{"id":4318,"date":"2011-11-13T22:40:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T05:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4318"},"modified":"2011-11-28T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T22:08:14","slug":"tori-amos-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/tori-amos-2\/","title":{"rendered":"TORI AMOS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>TORI AMOS
\n<\/strong>Turning ancient sounds into a modern soundtrack for \u201ccataclysmic change\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although Tori Amos studied at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s elite Peabody Conservatory of Music in Maryland for five years as a child, classical music had long since been a thing of the past for the singer, songwriter and pianist who rose to fame in the 1990s with alt-rock hits like \u201cCornflake Girl,\u201d \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cSilent All These Years.\u201d That is, until last year, when the Deutsche Grammophon label asked if she\u2019d be interested in writing a new song cycle based on existing classical themes. Intrigued by the challenge, Amos sifted through 400 years of music by composers like Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert to help create her 12th studio effort, Night of Hunters<\/em>. In keeping with her recent emphasis on album-length story arcs, Hunters<\/em> tells the tale of a woman dealing with the end of a once-passionate relationship. \u201cSong cycles work because there\u2019s a mythological element to them,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s when\u00a0they\u2019re at their best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amos produced the album herself, working with arranger John Philip Shenale to create parts for strings and woodwinds. Though it had been decades since she studied classical music, there are things a prodigy never forgets. \u201cSomewhere in there the structures have remained,\u201d she says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t seem so foreign to me to work with some of these melodies and bring them into a contemporary expression without losing their resonance.\u201d Her next challenge: The Light Princess<\/em>, a musical set to open in London next year. We spoke to Amos about her clearly still-evolving methods\u00a0of musical expression.<\/p>\n

How did you approach recording?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The piano vocal had to be recorded and done before the arrangements could be recorded, otherwise you\u2019d possibly be doing the arrangements twice. These kinds of musicians, they follow the page. It\u2019s not about jamming. So you have to make some committed choices in the piano-vocal master take, which is very different from how a lot of the records have happened for me from \u201998 on. A lot of the time I was alone with Mark [Hawley, Amos\u2019 engineer and husband] on the other side of the microphone. It was at times very close and raw, and very exposing. This felt very lonely at times, but there was an intimacy because we would just close the door and I would perform. Although \u201cperform\u201d is the wrong word: I would expose these songs to somebody that I know very well, and who is a muse for me. So\u00a0that was different.<\/p>\n

Did basic tracks take long?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It took a few weeks of getting it wrong and being frustrated. There has to be a level of trust, because when you\u2019re not getting it, your self-worth can start to take a tumble. Mark was really supportive, and there was a protective energy coming from the other side of the microphone. I didn\u2019t feel like I was being judged, although if something wasn\u2019t good enough, it\u2019s only the two of you. It\u2019s hard to hear someone say, \u201cWe don\u2019t have it yet.\u201d You\u2019ve just sung your guts out, but you listen back and realize that it doesn\u2019t contain what we need to tell the emotional story.<\/p>\n

Were you familiar with a lot of the music going into the project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know any of these pieces. The ones that I knew before weren\u2019t speaking to me in a way that said I should do variations on them. A lot of those I knew were recital pieces, and I felt they needed to stay in that place in my mind. So it took forever. While on tour, as I took the stage and came offstage, I was filling my mind with classical music. Then I got home to Florida and started building it. A song cycle has to work like a sonic cathedral. It\u2019s a big piece of architecture, as is a musical. But the musical I\u2019m working on weaves in and out of dialogue and a book, whereas this had to work without dialogue.<\/p>\n

How did you shape the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The music really guided me to the story. I had been reading The White Goddess<\/em> by Robert Graves [1948], which became the bible for the mythology of this project. I began to realize as I was on tour that so many people were going through upheavals in their lives, there was this cataclysmic change that was happening to people in so many countries. I\u2019ve never seen that happen before, and I\u2019ve been touring for a long time. Song cycles always work when there\u2019s an intimate issue that\u2019s happening, as well as a global crisis\u2014and when I say global, that would look different in 1825 than it would in 2011. But that pattern is foundational\u00a0for a song cycle.<\/p>\n

How did you translate that? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I decided that we had to have the shattering of a relationship\u2014yet there\u2019s a much bigger crisis looming that she has to understand, and that understanding will help her in her own life. I thought the story needed to involve her having a transformation in a very short period of time, from dusk to dawn. But within that framework, you can go on these psychological journeys to places\u00a0that are out of time.<\/p>\n

Was there one key piece?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Schubert piece [\u201cPiano Sonata in A Major, D. 959,\u201d 1828], which became \u201cStar Whisperer,\u201d was the first to lock itself in. Once the Schubert piece started haunting me, it began merging with this refrain that I came up with many years ago: \u201cI heard you scream from the other side of the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t hear one without the other. Then the trick was to develop the instrumental section. Once this piece got cracked, it was clear that everything else had to work around it\u2014it was the centerpiece. This had to be a place of discovery for her on the record. We had to arrive at this place, and then we had to transform from<\/em> this place. That was the key component of the story.<\/p>\n

How did you develop that? <\/strong><\/p>\n

We began to see a sensuality and get a sense of what this world sounded like, smelled like, tasted like, felt like. \u201cStar Whisperer\u201d was our guide. But \u201cYour Ghost\u201d [based on a piece from Schumann\u2019s so-called 1854 \u201cGhost Variations\u201d] was the one where the emotional side of their relationship came into focus. It\u2019s where she understands how she wanted him. You get to see their love for each other through this song. I had to understand that love in order to break it apart. Once I understood \u201cYour Ghost,\u201d other things\u00a0fell into place.<\/p>\n

All led by the music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those melodies from the ancient masters were driving this, because they\u2019re so romantic. You don\u2019t hear those melodic structures in a lot of contemporary music. They were giving me a huge gift, as if they were saying, \u201cWe\u2019re guiding you to what the drama could be, if you\u2019ll just listen to what we\u2019re telling you.\u201d Music has its own consciousness. If you listen to it and analyze it, it tells you all its secrets. It\u2019s all there, but you can\u2019t impose your will on it.<\/p>\n

\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Music has its own consciousness. If you listen, <\/strong>it tells you all its secrets.\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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