Regina composer David McIntyre, whose first symphony was premiered by the Regina Symphony Orchestra February 12, set his sights high from the moment he began writing tunes.
David, who is originally from Calgary, started piano lessons with his uncle when he was four. “I heard my uncle talk about the big names, like Mozart and Beethoven, so I just pretended I was one of those people who wrote the music he played.” He would make up a tune, then ask his mother if it was “Beethoven, Mozart or McIntyre.”
Throughout high school David wrote songs for his church choir and other groups of singers; then he went on to study at the University of Calgary and the University of Southern Mississippi, eventually obtaining a master’s degree in composition while also studying piano performance. In both Calgary and Mississippi, his primary teacher was Luigi Zaninelli.
Obtaining his master’s degree in composition wasn’t enough to convince him he was really a composer, though. “It was a long time after I graduated from university that I dared even call myself a composer, because that’s so pretentious,” David says. “You have to have a body of work before anyone will believe you.”
He spent a year in Calgary, then came to Regina in 1976 to teach at Canadian Bible College. As time went on he began writing more and more music, much of it for particular instrumentalists. “Being a pianist helped,” David recalls. “I’d say, ‘Will you play my piece if I do a recital with you?'”
Eventually, he even began to make money as a composer. “It takes a while to get commissions,” David says, but in the past few years, “that’s been happening very well.” As a result, since 1995 he’s been freelancing as a composer and pianist.
Stravinsky tops the list of composers who have inspired David’s work. “When I first listened to him, something just perked me. I always felt I didn’t need to listen very much, I just needed to listen to a few bars and then I was ready to go to work.”
His other influences come from being a pianist. “None of us are original, we grow in a soil that’s rich in the past. It’s fascinating to look at your work to see elements of Scarlatti and Brahms in the same piece, or voicings of Schubert.
“It’s harder to learn from those around you–for one thing, there are fewer recordings–so one is probably less influenced by contemporaries than by those a generation or two generations before. I always feel I’m not as up on what everyone else is doing as I should be!”
Even before he began freelancing, David knew he wanted to write a symphony. He built up to it bit by bit, writing a lot of sonatas–pieces for a solo instrument and orchestra–and writing a lot of pieces for piano plus one other orchestral instrument. “I learned a huge amount just from working through the piece with the players, and having them make suggestions.”
What made the project finally come together was a commission. While talking to Sasha Koerbler in her office at CBC Saskatchewan one day, David mentioned he was really interested in writing a symphony. Through Sasha’s initiative, David eventually received a commission through the CBC’s Radio Music Department. (In exchange, CBC recorded the premiere of the symphony for later broadcast on CBC Saskatchewan’s Gallery program and nationally on Symphony Hall.)
Commission in hand, David began about two years go actually putting things on paper, working with a pencil and manuscript paper (although he used a computer program to copy the parts). “I threw away lots and lots,” he says, but he began finishing movements in October of 1999, and finished the entire symphony on December 1.
And what was it like, sitting in the Centre of the Arts listening to his first symphony? “I’d been listening to all the rehearsals,” David says. “This was like listening to the fourth rehearsal in a way.” As a result, even at the premiere, he was hearing things he wanted to change, “most of it cosmetic, in terms of orchestral balance.”
The standing ovation his symphony received was proof that the Regina symphony audience, at least, judged it a success–and for David, it’s the response of the audience that matters most.
“You work carefully through the details of it, the techniques of it, then you look back and this thing you’ve created has a life of it’s own, and speaks to people in ways you can’t control,” David says. “When people feel things, when people either cry or laugh of feel lifted up or joyful or exhilarated or compassionate or all of those things through listening to music, that’s a wonderful thing to do as a writer.”
