In some ways more so, because the essence of polyphony is not just the number of different structural levels, but the depth of interaction between those levels, which we see very clearly in the music of Bach for example. And when everything is collapsed down to the very concentrated situation of a solo instrument, then of course the interactions between layers, between the different elements of polyphonic thinking, are inevitably brought to the fore, plus the presence of a single interpretative mind organizing all the material. The instrumental music of the 17th century has always been a particular interest of mine, and the main reason seems to be that in that period the concept of instrumentalism was basically created from nothing. What I mean is that with the increasing sophistication of instrument building, it became possible for instrumental music to create an identity of its own, separate from its previous dependence on vocal music. (Perhaps electronic music is now in an analogous relationship to instrumental music.) There was almost no fixed concept of what an instrumental form should be, and what kind of materials are appropriate to such a work, until these things became more formalized at the time of Corelli. My second cello piece Dark ages, which was written for the two-bow technique, was actually more influenced by the music of viol consorts than by solo music. Because the ability to play all four strings simultaneously, as well as the specific limitations thereby imposed on what kind of activity is possible, immediately leads back into that kind of sound-world, at least if one is so predisposed. As one's experience as a composer gradually accumulates, together with an increasing confidence in dealing with what seem to be the important musical issues, the question of ‘influence’ becomes somewhat less sensitive. Eventually, one's growing individuation as a musical thinker enables a backward glance at other cultural phenomena, with a certain amount of confidence that one isn't about to drown in this ocean of historical material that surrounds us all the time. At the moment I am working on a composition for string quintet and electronics (Khasma) which makes something of a feature of ostinati and canonic structures, and so perhaps Webern might be dimly sensed in the background, but I don't think anyone would imagine that I was making a reference to Webern. In earlier days I was occasionally told that if I were really interested in expanding the range of sounds and expressive possibilities in my work, I should devote myself to electronic music, rather than writing for instruments which were 200 or 300 years old. When I subsequently also became involved in creating and performing electronic music, it became much more clear to me what the reason for using these old instruments actually is. Which is that the one thing an electronic instrument cannot in any way provide is a physical unity between gesture and sound, where the action of playing on the instrument itself produces the sound. As an electronic performer, I am concerned to create a very clear correspondence between what I do gesturally and what comes out of the speakers, but it is also at the same time obvious that all these things are connected by wires which carry for example the binary codes of MIDI information, and not by actual, physical friction, or movement of air, or whatever. This difference preserves a crucial significance for the act of live performance on an ‘old’ instrument. The physicality of the sound, the exposure of the corporeal aspect of sound-production, defines itself in distinction to the comparatively disembodied way in which sounds in electronic music are made. It sometimes seems as if acoustic instruments are gradually being supplanted by electronic technologies, but this is only because most composers already use instruments as note-producing machines, and if that's all you want you might as well
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