The chamber works of young Swiss/French composer Richard Dubugnon form one of the latest releases in the Naxos collection of 21st Century Classics, an ever-growing compendium of modern music featuring some of the most original and influential contemporary composers. Immersed in preparations for an upcoming concert at Wigmore Hall to celebrate the release of his new CD on Naxos (8.555778) and dutifully maintaining a demanding schedule of performing and composing, Dubugnon slowed down just long enough to share some reflections on his life and compositions with Naxos.com readers.

Naxos: What is your favourite aspect of being a composer?

RD: Most of the time, having my mornings free for composing, drinking a litre of coffee, and being alone in the house.

Naxos: Do you have a daily routine that you usually follow?

RD: Well, it depends on the schedule or the deadlines, but usually I have found mornings more propitious to inspiration for me somehow. I find better concentration for composition in the morning, quite early morning, especially when it's quiet. I live in a quiet area. I'm also a performer-I play double bass. I find it better for me to practise in the afternoon or late afternoon; I have better stamina. That's the general observation I've made, but there are no rules. Now, at the moment, I am preparing an audition for a string orchestra in Paris, so I am doing 90% bass playing, in the morning and afternoon. So it varies according to the plan and what is in the pipeline.

Naxos: Do you compose in isolation and silence, or are you usually doing several things at once?

RD: I actually need silence. I use keyboards, and I usually work with paper and pencil. I do a lot of sketching, preparatory work. It's a bit like a construction game or a jigsaw. You start with a frame, and step-by-step you put the other elements in it. I've been teaching composition for awhile so I've figured out some ways to explain that process. It's a bit like working with Lego bricks-musical ideas are bricks and then you've got lots of options to put them together. And of course the bricks have different colours and different shapes. So it varies. I usually, if I can, work in complete silence. But I'm not afraid of outside noise. I'm not like mad composers who can't bear hearing a baby cry or a car. One thing that does disturb me is if I hear other music in the area, and there is this ice cream van which comes especially in spring and summer which makes this absolutely horrible sound-it's probably an old German song which has been transposed-it's very weird, very disturbing, and it often comes during a crucial point in my composition when I am trying to find a magic chord. When I can, I go to the countryside. It may sound a bit chic, but my family on my father's side has a chalet in the Swiss Alps. It's very high and remote, and there is no electricity. It's a very rustic life. I spent some time there last summer just on my own to compose.

Naxos: Do you have a set up for a home composition studio, or just a piano, paper, and pen?

RD: I can adapt myself anywhere as long as there is a table and pencil. A few pencils, I like having a few. But I also use my computer to transcribe the music once it's done. I usually work with sketches, but most of the time I write straight away on the machine. Like a typewriter, in fact.

Naxos: Which music software do you prefer to use?

RD: Sibelius software. It's very good, very quick and the result is stunningly good. I used to teach at the Purcell School in London, which is a music specialist school for young prodigies, and they are equipped with about fifteen machines. That's good, but on the other hand, it's not as good for very young ones who need to learn how to properly handwrite music. Some of them just use the machine too easily, and they sometimes skip serious compositional problems like structure, form, or harmony, because it's so easy just to write music playing on the keyboard and messing around. It all writes clearly and neatly on the computer. Sometimes they don't really know the rule of how to put the rhythms properly in the bars. Sometimes they'll put a sixteenth note and then a half rest; it does not work. There are some rules, and with a computer, if you don't know the rules, you can just mess around, because it has been designed for all sorts of complex scores so you can write whatever you like, musically. So it's good for the professional, and up to some extent to teach students, but I don't think it's appropriate for young ones or beginners.

Naxos: How is the art of composition fundamentally different now than it was 200 years ago?

RD: As you probably guess, what is different is of course the use of computers to copy and edit scores, extract parts, send them by e-mail . . . everything goes much quicker. I can't imagine how Telemann, Mozart, and Schubert wrote so much music without the use of music software! And the use of instruments is also very different now, even quite different than before the Second World War! In fact, in the late 40's, the avant-garde opened a vast new spectrum of uses of the instruments that composers of today can use for expressive purposes, more than just for speculative and experimental ones. Otherwise, I believe that the process of composing itself, structuring ideas, giving them a shape, etc. remains not that different nowadays; only the language has been transformed, always reflecting its time (or reacting against it). There has been an explosion of styles of all sorts, not only in "classical" music; just walk into any CD shop to see it yourself. To be a composer, one only needs what I call the three I's: Intuition (or Inspiration, although I hate that word and the clichés which surround it), then Intelligence and, most of all, Imagination.

Naxos: Is that what you tell your composition students?

RD: Sometimes, but I don't like rules. It's more like a memo for myself. You cannot go without any of these aspects if you want to write a complete work, because inspiration is not enough. Anyone who has a minimum of musical knowledge can come up with a tune or a theme, but then you've got to use your intelligence to construct something with it. Then imagination helps you to make it a bit different, more personal, less predictable, less academic.

Naxos: Do you think that playing double bass has affected your compositional style?

RD: Well, I hope not! I almost always dissociate the two things. I am just a composer who happens to play the double bass, instead of being a double bassist-composer. I seldom write works for my own instrument, and I usually prefer playing the music of other composers (dead or alive!). However, being a double bass player is a privileged position in the orchestra, which has allowed me to understand a good deal of orchestration from inside.

Naxos: Is your inspiration for composition generally external? For instance, a rhythmic pattern in your Piano Quartet was inspired by an old electricity meter, and The Five Masques for solo oboe were inspired by a friend's collection of masks.

RD: Maybe, I am a bit like Berlioz, the essence-même of a true romantic. As I am fond of opera, film, and literature--it is true that I often use an external subject to give my works a narrative direction. Pure music like symphonies or string quartets are not really appealing to me, although I don't use any programmes in the works on the CD, except in Incantatio which represents a spiritism ceremony, which I could even turn into a ballet later.

Naxos: What are some of your favourites in film, music, and literature?

RD: I'm a great fan of Russian literature, and I love old French and American movies. I love Hollywood composers, from Korngold to nowadays-John Williams, Howard Shore. Although there is no direct influence on my music, I am really fond of all the scores. I love funk, some fusion jazz . . . I am a very open-minded person. I don't only feed myself on old classics, although when you hear my music you might think that. I am very fond of Russian literature, Russian poetry and themes. I speak Russian, I had a Russian girlfriend, I like Russian food. These aspects feed my imagination. I am not a pure music composer. I cannot just say, "Okay, I'm starting my third symphony tomorrow, or my sixth string quartet." It's too abstract, it's just numbers. It's rare that I find great excitement just out of a series of numbers or very abstract compositions.

Naxos: Your Piano Quartet is a homage to Gabriel Fauré. Have his works greatly influenced your compositions?

RD: I could not say that his works have influenced me directly, but I want to acknowledge the origins from which I descend, which is a tradition that nearly died during fifty years of artistic totalitarianism. To simplify, Fauré was the composition teacher of Florent Schmitt, who was himself the composition teacher of my teacher in Paris, Alain Margoni.

Naxos: Many of your works quote folks songs from various areas of the world, including England, Finland, and Tibet. Are you drawn to the folk music of different cultures, or is this a bit of a coincidental phenomenon?

RD: This is coincidental, I must confess. I am not usually fond of any type of folk music, which is to classical music what folkloric costumes are to fashion. I just liked these particular tunes and used them, although I entirely share Schoenberg's opinion that it is almost impossible to reconcile folk elements with composition.

Naxos: So to you, folk music is irrelevant in modern composition?

RD: I don't know. It wouldn't be right to say so, since on my CD there is evidence against me. It is very different food for thought. I don't think I will use many folk elements in my music again. If I use it, it will be more in a hidden way.

Naxos: In addition to composing, playing double bass, and teaching, you also organise concerts, usually with chamber music. What can you tell me about these concerts?

RD: Well, that's a different life, isn't it? I think it's a good experience. As a musician, you have to be able to do that. You have to know how to design a flyer, how to write, phone people, plus hiring the hall, piano tuning . . .all these elements equal a full-time job if you do it all the time. At the moment, I'm working on preparing this CD-launching concert at the Wigmore Hall in London, and I am doing it practically all by myself. I've got a PR helping me a bit and my publisher is doing a bit. I also do the flier delivery myself-I go to the printer shop, and I take them on my scooter to the company that will distribute them. So it's a lot of work, but it's quite exciting because it's my own music; it's my first CD and my first big concert. But I wouldn't do that everyday. It's quite exhausting because at the end of the day I still have to practise and do my own work.

Naxos: Do you tend to plan out your compositions in advance with a timeline of when you will tackle particular projects, or is it all fairly spontaneous?

RD: I must say that nowadays, I have quite a few deadlines to meet and little is left to spontaneity, although I try to write just for myself whenever I can. This is the reality of being a professional composer, but it is not too bad because most of my projects are very exciting and correspond to my dreams.

Naxos: What's ahead for 2003?

RD: I have a recital and a Russian première of my Piano Quartet in Moscow in March, then a couple of commissions in France, including one for the Radio France Orchestra for a performance in November 2003, and also a premiere in Switzerland of my concerto for Accordion and chamber orchestra. I also intend to move back to live in Paris, after seven years of exile in London!

Thanks to Richard Dubugnon for giving us so much of his time. Be sure to listen to tracks from his CD of chamber works, only on Naxos.com!

If you would like to contact Richard Dubugnon, please send your questions and comments to cnicholson@naxosusa.com.

Learn more about Richard Dubugnon by visiting his website: http://www.richarddubugnon.com/.