Be Yourself: everyone else is taken.

“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”

I have often struggled with the idea that I am a relatively conservative composer, somewhat tonally based (perhaps quite a bit tonally based, depending on one’s view of things) in a time when a lot of music that is written is quite modern. Am I out of date, I wonder? I’m still not sure, and this is something I have thought a lot about in the past. But two interviews that I have had on my podcast have helped me to come to peace with this.

The first interview was with Jake Heggie, who is undoubtedly the most performed opera composer of our time (http://www.anthonyplog.com/podcasts/jake-heggie). As an example, his first opera, Dead Man Walking, has had over 80 productions world-wide. Jake is what could be called a conservative composer, just like myself. When I asked him about this subject, I quoted a line from Oscar Wilde that he has at the bottom of every email he sends: “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” At one time early in his life Jake tried to follow the more modern path, and was unhappy with the result……it was not who he was. It was only when he decided to write the way he felt emotionally that he started to produce the wonderful music that he writes today.

I also interviewed Jörg Widmann on the podcast, a composer who has had world-wide success, working with and composing for the major orchestras in the world (http://www.anthonyplog.com/podcasts/joerg-widmann). Jörg’s compositional style is the extreme opposite from Jake. He is always pushing the boundaries of what instruments can do and what we consider to be “normal” writing. But Jörg has always been that way. And so for Jörg, just like Jake, he is being himself, although the results from these two great composers are completely different.

So I think the most important thing for both beginning composers and also established composers is to find out who we actually are. And I think that is a journey that may never end. Or, at least the way I think about it, a journey that should never end. Because, in composing as in life, I think we should always be searching for ways to both compose and live in ways that are more meaningful as the years pass.

In my case, I think I have tried to go deeper not necessarily in thinking about various techniques of composition, but rather in the subjects I attempt. At the beginning of my life as a composer I wrote mainly for brass, and (hopefully) in a style that was suited for brass. After all, I was a brass player and had a fairly good idea of what was possible and what was not possible. And, since I knew brass players and the brass playing mentality, I could always ask for feedback.

But over the past twenty years or so I have taken on themes and subjects that forced me to expand my horizons: a cantata (Magdalene) about women who have suffered from sex trafficking, prostitution, and addiction; an opera (Spirits) with a holocaust theme, and God’s First Temples, an oratorio about the first American environmental battle (which was lost). Delving deeply into these projects has certainly been a help in trying to write more meaningful and substantial music.

I remember reading an interview with the American poet and novelist James Dickey who, when asked the question about how to find your true self, answered “which one?” And the following quote of his seems to sum up the problem or challenge: “There are so many selves in everybody, and just to explore and exploit one is wrong, dead wrong, for the creative person.”

One very well known composer who struggled with finding his true identity or self was Jean Sibelius. If we take his marvelous Fifth Symphony, listen to the conclusion of his final version of the symphony, starting at minute 28:35 (

Such beautiful and moving music, and the ending is stunning. But even though the ending is unlike any other ending written, the harmony is conservative. Listen especially to the first string entrance and of course the ending.

But this was the third revision of the Fifth Symphony and now, instead of the typical four movements, Sibelius reduced the symphony to three movement. Notable is that in his first version he tried to be more “modern,” so listen to conductor Jukka Pekka Saraste talking about and then demonstrating how Sibelius changed this first string entrance and the ending as well (

To those who know and love the Sibelius Fifth, both moments come as a shock. Should Sibelius have made those changes? I guess that is for every individual person to decide, depending on their own taste. But it is easy to see how Sibelius struggled with being himself.

My belief is that such a struggle is necessary in music, as in life, if we are trying to come close to achieving our potential as musicians and people. As the saying goes, it is the journey that is most important, not the goal. Steve Jobs put it well in his iconic 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University: you can only connect the dots after the fact. I just have to keep reminding myself of that……