In footsteps of Len Lye

By WILLIAM DART

When the Auckland Philharmonia launches its 2003 Royal & SunAlliance season tomorrow night, Auckland composer Eve de Castro-Robinson will be there on the programme, shoulder to shoulder with Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Elgar.

Her Len Dances, the debut of the orchestra's Snapshots series and a glimpse of Len Lye in his dancing shoes, is the first taste of a theatre piece yet to be written and, above all, another opportunity for the composer to work with some of her favourite musicians.

"They feel a bit like my orchestra," says de Castro-Robinson. "This may sound rather arrogant but, like many of my colleagues, I've always felt they've looked after me musically."

It's a bond that goes back to 1991 when she was the AP's second Resident Composer, signing off with her tremendous Triple Clarinet Concerto. Since then there have been numerous other scores, including the musical menagerie of Noah's Ark and the idyllic Other Echoes. But Len Lye is the man of the moment.

Getting a proposal together for last year's Wild Opera project, she "thought of Colin McCahon as a subject, but he was too dark and I'd already done a couple of dark pieces. Then along came Len. It was like a frisson. Here's the man, I told myself. I got on the phone to Roger Horrocks, who was fortuitously publishing his book on Lye, said, 'Let's do an opera on Len Lye.' He said, 'Sure, keep talking'."

Len's been a bit of a buzz for years since de Castro-Robinson was bewitched by his scratch films in the 70s. Now it's intensified and words like "Lenism" are coined to convey his "vibrant, ebullient character". In the new piece, there is a Charleston ("Len's first wife Jane was a dancing instructor and she taught him this dance") and a rumba.

And Len will be dancing to the nattiest band in town tomorrow night. Among the sonic surprises is the Looney Tunes swoop of the Swanee whistle which the composer demonstrates. "I occasionally get a bit of a crush on an instrument. I had a clicker crush in Chaos of Delight and now it's this whistle which is so Lyeish, so whimsical."

It may even seem like the man is there in person on the Town Hall stage, when we talk about a "stainless steel strip cadenza" played on off-cuts from his sculptures.

"I went down to the Lye archive at the Govett-Brewster, and they brought out the strips so I could twang them a bit. That's what the three percussionists will be doing at the end."

Rhythm is a priority with this composer, who "learned the drum kit at the age of 16 and went through the whole 70s rock music era. It's all there in my music and draws comment".

Such skills stood her in good stead when she joined the drumming squad on Gareth Farr's Hero Parade float a few years back. "Gareth rang and what can one do when Gareth summons?"

A late starter as a composer (the first notes were put on paper in her mid-20s ), she singles out Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a major awakening, being totally "transmogrified" (pronounced one-syllable-at-a-time in the best Tim Curry style) by its primal rhythms.

These days her listening diary runs from Cuban music and the maverick American composer Harry Partch to the latest Mutton Birds' CD. She's frank when we come to the issue of the "Three Bs".

"I don't listen to Bach much. He's almost too pure. Beethoven would be my main man if you're going to choose the Bs. It's the passion, intensity and inherent rebelliousness."

We didn't get to Brahms, but there's certainly no shortage of passion on the subject of New Zealand music.

"It's important to keep up with what's happening here. I'm not so desperate to listen to what's going on overseas in order to be up with the state of play. It doesn't matter so much any more, and it's an attitude that comes through having read that wonderful Lilburn story about going through National Park, hanging out of the railway carriage and thinking the world of Mozart was many moons away."

A recent trip to New York was both stimulating and cautionary. On the plus side was a George Crumb festival; on the minus Philip Glass' Galileo ("a disappointingly superficial experience alongside John Rimmer's memorable opera on the same subject last year").

Glass' music introduces a note of caution. "There is always the worry of repetition, and the feeling that the composer is being self-congratulatory. Perhaps a certain humility is a necessary part of the creative process.

"If you're sitting and thinking, 'I can really get 'em with this piece', that's wrong. It's got to come from a deeper place inside than that."

* Auckland Philharmonia, Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow March 6, 8pm (repeated in Hamilton's Founders Theatre on Saturday, March 8 at 7.30pm)