Sitting down with her 83-year-old music teacher who fled the war before moving to London and teaching at Drama Centre, Central St Martins where he still teaches to this day as the oldest inhabitant of the school whilst also writing and directing music for a number of productions at the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Reunited after 20 plus years apart, they reflect on Cassy’s career and how her early classical training conflicts and also complements the dance world she now rules. Despite having not seen each other since school, it’s clear that John and Cassy’s shared respect for the art world speaks for itself.
Sitting down with her 83-year-old music teacher who fled the war before moving to London and teaching at Drama Centre, Central St Martins where he still teaches to this day as the oldest inhabitant of the school whilst also writing and directing music for a number of productions at the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Reunited after 20 plus years apart, they reflect on Cassy’s career and how her early classical training conflicts and also complements the dance world she now rules. Despite having not seen each other since school, it’s clear that John and Cassy’s shared respect for the art world speaks for itself.
Ralph: 0:00
Welcome to a little more conversation with Ralph Moore. Get closer to the biggest names in Electronic music. In this episode, Ralph gets closer to respected electronic selector Cassie. Veteran composer and teacher John White.
Ralph: 0:24
Welcome to the latest episode off a little more conversation with me, Ralph Moore. To my left, we have John White. To my right, We have Catherine Britain, a k a. Cassie, would you like to introduce yourselves to the podcast listeners in full?
Cassy: 0:49
So my full name is Katherine Britain or Cassie. That's my artist/ DJ name. I'm a DJ and a producer and singer sometimes.
John: 0:50
I'm John White. I was born in Berlin in 1936 and my parents wisely decided not to call me John Edward White because initials wouldn't have been very helpful at the time. And we came over to London in 1939 because of some disturbance and er I had to learn English in a great hurry. Besides learning English, I was taught music from the age of four, and I haven't looked back.
Ralph: 1:20
We've talked a long time about getting this podcast together and John was really the only person that you really, really wanted, to talk to Because I think of his influence on you on. Perhaps as well. You felt that maybe it would be a good time to shine a light on what he does as a musician. Can you first of all, tell me, a, When you first met and B, how can you remember the year he was born?
Cassy: 1:45
Because it is the same year as my mother's birth. Yes. Oh, and obviously there's, like, elemental things that I can remember Like, you know, you meet certain people in your life and they're just like, you know, they're still like John is still one of the most interesting people I've met. So and it's like 20 years on.
Ralph: 2:05
And you met at Drama Center.
Cassy: 2:07
Yes, I was a student at Drama Center, which is, ah, Drama School here in London and now it belongs to Central Saint Martins. But when I went there, it was still very on its own, its own planet. It's own kind of a work in Progress Institute run by two very madmen. And it was an extremely tough drama school, and it was home to a lot of very good actors and back then I thought I wanted to be an actress or start. I mean, I was always interested in plays and theatre and films I thought would make sense and the interesting bit is that obviously now a DJ and I'm dealing with music and the most interesting thing apart from obviously like plays and playwrights and acting methods and all of which have very much enjoyed. And the most interesting lessons or part of school was actually John and I think a lot of people would agree with me, even if the now actors and it was the music lessons. And we had so much fun singing and learning lots and being interactive musically. So, um yeah, it's interesting that the most interesting a drama school was music and music I am still connected to.
Ralph: 3:27
Now, John, have you done a podcast before?
John: 3:30
No, I haven't. This is new territory for me, just briefly about myself. I'm now the oldest inhabitant of Drama Center. London, despite my great age, is still employing me, which is a source of great delight because I find working with students aged 19, 20, 21 keeps me on my toes to an extent that my contemporaries wouldn't. It's very nice meeting Katherine again after all of these years. She hasn't changed very much at all.
Cassy: 4:07
Love That!
John: 4:07
I don't regard myself as a music teacher so much as a musician who loves to share what I know about music. I'm always on the lookout for the exceptional rather than the mainstream. So I will play my students recordings of music by Silvestre Revueltas. And by Nikolai Medtner and people had a lot of even music fanciers don't know very much about. But they have made it my business to find out about these people and what makes them exceptional.
Ralph: 4:47
What do you think you've learned from John the most?
Cassy: 4:50
It's interesting what you what you just said. Yeah, it is to make sure to find out about these exceptional people in this exceptional music and these bits and two to shine a light on things that are not the most obvious. But are extremely intelligent and enriching. This is all my life. I was very lucky to meet a person along the way that would just feed exactly into what is my natural way of going about life anyway. like to find something that makes complete sense for certain people and certain people only. You just have to have a very open mind to to be able to read and understand those very intricate, beautiful things. And if you are able to shine a light on it, it's just it just helps enrich people's lives. And I think that's extremely extraordinary to be able to do that.
Ralph: 5:54
It's been 20 years since you guys last met. How does it feel for you right now?
Cassy: 5:59
Not No. I mean, I'm not saying not that special. It's not like it's It doesn't feel like I haven't seen you for 20 years. I have to say, Well, a lot has happened, didn't it?
John: 6:13
Well I hope that in 20 years a lot could have happened!
Ralph: 6:14
John you have the best pair off. I don't know what to call them. Your shoes slash slippers look quite elegant.
John: 6:25
You're very kind about my shoes there, worn in a spirit of defence. In spite of the bright sunshine, it's not that warm out. So,
Ralph: 6:35
and for people who are listening, rather than looking at the video or the or the or the pictures. Can you describe what's around your neck?
John: 6:41
Oh, that's a bolo tie. My wife is American. And her family bought a cabin on Placid Lake up in the Rocky Mountains. We go there for a month each year, and they always get myself a new bolo tie there partly because the ends don't get in the way if you're playing the piano and partly because it's, um, a slight statement. Some kinds. I've got a great collection of normal ties but prefer wearing Bolo.
Ralph: 7:17
John, you talked about some of your other students, and people have come through the portals you mentioned. Pierce Brosnan was one, and you mentioned that he actually went to the Funeral of one of the guys who died.
John: 7:30
Well yes uhm, one of the strange old men who ran Drama Center died and there's big memorial service. And there were people who'd been to drama centre from the last 40 years. Well, I knew quite a lot of them because I've been teaching here for 48 years by now, and that was maybe nine years ago, and it was fascinating running into somebody famous like Piers who still speaks with an Irish brogue, which you wouldn't suspect if you just saw James Bond films.
Ralph: 8:09
any other people that that you are.
Cassy: 8:12
And then there's that. Whoever Michael Fassbender is probably the most. Tom Hardy was there. I didn't I don't think you finished these are people that Michael Fassbender was a No, he was at school while I was still there, but I I don't remember the people. And then, like Lawrence tells me, lit. No, but that's the guy from the etc who did that play and I was Ah, that's him on!
Ralph: 8:36
Who's Lawrence?
Cassy: 8:37
Lawrence? Still one of my best friends from dramas school, who asked that poor better knee on Marie Duff honoree deaf Thelma Cory
John: 8:48
over quite a fews
Cassy: 8:49
is quite yeah, there's like that. I'm like this. Yeah, there's plenty.
Ralph: 8:53
You've always been a fan of classical music, and you took me to a, uh, when we did the mixmag cover, you took me to a show. You need tell everyone about that.
Cassy: 9:03
Yeah, because we wanted to do something that I would normally do. Or I enjoy doing in Vienna, my actual hometown or the town I grew up in, and so I thought it would be best to take you to a concert and yeah, it was a good one. It was a good one.
Ralph: 9:22
It was. Now I think it would be good for you to explain to John a little bit about your career because obviously you are united by music and notes and melody.
Cassy: 9:35
Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, my career, I think, is maybe interesting. No, I don't think my career is interesting from a musical standpoint for you, John. But the music in my career relates to is of is interesting from a cultural viewpoint because it is very much connected to a movement and the, the nightlife and situations, you know. And it's not entertainment at such. It's like service industry. And I think that's very interesting. We were just discussing my friend Zander and I yesterday that people think it's completely irrelevant to forget about certain clubs in New York and and how DJing started or, you know, Jamaica and sound systems on all this. And and I think the background off, off, off. What I'm doing is so fascinating, And, I think it's extremely amazing that I could, like, make a profession out of it and live something I really like by nature. Very fascinated by.
John: 10:40
I sometimes wish that I had more hours in the day to catch up with music altogether. As I tell my students, I need to live to the age of 350 to hear a lot of the music's there know about already, let alone interesting stuff that's being composed in Patagonia at this moment.
Cassy: 11:01
Yeah, absolutely.
John: 11:03
Because in, while in search of the exceptional keep coming across, people from completely unexpected areas onto are doing interesting creative stuff. A. Mind you. I have the greatest possible respect for the mainstream for Beethoven. Bark, Mozart are Brahms, Wagner, et cetera. But they have very good agents and get played a lot. Whereas I'm very interested in characters like Revueltas Metner Booze, Oniy Szymanowski. People that have a considerable body of music behind them, but you just don't get played so much. It's still a puzzle to me. Why they don't!
Cassy: 11:50
Yeah, it's interesting when you go back to remember. That's probably one of the things that I learned with you is that I started looking at classical music in a different way, as something as you just say, it's something active. It's nothing. It's something that still needs to be discovered and needs to be brought to people like Wasn't it a Mendel song that made Bach famous? No. Yes, because like he was just not being played and he just started playing something. And this is this is what people underestimate that you know, classical music is not dead, you know, they're still, as you just said, mention these composers. There's still a lot that you can change in the world of classical music for a lot of people.
John: 12:39
Yes, this is very true. I mean, I started composing at the age of 19 as a result of hearing Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila-symphonie for me. Yes, It was such a amazing volcanic kind of experience. Half the audience walked out looking disgusted, and the other half, including me, walked out at least six inches off the ground. Because of this wonderful, miraculous conjoining of music, it opposes intellectual challenges on extreme vulgarity. You know, Friday night is music night. And Messier covers all of that. So I came home. Having experienced Turangalila-symphonie and proceeded to write my first piano Sonata. I'm up to 180 by now. And there are no signs of slowing down, I'm afraid.
Cassy: 13:39
Weren't you the youngest Professor Royal College of Music ever? Which we shouldn't forget.
Ralph: 13:49
How old were you then?
John: 13:50
I think I was 22. Wow, And I think my parents, who'd had severe worries about my taking up music, were temporarily reassured that us going along the right tracks and being a professor of something, anything? Yes, I stayed at the Royal College of Music for seven years and had some very interesting students and then went on to become a tubor player to play with the London Gabrielli Brussel Ensemble. So one extreme to the other.
Cassy: 14:23
And you studied piano and composition. No?
John: 14:25
Yes, an organ in composition organ. I was very lucky with their teachers in that my composition teacher used to never blue pencil my scores. He used to say, We'll see that bar there. If you listen to the Szymanowski Second Violin Concerto, you'll find that he solves that problem very elegantly. And there he is, widely listened person. And I appreciated that so much because I and my friends, I'm afraid we're beastly snobs. we would talk about Szymanowski or whatever, And, look down on people who just discovered the Beethoven moonlight
Cassy: 15:08
Yes, of course, that's normal!
John: 15:12
I realise now that it's a great piece. Enjoy listening to it. Well played, but a student terrible snobbery.
Ralph: 15:20
The other person here, there's snobbery around at the moment is Ludovico Einaudi, who I was introduced to by my friend Shrina, who I know what with. And she introduced me to him. And actually another friend mentioned him as well, and I'd never heard of him. And then it turns out that he's not only selling out the Barbican in 3,4,5,6 nights in a row, he sold out the Sydney Opera House. But the negative stuff towards him is about the fact that he's too romantic. It's too sweet. John, You've heard of him?
John: 15:49
Yes, I have. Indeed. I can't recollect his music this moment, but I have a strong idea of its nature. Yeah, and, um, I think talking about him reminds me of the big difference that we're finding in concerts of contemporary music at the moment and the kind of contentious stuff we were listening to. When I was a student back in the fifties, he went to a concert of new music and not a constant interval from one end of the evening to the other. Everything very contentious and very disturbed. And nowadays I think things have settled down. There's the admission of diversity, which I find very important in music. As I saying earlier, I wish that I had more hours in the day to listen to, for instance, Kathryn, the kind of music that you're dj'ing. Um, every now and again, I get persuaded to go to the upstairs room of some pub or other and their people playing quite inspired stuff, and I keep hoping against hope that they will survive because my problem with a lot of pop music is that representative record company could hear a band playing and say, Well, we'd like to put you on our books but you've got to get new drummer and on. You've got to play material that we will give you.
Cassy: 17:15
Yeah, that that's how I mean. That's it's a very like everything sounds the same on the radio. All the singers sound the same. Everything sounds the same.
John: 17:26
a sort of, um, concatenation of opinion about rock music. Pop and rock it very commercially decided what gets done. Yeah, And erm, I sometimes get worried by what seems to me rather formulaic wave composing and performing. Possibly the same thing exists in inverted commas, classical music, but not to the same extent.
Cassy: 17:56
That's interesting. In classical music, you always I think the level of artistry is so high that, you know, everyone worked really hard for so many years to get to a certain level. That's not gonna, you know, they're not gonna just, like, drop all of their knowledge And all of a love this like, um, depth that they have worked for so hard, like, you cannot just negate it. It's there. They will want to play something that is on that level. No, you cannot stew if you're that. You know, it's just not possible in the classical music world. Yes, you could maybe have, like, opera singers, that I'm going to be more commercial and selling more records because they look a bit like I don't know, because they're more heart or they will sell more. And then we're gonna be singing more Rossini or something. But That's just like a very minute part off, Let's say, opera world. The rest of the opera world of opera houses around the world that have to be sung in and that will be sung by amazing singers and then maybe not commercially successful. But they're very successful opera singers, and so you will always have the just the classical music world that is orchestras around the world, theaters, operas around the world, and people having to like, you know, fill in those jobs. And that's like a more stable, I think, a more stable, more safe background for quality.
John: 19:26
You mention opera and also orchestral work. There's also a huge field of chamber music and solo, and you see and that remains a bit of minority. Every now and the game, people will go to the Wigmore Hall to hear some famous pianists. But ideally famous,
Cassy: 19:50
I did actually go to the Wigmore Hall not so long ago. Funny enough, get because I had never been and I watched because it was just a walk in thing at lunchtime you could do. It was two young students that had won some competitions piano students and was just very interesting to see and it was quite full at lunchtime. Is the lunchtime kind of half price concert? No, but not, you know, like something you could just walk in to. And that was I love that.
John: 20:21
I think they do. Very enterprising program. Unlike the world of commercial music, where things have got to sold several 1,000,000 to really make it in the world of inverted commas, classical music, you can still make highly individual statements. I think some of the statement said us composers make are about state of mind. I'm feeling miserable if I'm going to write in B minor and some I find it. A lot of my inspiration just comes from the nature of music itself. What would it be like to juxtapose this? And that called, What would it be like to have such and such a melody accompanied in a particular kind of way? And with any luck, some kind of emotional content comes out of that when I teach a drama centre on the one hand a teach choral singing and notation because these days a lot of director theatre directors want the music to come from stage rather than from the pit, which I think is a step in the right direction, because in the days of pit orchestras in theatres, theme musicians used to play brilliantly at first rehearsal and then start reading motoring mags and worst in between music cues when the show is running, I've been musical director of several West End productions. There's always this fight against boredom in the pit. People who can't see above them what's happening on? And you have to remind them that there's a little old lady up there who's been saving six months and give her the works!
Ralph: 22:03
What John said about, you know, mixing chords and is kind of a big part of dj'ing, isn't it? Really?
Cassy: 22:11
Yeah, there is. You do makes chords, melodies, and sometimes it's often do you have to obviously, you know you have to wait until the cords are gone and there's just to be and then try and mix into the the beat with the beat.
Ralph: 22:23
I guess the question is, do you think about dj'ing in a similar way as John just described mixing things together.
Cassy: 22:31
I think I'm a purist, and I think John is a purest and I've always found purists the more interesting people. So I'm, you know, just I keep saying I'm not claiming anything, you know, I'm a dj and it's obviously there's a certain artistry to it because you have to read people on the dance floor and you have to, like, build a sense for things and and you have to do with energies and you have to lift their energy and and take it to a certain place, which I guess, like when you're performing as a as a as a pianist or as an orchestra, that's what you have to do. And then the conductor probably has to help do that as well. But I just I keep saying What I'm doing is not rocket science. Nothing that special is just It's like service industry and I'm just I'm just very pure with it. And, I like that. But I'm also like it's not, you know, I'm not. I'm not a conductor or composer, so you have to like, stay real about that's you know what I'm doing
Ralph: 23:31
Now, John, you mentioned that you don't have any children. You've really had a life in music. Cassie, you have a son? Yes. Well, Rocky. Yeah. Um, what's his take on music and your music? In music in general,
Cassy: 23:43
He doesn't like it. He wants me to turn off the music. When I start singing, he says, You must be quiet, Mummy. Very discouraging. And he's like, more. I think it's gonna be an artist. He's like, he builds his own dinosaurs out of paper and he can shape them really well. And he is very strong understanding for proportion at the age of four. Very astounded. I'm like, How did he just build a triceratops out of paper. How did he do that? So I'm I'm happy. I'm like, hey, doesn't have to like or love music. I'm happy if he loves something.
John: 24:23
Yes, loving something. It's very important that when I was in my teens, I used to be a sculptor.
Cassy: 24:33
Oh, yes, I remember that
John: 24:34
is so. I inherited all these plane trees that being cut down school grounds and sided a lot of wooden sculpture in style of Barbara Hepworth who I admired above everybody. It was only when I left school which was bit early age 16 because I became hopeless in all subjects except Latin, German and art. I would spend most of the week in the art school. My first job at the age of 16 was as a display man in harrods, so used to learn to fold gents trousers properly and do all of these things that persuade people that it's worth coming into the store and spend all their money well, and while I was there I used to play piano in the piano department at lunchtime and a few musicians heard me playing and encouraged me to take a year out, practice a lot and try to get in through of College of Music, which I proceeded to do. My father, who was a scientist, was very good about it, he said. Well, he'd understood that music was not a very well paid profession, but he wished me luck. And you can't ask for much more from parents. Absolutely. At age 19 I started going out with girls and used to turn up 2.30 in the morning and my parents got very upset about this and I said, Well, I don't think we're going to get on too well like this. I don't want any more of your money. I'm going to keep myself in college. So I left home and started playing for ballet classes, which is where made my connections. The first job out of college, age 20 or 21 was as musical director of Western Theater, Bali, which is now the Royal Scottish Belikov. The they were in the very early stages, and it was a baptism of fire because I had to do arrangements of Tchaikovsky Predators and Things For theatre pit bands and for really slightly there once said, ill-equipped people who didn't really understand the idiom too well. Anyway, a couple of years, the Western Theater Ballet and then suddenly long came this job teaching conversation. Royal College of Music. I, uh, I don't think that I deserved it, but I got it.
Cassy: 27:06
You probably got it because you deserved it. No, I mean they probably did know what they were doing.
John: 27:12
Well at had very nice students. Drama Center, London. We auditioned 25000 for 16 places, so we get good and committed students, and I found a very delightful to work with a lot of them. Haven't read long book or seen oil painting or been to a concert where you sit still and listen to the music which gives me something to talk about.
Cassy: 27:42
That's why everyone was very dedicated because it's so hard to get into drama school that once they're there and they're constantly threatening to expel you every every term is like, if you know, a doing less of that you're gonna be expelled next week. Blah, blah. So, um, yeah, everyone was working really hard to stay at school.
Ralph: 28:03
Do you think it gave you a sense of discipline?
Cassy: 28:04
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.
John: 28:07
For sure I think that it gave us teachers a sense of discipline, too. Because the, general atmosphere was quite manic preoccupation with art. And
Cassy: 28:20
one could say that matter officially with 10 in the morning to 10 at night, five days a week.
John: 28:27
Yes, and plenty to think about over the weekend.
Cassy: 28:30
Yes. Beat yourself up about as well.
John: 28:36
That was part of the ethos
Cassy: 28:39
we ever eat. That tortured drama student
John: 28:42
is used to run into people weeping in corridors. And find they're preparing for next scene.
Ralph: 28:49
Wow. Now, John, you clearly love working, youre 83. I picked you up from your house sharp as a tack. Still loving knew what you're doing. Probably not going to stop for a couple more years. I would imagine.
John: 29:07
So people ask me about retirement and I confess I don't understand the word.
Cassy: 29:13
Yeah, I also don't understand it. It's like when people get when you gonna stop DJ like, why would I?
John: 29:18
Yes, why iss? I mean, music is an expanding universe. There's always something new to find out about some aspect fit or other and It just delights me to be in this expanding universe where I've got to keep my nose to the grindstone to Keep up with what's going on as said, concerts of contemporary music are far more diverse nowadays in content. And they used to be when I was a student, because then people who didn't know about contemporary music would stumble out of a concert, feeling personally got at by the degree of dissonance and the degree of oh, the description of emotional turmoil that the music was all about. Whereas now? You could go to a concert of music written last week. And hear a piece in G major and four full time, completely approachable, something that could even be a restful.
Cassy: 30:23
Isn't it funny that the more grim times are, the more the more pleasant things have to that the output test be more pleasant?
John: 30:33
I think the artist owes it to his audience to provide something pleasant, given the circumstances. I will not be drawn out about our leadership for America's leadership. A wife who's American and I apologise to each other
Cassy: 30:49
every day!
John: 30:53
And I refused to be drawn out about all of this, but I do think that it's becoming more for duty for the artist. Find something calming something, if possible. Delightful.
Cassy: 31:05
Yeah, it's reassuring.
John: 31:08
I mean, ages ago I shook off the influence of Monsieur because he's got some very systematic ways of composing his modes of limited transposition, et cetera, et cetera, And I suddenly discovered that I wanted to say something outside that for the time. Rather, Havel guard attitude. And they started looking to Schumann and to figures from the past to disguise myself as so lot of my Ganesan martyrs, of which there are many sounds if they've been written by somebody else. Also having worked a lot of the theater, I'm used to being told, Look, this play by Ibsen and the director speaking And Id like music to be crossover between Hildegard and the Grateful Dead. And so I'm I'm used to writing in other people's styles
Cassy: 32:08
Yeah, since I was just gonna it's like your method acting your way into composing.
John: 32:14
Yes, I think there's a strong parallel
Cassy: 32:18
that's interesting. A while there's many approaches. This is also like in DJ'ing You Have DJs that I've a play are famous for this selection and the style of music they're playing and not for their mixing skills. You know, there's like people that can, like take whatever pieces of music and just get the room boiling, whatever that is and you don't even know what style of music you're just listening to, obviously, is going to be in the house or techno field. But but I guess it's the same way there's the different approaches.
Ralph: 32:54
This sounds a bit like Ricardo potentially Well, who else would you think has that a ability to play amazing music, but it's not necessarily slick mixes.
Cassy: 33:04
I would actually not say it's Ricardo. I think Ricardo is one of the selector people. More yes, in my eyes he's one of the selector person that is famous for a certain style or a certain attitude behind the decks. I think people that are very good at mixing and very good at getting the night going is like people like Danny howls. Also, Sasha, Ben Klock, for example, is a very good example where they build their build sets and and mix really well And, uh, yeah, get get the energy flowing.
Ralph: 33:45
And where do you feel use it in amongst that?
Cassy: 33:48
I'm I'm more of a mixer. I'm not the selector, Obviously I like. I like picking tunes or nice tracks. But then also, sometimes I don't think every piece of music, especially dance music, because it's so you're playing so many parties, and then you have to cater to different tastes as well. And obviously it's a range of music or its house and techno Im playing. So it's not gonna be drum and bass. Yes, but in house and techno the field is very broad. So and not every track is gonna be exactly to my 100% taste. You know, maybe there or maybe not to the taste in the second I would need it to be that way. But then, sometimes pieces are really helpful, and I didn't even know there were that helpful, and I only know it once I've played them in a certain moment. Does that make sense?
John: 34:39
Yes, I'm following you well as a composer, as Don't think that except when writing theatre music I don't think that I'm writing for a specific audience. I'm writing for myself as an audience. There's a highly critical audience, but I've gone back to writing tonal music After a long period of not total music. Back in the sixties, I worked a lot with very genial compose called Cornelius Cardew, and he introduced the concept of performance art we used to do with him pieces that happened over the whole of Richmond Park and pieces that happened over the whole of the Circle line of the Underground. Obviously, these weren't things that a single member of the audience could get in the entirety, but they could see that somebody is doing something slightly unusual or making slightly unusual sounds.
Cassy: 35:43
Didn't you'd like tour in the U. S with John Cage or what was it?
John: 35:46
Yes, Well, Cornelius Cardew was a close friend of John Cage and having gone to Elizabeth Lateens for conversation lessons, she was a 12 tone composer, And. Strangely, her concert music was the usual kind of contentious, dissonant sort of music one's expecting at the time, and yet her scores for Hammer films were wonderful. So she's a total master of tonality, and she was very good with me. She didn't insist on writing in a particular style When I ran into her a little while after taking lessons with her, she asked, What you doing at the moment? I said, Well, I'm on my fifth Cannon Sonata and said, What metaphor? Yes, she is capable of strong Sarcasm. Then, having plunged into the world of 12 tone music and its contention, and it's emotional disturbance than them, I suddenly got very interested in this performance art scene. The trouble is unless you've got him, camera person. You can't get the totality of those pieces of Cornelius. They tried the scratch orchestra, which consisted of people from all walks of life. There, computer programmers there were mathematicians. There are all sorts of people on that kept going for a few years until it started to fall apart. The pianist John Tilbury gave her Marxist Leninist analysis. For what was wrong. The Scratch orchestra. I'm afraid that I had a much more simple explanation that was that some of us had been brought up in a performing discipline and others not, so a lot of very ingenious pieces that people contrived would start out OK. And then people who weren't performer orientated would start chattering with each other on and, that led and what went wrong with the Scratch orchestra as it started out with the best of possible intentions. Anyway, I moved on from the Scratch Orchestra to the World for Minimalism or the Philip Glass. Terry Riley, et cetera and, spent few years with some musician friends playing music written along those lines is called Systems Music and then I got tired of all that repetition and started writing what I write today, which is what I think I'd like to call neo narrative music. It's music that it's got a beginning. It's got a development, and it's gotten ends, sometimes surprising end. It's what I refer to as daft bugger endings. You know, when you apparently coming to a sensible conclusion and that That that's it. I find that quite interesting. Set up.
Cassy: 39:01
I wish life was like that. I want to come to sensible conclusions, data and that's it would be lovely
Ralph: 39:07
And daft bugger endings is a great name for a band that hasn't been invented. There's actually really, really famous electronic band called daft punk. Daft is such a good word. Yes. Um, but maybe someone should take that word and run with it for a new band for new generation.
John: 39:25
Give it a try if you say so.
Ralph: 39:30
Listen, we've had a wonderful chat about music. I think we've all been united here by our love of music. For classical, to Elektronic, to minimalism. This has been a wonderful experience. Thank you both for your time. Any final things you want to say before we wrap up?
Cassy: 39:45
Well, I'm happy I got to meet you again. It really is a no time is passing with 20 years is a long time for but yes, you have not changed at all. When you talk, I still learn a lot and I'm thinking, Yeah, I wish I would be so organized in my head as you are.
John: 40:05
Catherine you're being extremely kind. I think that you look absolutely amazing. For all of this time. It just hasn't passed as far as I'm concerned. And you've said some very nice things about me, Which thank you. Yeah,
Ralph: 40:21
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