THEREFOR IT BECAME AN ADDITIONAL CHARACTER.

Everything that surrounds us generates associations.  Are there specific places that inspire you or are of great relevance to your work?

There are definitely places that are inspirational, but I can be overwhelmed to write music anywhere. That could be on a plane with headphones on or simply at my computer. It can even happen here and now. In my case, it takes more place in my subconscious, from a kind of gut feeling, rather than in a specific place.

On the other hand, there are in fact places where I prefer to record music. I have a studio in the Ardennes for example that I have been going to my entire career. For me, it is important to work in a kind of cocoon when I record my compositions and thus immortalize them. I have to be able to work in peace and quiet. Completely closed off from outside stimuli. 

How do you start new work? Does it happen from specific themes that come together in melodies or is there some kind of concept you’ve thought about?

It depends from composition to composition. When I want to work on a new album, I don't lay down anything in advance and I let the music come from a certain emotion or intuition. I get inspired by what moves me in life or by an idea I happened to wake up with that day. Other compositions start from a framework that is fixed in advance. Very specifically, I have just written a piece for a violin solo, piano solo and string orchestra, commissioned by the
B-Classic music festival in Limburg. I was given a few guidelines concerning the duration and the financial plan and within that framework I set to work. What happens to the music emotionally is still largely determined by the composer, but in fact a great deal is already fixed. I can imagine that it would be the same for an architect. On the one hand you have a defined assignment with a program of requirements, an agreed schedule and a budget within which you must find the freedom to create.  

Could you convey the feeling of a place in music?

Definitely. For example, on my latest album there is a piece inspired by the Place Sainte-Cathérine in Paris and the song Shinjuku Golden Gai refers to a neighborhood in Tokyo. Locations are usually a source of inspiration for my music, but that's only logical. After all, places are associated with new impressions and stories that you experience to tell. So why not in music? 

In 2015 I also worked with Klara Van Es for the documentary "Carnotstraat 17". The story is set in the then biggest and most modern cinema in Belgium, Ciné Rubens in Antwerp, where several migrant families now live under one roof at the same address. Klara sketches some of these migration stories and talks about the search for identity in a world with an uncertain future. The music I made for the documentary was of course about the people and their stories, although the character and overall atmosphere of the building inspired the right kind of empathy. That building creaks and squeaks, it lives. Therefore it became an additional character.

When one makes music, one defines a place and a boundary. This boundary can include finitude or showcase a form of infinity. Is it important to you that an audience is part of the place where music is conveyed?

The answer to this is very simple: it is an interplay between the two. I once had the good fortune to play at The Opera House in Sydney and it was fantastic. At such a moment, for me, the thrill of the beauty and power of that architecture takes over and I was already happy during the soundcheck. Of course, it's double pleasure when an audience is present and appreciates my music. There have undoubtedly also been places that are not at all special architecturally. The average cultural center in Flanders is a cardboard box and there it is mainly the audience that inspires. It is, as I said, an interplay. It depends on the interaction between the two.

Can you tell us a little more about a place or building that is invaluable to you? By what associations or what specific atmosphere do you think this is due?

What I think of a particular space and how I feel about it are questions to which I must consciously give my attention. When I enter a place, I try to consider what the architect must have felt when he thought about that design. What were his intentions? Again in that sense, I recognize the creation process and feel the similarity between the construction of a building or the construction of a composition. I always thought that architects were mainly concerned with some kind of technical exposition, whereas designing just starts from a very intuitive framework. We do share similar ambitions and interesting common ground.

One of the first places I found breathtaking was Terminal 4 in Madrid airport. Some 20 years ago, I visited this place very often and the space has never bored me. I was effectively conscious at the time of how fascinating this piece architecture is. Het Havenhuis in Antwerp left the same impression on me. Finally someone who has the guts to do that in our little country. It makes me very happy. 

You cite two iconic examples here. Would a building that doesn't initially stand out also pique your interest?

It is indeed the iconic buildings that stand out to me which does not take away the fact that I want to learn to see the others as well. I am hugely interested in architecture and the story behind a building, but I am not educated or trained to perceive my surroundings in the sense that I will consciously look for hidden gems. If you ask a wine lover without much knowledge of the trade what his favorite wine is, he will quickly end up with a Malbec. It's solid and beautiful... In short, a real powerhouse. I am currently still on the level of the powerhouses regarding architecture.

I read that Italian Chef Massimo Bottura says that tradition can only be preserved by reinterpreting it. Do you follow this stance? How do you deal with tradition in your work?

I understand what he means by it. What he is actually saying is that you have to reinterpret a tradition so that it does not become a dead tradition. When you want to continue a certain tradition, when you want to give it new life, it also means that you have to change things. Because why should you do things exactly the same way as it was invented 300 years ago? Nobody is interested in that? You wont be better than the original anyway.

There is a constant search for a way to be innovative, whereby we change already existing musical genres or certain styles to our liking and in this way continue the musical tradition. For example, at the beginning of the last century, the composer Olivier Messiaen developed a personal musical language in which melodic and rhythmic innovations are particularly discernible. The resulting movement sought to invent a new system from which highly original music eventually emerged. Do come to the sobering conclusion that the rules are what they are and that music cannot be reinvented. The innovation today in music is mainly at the level of technology. I find the advent of artificial intelligence in music and the introduction of computer programs that serve as new instruments very interesting. Although people develop a kind of natural refusal toward this ‘inhuman, insincere new kind of music’, it is the next potential step toward further musical development.

It sometimes seems that the drive for innovation has equated the concept of beauty with the past. Beauty is less questioned or considered relevant as time goes on, and personally I strongly contest that. Is beauty an aspect that attracts you to the process of creation and the final result? Is it a relevant parameter in your work?

Beauty in itself does not have to be an imperative when I am writing, but of course it is beauty that can affect me and also many others personally the most deeply. When I'm composing music, it's not that difficult to make complicated, manufactured music. For that, you mainly have to appeal to your rational side and work that out, and I already know that system by now. In that area, music doesn't hold many secrets for me anymore. It is the search for the essence, for the pure beauty that lies hidden in simplicity that constantly occupies my mind. It is linked to emotion and especially to the elimination of all that is superfluous. Very concretely, it is so compelling and so naturally present in all my work that I sometimes have to force myself to let it go. You also have to dare not to be beautiful. It has to do with a kind of acceptance that you don't always have to please. 

What has been the most engaging moment of a musical experience or work for you?

It happens very regularly that I am overwhelmed by the power and emotion that a piece of music can bring. Recently I was sitting in a church in Beerse listening to Bach's St. Matthew Passion and at one point an aria comes by, sung by a baritone, which I had forgotten was actually in this passion. The story is basically about a wealthy businessman who begs Pilates to give him the honor of burying the body of Jesus. I was overwhelmed with emotion because I suddenly realized how genius this music is put together. In fact, Bach begins that composition purely instrumentally. He has the orchestra play an entire introduction that echoes the passion after which the baritone begins his melody. You feel very strongly the struggle of the businessman to gather his courage to express his wish to Pilates and the fear of being rejected. He then keeps up one long note which gives the whole orchestra the opportunity to play all the different colors once again. That note goes through marrow and bone and symbolizes all the feelings of despair and longing. The most brilliant moment, however, comes a little later when Bach repeats the same construction but then a fifth higher so that the baritone can barely sing it. My eyes filled up completely. How can you write such fucking good music?

The kinship between music and images is enormous, as the example you just cited shows. Music has such a present impact on our senses that it has become almost indispensable to the images it supports. Have you ever made music that threatened to lose its meaning without the images it was made for?

My most successful collaborations with directors are those in which the impact of the music is appreciated. However, this is not an obvious thing to do, as there is a fragile balance between image and sound.  I always try to let my music stand on its own because, whichever way you look at it, when music can be played on its own and can continue to exist without the necessary presence of images, then you are often talking about music that is more complex and occupies a larger place than the dash of music under a documentary. Conversely, I don't want to condescend to composers who know very well how to write in function of an image. They are part of a greater whole at that point. For example, the soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's famous shower scene in “Psycho” is legendary. The violin plays just one note: repetitive and insistent. The music cannot possibly stand alone in this way, but it puts enormous power behind the sensational images. You just have to come up with it. No composer had done this before him.

How can music give meaning to life?

It's very simple. I believe that life and music are inseparable. I cannot live without music.

As a composer you look for sequences, rhythms and keys. Notes form chords, chords in turn form harmonies or disharmonies. Where everything comes together, wholes are created, cohesion and order emerge. We could say that a musician works with structures and proportions at least as consistently as an architect. How do you deal with structures in your work?

Structure is absolutely important. My compositions always start from a small seed, from an intuition, a feeling. Then follows a kneading process for quite some time and I start turning, twisting, folding it in all forms after which I let it rest to add new ideas. I sometimes compare it to cooking. When a flavor is missing, you add segments until you find the right composition. It's the same with music. Eventually you end up with an intuitive piece and you have to look for switching points. Where do I lose myself in rambling? Where do I lose the tension? Where is my emotion out of proportion? Then you actually start tinkering and your composition gradually falls into place. A wild idea is streamlined until it transcends the mundane and becomes a piece that is ready to be played and hopefully one day will survive the test of time.

It is métier that is still linked to personal judgment. For example, it's not like in architecture that someone makes a judgment about music in terms of right or wrong. In this sense, perhaps, that is the big difference between a composition and the construction of a building. The latter simply must not collapse and has crucial consequences if mistakes are made here. It is not so extreme with music. There are only rules that at least get you started on ensuring that the structure we create has a better chance of surviving.

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